First National Bank has created a secure application programming interface (API) to allow Sage accounting customers to import their bank records automatically into their accounting software.
“FNB customers will be able to share their financial transaction history with Sage via a secure application API effortlessly and automatically, without compromising online banking credentials,” the bank said in a statement on Tuesday.
“This will be facilitated through the ‘direct bank feeds’ service that will supply financial transaction history data directly into Sage accounting solutions,” it explained. The Sage solution is aimed at its small and medium enterprise clients and won’t cost extra. It is available through Sage Business Cloud Accounting, Sage 50cloud Pastel, Sage 200 Evolution and Sage Intacct.
“The banking service with Sage automates the first part of the bank reconciliation process for customers, by linking their online banking accounts directly to their Sage solution. This allows online bank transactions to be automatically imported, categorised and reconciled into the customer’s Sage software,” FNB said.
The direct bank feeds service is configured firstly via FNB online banking, where customers can manage their consent and permissions to transmit their specific transactional history to Sage. They can then assign and allocate those transactions within their Sage software.
‘Technological milestone’
FNB business customers using Sage accounting solutions can get financial transactions history fed through to the Sage platform periodically or set it to refresh automatically until they decide to stop the feed.
“This is a big technological milestone not only for FNB, but for millions of SMEs that now have a simple, efficient and more secure way to integrate their bank account transactions into their accounting software,” said Jesse Weinberg, SME segment head at FNB, in the statement.
When asked whether FNB plans to make the API available to other accounting software companies and other interested parties, a spokesman for the bank confirmed that the arrangement with Sage is not exclusive. — © 2021 NewsCentral Media
