How Do I Connect Exact Online With Tribe CRM?

The Exact Online integration consists of three core functions: relationship synchronisation, product synchronisation, and invoice synchronisation. Relationships, products, and invoices are kept aligned between Tribe CRM and Exact Online in both directions.

In Tribe CRM:

In Exact Online:

Test the integration using an Exact Online test administration linked to a Tribe CRM test account.

The import screen only appears during initial setup. Once complete, it won’t reappear on the configuration screen.

Use product groups consistently to keep reporting clear and meaningful. Only enable price or VAT changes when flexibility is required in your workflow. Review product settings regularly to ensure they still match how you work.

Once activated, relationships, contacts, addresses, and products sync automatically in both directions. Invoices sync one-way (Tribe → Exact) once marked Sent, as a sales booking. Sales Orders, if enabled instead of Invoices, sync when status reaches Linked, with the sales order document included.

Relationships, contacts, addresses, and products sync near real-time, typically within about a minute. Stock and price lists (Exact Online Handel only) sync nightly at 04:10 UTC, with a manual refresh available from integration settings or the opportunity product line. Invoice payment status is checked roughly once per day.

Exact Online does not initiate or manage the connection: it’s entirely passive. Tribe’s connector sends data to Exact and retrieves data from Exact; Exact never pushes anything on its own. This matters mainly for diagnosing sync issues: the cause is essentially always on the Tribe side or in the data itself.

This integration does not use the Chift extension. It’s a direct, native connector.

An Exact Online relation being set to active in Exact can flip a Tribe organisation’s former status back to not former, even if that change wasn’t intended. This comes specifically from the Exact Online connector, not from unrelated modules. This is worth ruling out first if a former-status change looks unexplained.

Organisation: name, address details, country, phone, email, website, debtor number, creditor number, relationship type, and ID sync in both directions.

Contact Person: first name, middle name, last name, title, email, phone, mobile, and ID sync in both directions.

Products: name, unit, product group, purchase price, sales price, and code sync in both directions. Stock and price lists sync only for Exact Online Handel.

Open Marketplace, then open the Exact Online integration page to access its Integration Log. The log shows every successful and failed synchronisation attempt; failures are shown in red with the reason (for example, a missing debtor number or invalid VAT code). To confirm a specific invoice or sales order is syncing correctly, check that it appears in the log without a red error entry. If an error is resolved, reset the invoice to Draft and back to Sent (or a sales order back to Linked) to retrigger sync. The log can be filtered by date and linked directly to the related record.

Deleting data in Tribe CRM does not remove it from Exact Online, and vice versa.

Deactivated relationships in Exact Online remain active in Tribe CRM, so the two systems can disagree on relationship status without either side flagging it.

For products, how quickly (or whether) Inactive status reaches Tribe depends on how the product became inactive in Exact Online:

If you rely on EndDate-based deactivation and need Tribe to reflect it promptly, trigger a manual re-sync rather than waiting.

How do I reactivate? On reactivation, the connector runs a full initial sync with no date filtering. It fetches every product, every account, and every stock position from scratch, regardless of how long the integration was deactivated. For a large administration, this is a significantly larger operation than a normal sync, so plan for it accordingly, especially after a long deactivation period.

The Exact Online integration itself is not billed separately by Tribe. It’s included with the Tribe Essential plan at no extra charge. Your Exact Online subscription is billed separately, directly by Exact.

An invoice doesn’t sync, and the error mentions VAT. This is usually one of two things: the product’s VAT is mapped to a purchase code instead of a sales code in Exact, or the invoice’s VAT code doesn’t match the customer’s own registration country. In Exact, check that the product uses a sales-type VAT code, and that the VAT code used matches the customer’s country. To fix an already-sent invoice, create a credit invoice and issue a new one with the correct VAT. A sent invoice can’t be edited directly.

An invoice stops updating after being marked “completed.” Invoices marked completed before they’re actually paid stop being updated by the sync. Only mark an invoice completed once it’s genuinely paid.

Invoice sync fails, and the customer’s payment term or VAT number doesn’t match between systems. Payment term in Tribe only updates when the customer record changes in Exact, or via a manual edit in Tribe. Confirm the customer’s details in Exact, then either edit the customer there or update it manually in Tribe.

Sync fails with a permissions or authorisation error. Usually the authorising user lacks sufficient Exact Online rights or Division access. Check this first. Occasionally this can be a temporary issue on Exact’s side that resolves itself after a short wait.

Sync fails with a “relation not found” error. The relation code field on the relationship isn’t filled in. It’s not filled automatically. Fill this field, and consider activating the relation number field to manage this more easily going forward.

An invoice never syncs, with no clear error. The most common causes are a product line missing a GL account, a product not correctly linked to its line, or a product not originally sourced from Exact. If a product appears twice in your catalogue (once from Exact, once not), the Exact-sourced version is labelled “Exact Online” in pink; make sure invoice lines link to that one specifically. Check product lines and linkage first before contacting support.

A product deactivated in Exact Online doesn’t show as Inactive in Tribe. First check how the product was deactivated in Exact. See Deactivating the Integration for why explicit deactivation and EndDate-based deactivation behave completely differently. If it was deactivated by EndDate rather than explicitly, this is expected to stay unsynced until a manual re-sync is triggered. If it was deactivated explicitly and still hasn’t updated, check the Integration Log for sync errors first.

Product price changes made in Exact Online don’t appear in Tribe, or the wrong price shows. Check whether the price was changed directly on the product or via Exact’s price schedule feature. Only the former syncs automatically. The price schedule feature can also silently create a price list in Tribe that overrides the direct sales price; if this happens, check for a price list under Products in Tribe and either set its “valid until” date in the past or remove it. The permanent fix is disabling the price schedule feature in Exact Online directly.

An organisation’s or contact’s “former” status reverts unexpectedly. This can be triggered by the Exact Online connector when the corresponding relation is active in Exact. This is worth ruling out first if a former-status change looks unexplained. Contact support if this recurs, since specific affected records may need manual correction.
​

The Exact Online integration synchronises relationships, products, and invoices between Tribe CRM and Exact Online, with most entities syncing near real-time and stock and price lists updating nightly for Exact Online Handel. A dedicated Integration Log lets you verify sync status directly. Most sync issues trace back to VAT code mismatches, missing GL account mappings, or permission issues in Exact, all with documented fixes above, and reactivating after a long deactivation triggers a full resync that can take longer than usual.