Custom integration for Bitrix24 with Lexoffice from Avivi

Today, the business software market is full of powerful solutions for every taste. Unfortunately, it is simply impossible to predict all possible combinations of completely different products. That is why in Bitrix24, which can rightfully be considered a leader among modern business platforms, you cannot always find a ready-made integration with the required service. However, the use of open API allows you to combine almost any desired application that previously could not work together. This is exactly what happened this time, when our company was asked for help in integration with Lexoffice.

Prerequisites of integration

The Lexoffice cloud service for business management from the German developer team Lexware is rapidly gaining popularity in Western Europe and the world. This is a powerful platform that allows you to transfer almost all business processes of the company online and successfully manage your own business from home. Here they guarantee certified data storage and compatibility with PC, Mac, Android and iOS, take care of the security of providing access to other users and much more. Avivi's client uses Lexoffice as a leading enterprise software and Bitrix24 as a CRM. The company's business processes deal with invoices that must be displayed in CRM and created in the leading system. In the absence of ready-made integration in Bitrix24.Marketplace, clients asked our team because of our many years of experience in similar tasks.

The image is taken for illustrative purposes from the official website https://www.lexoffice.de/

Features of this case can be called:

• Using the Bitrix24 cloud service, not an on-premise edition, where any development is possible;

• API of both systems, which allow you to create an integration, but require careful study of the possibilities;

• Complex logic of machine processes, which makes work easy for users.

How was the integration created?

Since Avivi's client uses exclusively cloud-based applications — both Bitrix24 and Lexoffice — the first step was to create an intermediate local application that provides data exchange between the two platforms. For this, our specialists helped customers not only with the creation of such software, but also with its location on the server.

The next step was to configure the exchange of information. And here it is worth mentioning the unforeseen circumstances that partially affected the implementation of the project. The fact is that the creators of Lexoffice at this time partially changed the API of their product. Our team should have found other methods to implement other than the original ones. The client understood the situation, so soon the work returned to its usual rhythm.

So, the leading system, namely Lexoffice, is responsible for creating invoices. This is where webhooks are used to update information about existing agreements, change statuses, and search for duplicates. The last step is extremely important, because with a large number of transactions with regular customers in automatic mode, this happens quite often. After the employee checks and saves the invoice in Lexoffice, the local application transfers data to the corresponding agreement and invoice in Bitrix24, which is found by the company name and country recorded in the UF_CRM_LAND file. This application checks invoice statuses in the host system, so when, for example, Lexoffice receives a payment notification from a client, the status will change automatically and be transferred to Bitrix24 through the application.

The integration created by our company has its own separate page on the Bitrix24 Portal, where users can see the names of invoices and their current statuses. This was done for the convenience of employees, who now do not need to check both platforms every time: all relevant information is collected in one place.

So, the custom integration with Lexoffice was another important achievement in the overall score of the Avivi team. It doesn't matter if there is already a ready-made solution or no one has even thought of it yet - if you need Bitrix24 to work with any platform, just tell our managers about it. With the availability of an API, Avivi developers will create a personal integration for your business as well.