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IRIS Accounts Production & BrightWorkpapers – Setup and Use

Michaela Greene
  • Updated

IRIS Accounts production has a closed API integration with BrightWorkpapers, you can take advantage of this to send both trial balance figures and adjustments to and from each piece of software with ease. 

This means that you can have a trial balance come into your BrightWorkpapers file from your bookkeeping software, such as Xero, and then export this into IRIS for the preparation / submitting of the accounts.  

This guide breaks down the various areas of the integration and how to use it. 

Contents: 

 

Initial Setup – Linking Your BrightWorkpapers Firm To Your IRIS Practice 

  1. From the top toolbar in IRIS Accounts Production select, Setup | Practice Options 
     
    The Practice Options screen displays: 
  2. Click BrightWorkpapers (Please make sure you are logged in as the master user in IRIS Accounts Production to access this area) 
     
    The BrightWorkpapers Login Details screen appears as follows:
  3. Complete the Practice URL field (The 'Practice URL' will be your firm username which is found at the same location as your User and Private Key)
  4. Enter the User Key and Private Key. To find these keys please follow the below steps
  5. Within BrightWorkpapers select the Profile icon 
     
  6. Select Edit Profile | Integrations | Scroll down 
     
    The screen displays as follows:   
  7. Select the Enable Integration button 
     
    The User Key and Private Key will be located on this page 


     
    You can copy and paste the User Key and Practice Key directly into IRIS Accounts Production 

     
  8. Click OK 

 

Initial Setup – Linking A BrightWorkpapers Client To An IRIS Client 

  1. From the top toolbar in IRIS Accounts Production select, , Client | View 
    The Business Client Maintenance screen appears as follows: 
  2. Select the magnifying glass beside BrightWorkpapers Company field 
     
    Then BrightWorkpapers Client displays
  3. Select one of the following options: 
    Link existing BrightWorkpapers client  if the client has already been set up within BrightWorkpapers 
    Create a new client in BrightWorkpapers and link to this client if the client has NOT yet been set up within BrightWorkpapers 
    No link to BrightWorkpapers client if no link is to be created between Accounts Production and BrightWorkpapers 
     
    Note: The following error message will appear if BrightWorkpapers login details have not been entered or are not valid in the Practice Options  Please refer to the previous section of this guide. 

     
  4. Depending on the option chosen, either select a BrightWorkpapers client from the list, or click OK to let IRIS create a new BrightWorkpapers client. 
     
    Note: If the Create a new client in BrightWorkpapers and link to this client option has been selected the following BrightWorkpapers Client screen will display: 

     
     
    Click OK 
     
    The Business Client Maintenance screen displays as follows: 
  5. Click Save
  6. Click Close 

Exporting A Trial Balance From BrightWorkpapers To IRIS 

  1. Click on Posting | New
  2. Add/select relevant period end date (this will need to match the period end of the file in BrightWorkpapers), add in a description if you need to and click OK
  3. The Specify Posting Batch screen will display as follows:
  4. Change the Document type to 14 for the Final TB (11 for Journals), under Activate import from select BrightWorkpapers and click OK
  5. The Import from BrightWorkpapers screen will appears as follows:
  6. Select Annual trial balance, under Import Map you can choose the map most relevant to the source of the Trial Balance as this will allow IRIS to correctly re-code the entries. Once you’ve done this click OK
  7. The second Import from BrightWorkpapers screen will appear as follows:
  8. From this screen you’ll be able to check that all your entries are coded correctly and if need be you can amend these using the IRIS Account column. Once you’re happy to proceed click Import                                   
    NOTE: Be sure not to import the full trial balance if you only want to bring through adjustments, as you will have duplicates on your IRIS posting. 

     
  9. The following screen will appear:
  10. Click OK 

Exporting Adjustments From BrightWorkpapers To IRIS 

  1. Click on Posting | New
  2. Add/select relevant period end date (this will need to match the period end of the file in BrightWorkpapers), add in a description if you need to and click OK
  3. The Specify Posting Batch screen will display as follows:
  4. Change the Document type to 11 for Journals (14 for the Final TB), under Activate import from select BrightWorkpapers and click OK
  5. The Import from BrightWorkpapers screen will appears as follows:
  6. Select Adjustments, under Import Map you can choose the map most relevant to the source of the Trial Balance as this will allow IRIS to correctly re-code the entries. Once you’ve done this click OK
  7. The second Import from BrightWorkpapers screen will appear as follows:
  8. From this screen you’ll be able to check that all your entries are coded correctly and if need be you can amend these using the IRIS Account column. Once you’re happy to proceed click Import                                   

    NOTE: Be sure not to import the full trial balance if you only want to bring through adjustments, as you will have duplicates on your IRIS posting. 

     
  9. The following screen will appear:
  10. Click OK 

Exporting Postings From IRIS To BrightWorkpapers 

  1. Ensure you have the relevant client selected in IRIS Accounts Production and that the client is linked to a BrightWorkpapers client.
  2. Click “Export to BrightWorkpapers”
  3. Select the posting entry you would like to export.
  4. If no file exists for the client in BrightWorkpapers that matches the posting dates, IRIS will prompt you to select a template to use to create a new file on your behalf. Once you have selected the template, press OK, if you have already created your BrightWorkpapers file, you can skip this step.
  5. The following message will appear warning you that you should use an IRIS based accounting structure in BrightWorkpapers. Click Yes to continue.
  6. The export success message will appear, press OK.

 

NOTE: If no adjustments have been made since the last export to BrightWorkpapers, the following message will appear: 

 

NOTE: For the first import from an IRIS posting to a BrightWorkpapers file, all figures will be sent as initial figures, and appear in the initial column of the BrightWorkpapers trial balance. Any subsequent exports will be treated as adjustments, and appear in the adjustments column. This is the only way IRIS can distinguish between adjustments or initial figures. 

 

Common Issues And Resolutions 

No option to import from BrightWorkpapers 

If you cannot see an option to import from BrightWorkpapers either from the advanced menu, or the batch control menu then the document type (Batch number) of your batch is likely not correct. IRIS only allows BrightWorkpapers imports to batches with a document type of 11 or 14. 

 

Duplicate postings when importing from BrightWorkpapers 

Due to a config file setting in some IRIS practices, some users are finding issues with duplicate figures when importing from BrightWorkpapers, particularly around sub account codes. This is due to the way that IRIS rounds figures as a result of the config file. 
 

IRIS have a fix for the overarching issue causing this, so it may be best to get in touch with them using the link below. 
 
https://www.iris.co.uk/support/contact/contact-support/ 
 
With regards to fixing particular instances of the issue, navigate to the journal entries page of your BrightWorkpapers file. From here please set all of your journal types to any of the unadjusted options. 
 
Once you have done this, go into IRIS and run the import from BrightWorkpapers, this will temporarily cancel all of your journals. You may need to import multiple times to cancel all of the journals, especially if the duplication has occurred multiple times. 
 
After this, go back to BrightWorkpapers and set your journals back to adjusted, then run the IRIS import again and it should work as expected. 

 

Cannot connect errors 

There are a couple of errors such as the above that occasionally pop up, which refer to not being able to connect to BrightWorkpapers. There are two main culprits for this issue. 

  1. The API keys for the BrightWorkpapers connection are incorrect in the IRIS practice options. If the original user who set up the integration has their account deleted in BrightWorkpapers for example, the keys will become outdated. To fix this, revisit the first section in this article, and update the integration settings.
  2. The version of IRIS being used is outdated. At the time of writing this (19.08.2021) the integration only works for versions 20.3.0 and above. To fix this, you will need to update your practice’s version of IRIS. 

If either of the above do not resolve the issue, please contact support. 

 

There are no adjustments to export as no changes have been made since the last export to BrightWorkpapers 

 

The above message will appear if you try to export to BrightWorkpapers when all existing figures have already been exported. 

If you receive the above message, but no figures are appearing in your BrightWorkpapers file, you will need to ensure the correct client is linked to the BrightWorkpapers client, as there is likely a duplicate client in your BrightWorkpapers, and IRIS is linked to the wrong one. 

If you get the above message, but you have deleted your figures from BrightWorkpapers for whatever reason, you will need to reset the integration on IRIS. This is because IRIS does not request a confirmation from BrightWorkpapers that the figures still exist, it just assumes that they do as it has previously exported them. 

To reset the integration, return to IRIS Accounts Production and select Posting | Post file Maintenance | Entries 

Select the posting file which contains the trial balance you originally uploaded (i.e. the integrated posting file) and press Change 

In the Change Posting Entry screen, tick Reset Trial Balance Export to BrightWorkpapers 

Press OK and your IRIS Accounts Production will assume no figures have been exported to BrightWorkpapers at all. 

NOTE: After resetting the integration, all figures will be sent over as initial figures. So you may want to cancel your adjustments and repost them after the initial export, and then export again. 

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