Support

Contents

Welcome to our support pages

The following describe how to carry out tasks in the Online Syncing screen.

Maintaining your account

Register for an Account
  1. Using a web browser, visit Register for Online Sync.

  2. Enter a username and your email address and tap Create new account.

You will receive an email with your account password and some instructions.

Change your password

The initial password you receive by email is intended to solve a problem: most people pick passwords that are easily guessed. The service picks a long password made up of numbers, letters and symbols that make it hard to guess using "dictionary attacks" and will take a very long time using a "brute force attack".

You can change your account password by following these steps:

  1. Begin by finding the My Account page in EasyBooks or use a web browser.

  2. Tap Settings to view your account information.

  3. Enter a new password in both password fields and tap Save. 

    Note: You should try to pick a password that is made up of a long string of letters and numbers. You will only need to use the password when adding a new device to the service, and if you forget it, you can request a reset from the service as described in the next section.

Recover a lost password
  1. Using a web browser, visit Online Sync Forgotten Password.

  2. Enter your username or email address and tap E-mail new password.

You will receive an email with a one-time link to access your account. Tap or click the link to access your account. Then change your password by entering a new one into both password fields. Tap or click Save at the bottom of the page to update your password.

Note: Your new password takes effect immediately. Any devices currently signed in using your account are unaffected: they use a much longer token specific to each device. When you registered you received an email containing a shortcut link to automatically join a device to your account. This link will no longer work after you change your password.

Delete a business form the service

To delete the online copy of your business, follow these steps:

  1. Begin by finding the My Account page in EasyBooks or use a web browser.

  2. Tap Businesses to view the list of businesses you have stored in your Online Syncing account.

  3. Locate the business you want to delete and tap on its name. You will see a list of devices linked to the business, automatic backups made by the service and the most recent changes.

  4. Tap Delete this business at the bottom of the page. 

    Note: All data maintained by the service is deleted, including the backups. The data stored on your devices is unaffected, but will no longer sync changes.

Delete a device from the service

If you have a device you no longer want to have access to your Online Sync data, including the My Account page, follow these steps to remove it.

  1. Begin by finding the My Account page in EasyBooks or use a web browser.

  2. Tap Devices to view the list of devices you have connected to your Online Syncing account.

  3. Locate the device you want to remove and tap on its name. You will see a list of businesses linked to the device.

  4. Tap Delete this device at the bottom of the page. 

    Note: Removing a device prevents it from connecting to the service the next time it attempts to sync data. A message will appear on the device with the message Failed to login and any businesses marked for syncing will continue to queue changes in the device to send to the service when you sign in. If the device is not going to be used with the Online Sync service, syncing for each business should be turned off.

Begin Syncing your data 

Connect your device to the service

You should have first registered for an account as described above. If you've changed your password, you will need to enter your username and password manually by opening EasyBooks and tapping on Online Sync in the EasyBooks menu. If you haven't changed your password, follow these steps.

  1. Open the registration email you received from the service on your device.

  2. The email contains a link to make it easier to link your device. Tap the link to open EasyBooks. Your username and password are completed for you.

Begin syncing your business

If you have a business stored on your device and you've connected your device to the service, follow these steps to upload the data to the service.

  1. Tap Online Syncing in the menu to show the Online Syncing screen.

  2. If you haven't already signed in, type your username and password and tap Sign In. 

    Once you have signed in successfully, the device uses a unique token instead of your username and password. This means you can change your account password without affecting devices you have connected to the system.

  3. Tap the button marked Turn On. 

    Note: If you have uploaded this business before, you will see two options: 

    Re-upload (from device) - Replaces the copy stored online with the business data stored on your device. Any other devices you have linked to the business will re-sync to this new copy of the data. Use this option with care because any changes made on other devices since the last sync will be lost. 

    Re-download (to device) - Replaces the data on your device with the business data available online.

Afterwards, check to see the indicator in the button turns green green. This indicates the business is up to date with the online copy.

Add a second device

If you have already set up syncing on another device, follow these steps to start using sync on this device.

  1. Navigate to the Adding a business screen. If there are no businesses set up on your device, tap Get Started....

  2. You may need to sign in to the Online Sync service. If so, tap Start syncing, type your username and password and tap Sign In.

  3. Once you have signed in, you will see a list of businesses under the heading Available to download. 

    Note: Only businesses available online but not currently on your device are shown in the list. If you already have a copy of your business data on the device, you can delete it (see How do I delete or change the settings of an existing business?) or tap Online Syncing in the EasyBooks menu, turn on sync and choose Re-download (to this device).

Tell if the business is up to date

The following is displayed to the left of the business name if a business is set up for online syncing:

green Syncing is currently active for the business and the data is up to date.

orange EasyBooks is connecting to the online syncing server or downloading and processing changes. The business will be synced when the connection is established.

red A conflict error exists or you synced the business using a different online sync username from the one you are currently using. The business will be synced only when you log in using the original username.

 

 

Sharing your data

Share access to your business

Using EasyBooks Sync, you can share specific businesses with other users. This may be useful for sharing your business with your accountant, or a business partner.

To begin sharing your business, you should already have an Online Sync account and have uploaded your business. Use the Sharing tab in the My Account page.

Check the box next to the business you want to share. Next type the email address or (if you know it) the username of the person you want to share your business accounts with. You can choose to share read-only or with full access. Finally, tap Send invitation to share.

You can use the Sharing tab to manage shared access to your business.

Note: You should never tell anyone else your Online Sync password, not even your accountant. Doing so violates our terms of service and also exposes your data to a third party, allowing them to pass it on to others or add other people's businesses into your account.

Download an automatic backup

The Online Sync system maintains the most recent backups of your businesses. It creates a new backup if there have been any changes to your accounts. This happens automatically a short time after the last change was made. You should not normally need these backups, but in the rare case you want to revert to an earlier copy of your data you might find this useful.

  1. Use Safari to visit your sync account. This is available at sync.easybooksapp.com. 

    Note: It is not possible to restore the backup file when viewing your account from within EasyBooks. You should use Safari to do this.

  2. Sign in and navigate to the businesses tab. All businesses you have uploaded are listed on this page.

  3. Tap on the business you need a backup of. The screen shows a list of all linked devices, most recent changes and the available backups.

  4. Tap on the backup in the list. You can then choose the option Open in EasyBooks to restore the data.

If you restore the backup file, Online Syncing for this business is turned off on the device. If you want to use the restored data as a new snapshot for your other devices, turn on syncing and choose the option to Re-upload (from device). All other devices will discard the current data and use the restored data instead.

More advanced topics

Avoid conflict errors

Conflicts occur when (for example) you edit the same transaction in two places offline, so neither device is able to sync the change from the other until both changes are in the system. You can then have a conflict that the system itself is able to deal with most of the time. But there are some kinds of conflict that the system has no option but to pass over to you. An example of this would be creating a new statement for consolidation on both devices. In all cases, when the system detects you have a conflict in the online copy, it sends an email to the sync account email address to let you know. Before this happens, you might see the "out of sync" message appear on one of your devices.

Even when there is a sync problem, the devices still attempt to apply each subsequent change made on your other devices. But the problem should be dealt with by re-uploading from a device that has all (or most of) the data. To do this, allow each device to sync and view the history in the sync screen. This will show when the conflict happened. From there, you may find that a different device has the data you want to keep. As an example, if a statement reconcile failed because of a conflict, it may be that a different device has more of the statement reconciled than another, especially if you reconcile in small stages.

To avoid conflicts in the first place, the following may help:

  • If possible, allow each device to stay in sync: when you start the app, watch the status bar for the sync messages and the green green light.
  • When you make a change in the app, you should see the spinning wheel at the top of the screen, next to the WiFi symbol. This is the app sending your changes to the online system.
  • Editing data while offline from the service is fine, as long as no other devices are editing the same records.
  • If a conflict does occur, it's likely that you'll want to re-upload from a different device than the one reporting the conflict. Especially if the conflict is quite far back in the history.
Deal with conflicts

If a conflict occurs, two things will let you know. You will receive an email to your registered email address if the conflict exists in your online copy. You will also see the sync indicator change to red red.

You can view details about what happened to cause the conflict by viewing the list of changes, see Viewing the History.

To resolve the problem, follow these steps:

  1. Identify the device that contains the copy of the data you want to keep. This may not be the same device that contains the conflict.

  2. Tap Online Syncing in the EasyBooks menu on that device and make sure the device is online with the service.

  3. Tap Turn off to stop syncing the business temporarily.

  4. Tap Turn on to re-start syncing. Choose the option Re-upload (from device) when prompted and wait for the green green light, indicating the device has sent your data to the service.

  5. Start EasyBooks on your other devices, tap Online Sync in the menu and wait for them to re-sync to the new copy of your data. When they have done so, the green green light indicates the process completed successfully.

Change syncing mode

There are three syncing modes available:

  • Alert first, then sync - The app always displays an alert message before applying any changes.
  • Background sync with notification - If changes are available to download, the app downloads them automatically and applies them when it can safely do so. No changes are made while you are editing a record in EasyBooks. After the changes are applied, a message appears in the status area at the top of your iPad/iPhone to tell you.
  • Background sync - As above, but no on-screen message appears.

To change the syncing mode, follow these steps:

  1. Begin by finding the My Account page in EasyBooks or use a web browser.

  2. Tap Settings to view the currently selected syncing mode.

  3. Tap Syncing mode and pick the option you want to use.

  4. Tap Save at the bottom of the page.

Changes take effect the next time the app is started.