Connect MarginEdge

Get MarginEdge and DishBooks working together

MarginEdge reads your vendor invoices. Connect it to DishBooks and every invoice it processes lands in DishBooks as a bill, already coded to the right GL accountsGL accountGeneral ledger account. One of the named buckets on your books, like Food Sales or Sales Tax Payable, that every dollar is sorted into.. This guide takes you from the Connect button to your first bill.

New to inventory integrations? Start with Inventory integrations for the big picture.

Before you start

• Your entities and locations are set up in DishBooks. Each MarginEdge restaurant (MarginEdge calls them units) gets matched to one.
• Your GL accounts and vendors are in DishBooks, so you have something to map to.
• You have a MarginEdge login with access to its Setup and Accounting menus.
• Got more than one restaurant? Plan to repeat the connection for each MarginEdge unit.

Step 1 Connect and sign in

1. In DishBooks, go to Settings → Integrations and click Connect on the MarginEdge card.

   

2. Sign in to MarginEdge.

   

3. When asked, sign in to DishBooks too, choose your DishBooks organization and click Authorize.

You’ll land back in MarginEdge, ready for setup.

Starting from MarginEdge instead? That works too: pick the restaurant (unit) at the top, go to Setup → Integrations, choose DishBooks in the Accounting section, then Connect to Accounting System → Connect to DishBooks.

Step 2 Choose your connection settings

Still in MarginEdge, you’ll set up how this restaurant talks to DishBooks:

• Location or entity (required): pick the DishBooks location that matches this MarginEdge unit.
• When to export: choose when orders (your invoices) are sent to DishBooks. If you’ll send daily sales too, you can also set how many days after the business date they go over.
• Attachments: choose whether to send invoice images along with each bill. We recommend it, so the invoice is one click away in DishBooks.

Save, and repeat Steps 1 and 2 for each MarginEdge unit if you have more than one restaurant.

Step 3 Map your categories

In MarginEdge, go to Accounting → Categories. For each category you buy under (Bread, Dairy, Beer Keg and so on), pick the DishBooks GL account it belongs to in the Accounting System Account column. Click Save Changes when you’re done.

Categories you never use can stay blank. If the categories are shared across restaurants, MarginEdge will tell you, so one change covers all of them.

Step 4 Map your vendors

Go to Accounting → Vendor Mapping. Each MarginEdge vendor needs a matching vendor in DishBooks (the Accounting System Vendor column).

• Click Pre-fill Mappings to let MarginEdge match vendors with similar names for you, then check its work.
• Use Exclude From Accounting System for any vendor whose invoices shouldn’t go to DishBooks.
• Click Save Changes.

Step 5 Map your payment accounts

Go to Accounting → Payment Accounts. This tells DishBooks how each invoice is paid. For most restaurants, that’s Accounts Payable, mapped to your A/P account in DishBooks, so each bill shows up as money you owe.

If you also pay vendors through MarginEdge Bill Pay, map that payment account to the bank account it comes out of. Click Save Changes.

Optional: send your daily sales too

Skip this if your POSPOSPoint of sale. The system you ring up checks on, like Toast or Square. is already connected to DishBooks (like Toast). Your sales should come from your POS, so nothing is counted twice.

If DishBooks doesn’t connect to your POS yet (Square, for example), MarginEdge can send each day’s sales as a journal entryJournal entryA record of money moving between GL accounts. Each one lists debits and credits that must be equal. (without guest counts or average check):

1. Go to Accounting → Sales Mapping.

2. For each line (gross sales, discounts, card payments, delivery apps, over/shortOver/ShortThe account that holds any difference when a day's sales and payments don't match exactly. Aim to keep it at $0.00.), pick the DishBooks GL account.

3. Leave sales lines set to Include and payment lines set to Exclude in Include in Sales Reporting.

4. Click Save Changes, and make sure sales entries are turned on in your export settings (Step 2).

   

The entries then show up under Transactions for review and approval. They don’t appear on the Daily Sales Report, which is built from a connected POS.

See it come through

In MarginEdge: Accounting → Export lists every invoice (and daily sales entry) and whether it made it to DishBooks. A green Sent means it’s there. If something shows Needs Attention or Error, it’s usually a missing mapping, so check Steps 3 to 5.

In DishBooks: go to Expenses → Bills. Bills from MarginEdge arrive as drafts and show MarginEdge in the Created By column. Open one to check it, then approve it.

Want to skip the approval step? If someone already reviews invoices in MarginEdge, turn on Auto-approve on the MarginEdge card in Settings → Integrations.

MarginEdge questions

A vendor I need isn’t in the DishBooks list.

Add the vendor in DishBooks first (Expenses → Vendors), then come back to Vendor Mapping and pick it.

A bill came over coded to the wrong account.

Fix that bill in DishBooks before you approve it. Then fix the category mapping in MarginEdge so the next one comes over right.

I added a new category or vendor in MarginEdge.

Map it in MarginEdge before its invoices are exported. Anything unmapped will wait on the Export page.

Do I connect each restaurant separately?

Yes. Each MarginEdge unit gets its own connection and matches its own DishBooks location.

Where can I learn more on MarginEdge’s side?

MarginEdge has its own help article: Connecting ME to DishBooks.

What’s next

Your invoices are flowing in. Next, connect your bank so you can match payments to those bills.