To get the most out of Happl we recommend setting up an integration with your accounting software - this article will run through the steps once your accounting software has been integrated, to make the Happl platform work for you and your team.

First things first you'll need to set up your accounting integration - check out this article to learn more about setting up integrations on Happl.

Head to the Export section in your Settings. From here you'll be able to Edit Export Location.

Once selected, you'll be able to select a location to export the Happl Card and Employee Reimbursement transactions. These are separate locations as the Happl Card transactions are taken from your Happl balance and your reimbursements will be taken from the account you pay payroll from.

We recommend setting up a Happl bank account within your accounting software to reconcile the payment you make into Happl to top up your balance. This can be done on Xero by following these steps and in Quickbooks by following these steps.

Once you've set up the Happl account you may need to head back to the Integrations page and hit Refresh, this might take up to 10 minutes to load - then give Happl a refresh and you can update the exporting locations.

To help your team help you we recommend setting up accounting aliases. This will filter all of your accounting categories down into more manageable categories for your team. We recommend keeping this aliases list short, focusing on taxable and non-taxable benefits (depending on how you're using Happl).

Using the table under Accounting Alias you will be able to select an account category, add an Alias and select a Tax Code, you'll also be able to tick if this category is liable for BIK tax or should be included in P11D calculations. We've included some examples for different allowances below. When adding receipts employees will then be able to choose between these options and once exported, these aliases will allow Happl to assign them to the correct accounting category.

Wellbeing allowances are generally considered to be liable for BIK tax in the UK, if an employee uses this allowance for a mental health benefit such as therapy, counselling or mindfulness apps - these could be exempt from tax. We recommend setting up two aliases in this case, one for more general taxable benefits and one for mental health benefits. For example General Benefits and Mental Health Benefits.

Similarly to wellbeing allowances learning & development allowances can have different tax liabilities depending on the use. If an employee uses their learning & development allowance towards something which would support or develop their skills within their role, this is usually considered a tax free benefit. If an employee uses their learning & development allowance on something unrelated to their work such as music lessons or life coaching - this is usually considered taxable. In this case possible aliases could be L&D Work Related and L&D Personal.

Similarly to the accounting categories, you probably want to keep the VAT options simple for your team. Once your integration is complete you'll be able to view all of the VAT options under the VAT Aliases tab.

From here you can select the VAT rates you'd like to show and select an alias. We recommend a No VAT and a 20% VAT option as the most common rates.