Netherlands-based accounting platform Jortt has one goal: putting a smile on their customers’ faces as they do their accounting. The recent integration between the Yolt Technology Services (YTS) API for open banking and the Jortt platform has made big strides towards that goal by eliminating one of the leading causes of accounting errors.
Established in 2010, Jortt knew from the very first that a truly modern accounting system needs to base its transaction records not on invoices and receipts, but on data straight from the bank. Until now, because bank APIs were not accessible enough, the only way to get that data was through downloading and then re-uploading MT940 bank files. Now, Jortt has integrated open banking Account Information Services with the YTS API, which eliminates the use – and drawbacks – of MT940 files completely.
Jortt appointed trusted software company and long-term partner Zilverline to choose and integrate Account Information Services into the Jortt platform. Lars Vonk, Partner at Jortt and Director at Zilverline: “Zilverline and Jortt have worked together for a long time, so Jortt entrusted Zilverline with a large part in making this decision. From everything that was available, we chose the open banking API with the best API documentation, sandbox, and ease of onboarding – and YTS was the clear winner.”
Bob Forma, Developer at Jortt and Software Engineer at Zilverline: “We chose YTS because of its excellent documentation and support. If we had any questions, the YTS team responded quickly and well. The ‘Getting started’ page was very useful and clear, as was the sandbox environment that allowed us to establish test connections to a virtual bank. We only needed about an hour to set up the first connection in the sandbox, through the command line. The ‘Getting started’ guide really helped us understand how we can use the API, what we need to have and to submit. Fast implementation is a big part of understanding whether an API is usable. It’s wonderful that you can just sign in to the YTS API with your GitHub-account.”
Ideally, a software implementation process is smooth, efficient and well-supported. That is the main reason to work with a technical service provider (TSP) in the first place: setting up connections to one sandbox and one production environment is much faster than connecting to dozens of individual bank APIs, often with sandboxes that don’t match the production environment.
Bob: “With the YTS API, it was very easy to reuse code we created while setting up the sandbox for our own system – making new certificates was not that complicated, for instance. The production environment wasn’t much different from the sandbox.”
Lars: “It’s great that we have an open slack channel and a weekly stand-up call with YTS developers to discuss things as they arise. Every time we successfully integrate one bank, the next bank will be easier to integrate, since the YTS API already has all the connections – that’s the great benefit of working with a TSP like YTS. YTS has also worked with us on data interpretation, to give us more legible and standardized transaction data, which is a great help.”
Whenever a new technology needs to be implemented with a sophisticated data model, strategic choices are necessary. Jortt started by opening up open banking connections to any new user who registered, since they start with a clean account and have no data to migrate. They tested and connected several banks already.
Bob: “ Now, we’re working on setting up our internal systems for data migration. We’ll then do a test run with a batch of users of a particular bank. Once that works well, we’ll open up the bank for our other users as well.”
One aspect of data migration that they need to tackle is the ability quickly add missing transactions to an account without throwing off previous years’ statements and tax returns.
Lars: “We’re working on a user-friendly way to do so, which won’t complicate life for our existing users. For our new users, connecting their bank accounts to Jortt has been very easy, as they expected. As soon as we can, we’ll move all 40,000 Jortt customers over to open banking connections.”
With open banking, Jortt will be able to attract more customers. Their customers will have more fun doing their accounts, which is the Jortt mission. And their customers will have to deal with fewer hard-to-solve errors.
Lars: “While at first it was an exciter to be able to do something automatically, now it’s a dissatisfier if you don’t. As an end user, you expect ease of use and that things are just correct. At Jortt, we expect that banks may start offering access to savings accounts through open banking as well. They’re not required to, but it could be a definite competitive edge.”
Digitale boekhoudpakket
www.jortt.nlYolt Technology Services (YTS) API for open banking
www.yolt.comVoor meer informatie neem contact op met:
Lars Vonk
Directeur, Partner & Developer
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