Pennylane - Chift

Overview legend

Introduction

Pennylane is an accounting and financial management platform for companies in France and Germany. It centralizes a company’s financial flows in real time and brings managers and their accountant into the same tool.

Activate Pennylane

Partner keys

You’ll need your own OAuth2 app, registered with Pennylane. Sandbox and production credentials are the same on Pennylane’s side. Before going live, your integration must be certified by both Chift and Pennylane. Chift can help you at every step.

Open the partnership and get sandbox access

Fill in the partnership form:

Question 4: which entity will develop the connector? Select Chift.
Question 5: do you have access to the Pennylane sandbox? Select No, open access for me, then enter the email address to link to the sandbox in question 5b.

Pennylane sandboxes come without the accounting module. Once connected to yours, tell your Chift point of contact, who will ask Pennylane to activate it.

Get your OAuth2 credentials

Fill in the OAuth2 request form to receive your Client ID and Client Secret:

API: select the Company API.
Scopes: request customer_invoices, supplier_invoices, accounting and ledger. Add file_attachments:all too: without it, Chift cannot upload invoice PDFs.

Callback URL:

https://chift.app/oauth2/redirect

Certify your integration

Fill in the pre-certification form, then ask Chift to schedule a meeting with Pennylane. In that meeting you present a demo of your integration, with Chift on the call for technical questions.

Get listed on Pennylane's marketplace (optional)

To appear on Pennylane’s public marketplace and in-app, and benefit from their communication about your partnership, fill in the app-listing form.

Activate Pennylane in your Chift account

In Connectors, enter your Client ID and Client Secret.

Connector settings

Send number in the piece number attribute of Pennylane sets who numbers the journal entries and financial entries Chift creates: Pennylane, or your own entry number.

No (default): Pennylane generates the piece number. Chift puts the entry’s number and reference in the entry label.
Yes: Chift sends the entry’s number as the Pennylane piece number. The label then holds only the reference, or the number when there is no reference.

Use Yes when your entries must keep your own numbering in Pennylane.

Test Pennylane


Environment	Pennylane sandbox
How to get it	Access comes right after the partnership form, the first activation step. Sandboxes come without the accounting module. Ask your Chift point of contact to have Pennylane activate it

Vendor fees

No vendor fees, for you or your end users.

For plans, see Pennylane’s subscription plans.

Connect Pennylane

Pennylane setup guide for end users

The full step-by-step, with screenshots.

Before they start, your end users need:

a Pennylane plan Essential or above
at least the gestionnaire role in their company settings

To connect, they:

sign in to Pennylane
choose the Pennylane company to connect and authorize the connection

If you turn it on in the connector’s Post-connection configuration, end users then pick an Analytic plan to be used by default. This plan is used only by the analytic account endpoints, which return an error when no plan is chosen. Invoices and journal entries ignore it: send the analytic plan with each line instead.

Rate limits

Pennylane applies a fixed quota: 25 requests every 5 seconds, per OAuth token. It applies to both production and sandbox. When the limit is exceeded, Pennylane returns HTTP 429 Too Many Requests with a retry-after header. Chift retries automatically with exponential backoff. Chift automatically manages these limits to optimize performance and prevent interruptions. However, once the API rate limit is reached, Chift cannot bypass these limitations. See Pennylane’s rate limit documentation.

Limitations & specificities

Invoices

PDF required: supplier invoices must have a PDF attached. An invoice dated in the future also needs a PDF.
No drafts: supplier invoices cannot be created as drafts: send them as validated.
No zero-quantity lines: invoice lines with a quantity of 0 are rejected.
Chronological order: a customer invoice cannot be dated earlier than the last validated customer invoice in the same Pennylane company. Past dates cannot be backfilled: push invoices in chronological order, and record a late invoice as a corrective entry at the current date.

Numbering

Invoice numbers must be unique in a company.

Attachments

Each PDF must be unique: the same file cannot be attached to two invoices.

Chart of accounts & VAT

For French companies, ledger account numbers need at least 3 digits, not counting trailing zeros. For German companies, Chift pads account numbers to 4 digits.

Payments & matching

To get payment details, set include_payments=true on invoice endpoints. They return the invoice’s individual payments or, when there are none, its matched bank transactions. When an invoice is paid but has neither, Chift returns a single “Grouped payments” line for the amount paid, dated at the invoice’s due date.

Coverage

Troubleshooting

Specific errors for Pennylane:

Error Code	Error description	Resolution
ERROR_SUPPLIER_INVOICE_PDF_REQUIRED	PDFs are mandatory for invoices on Pennylane.	Make sure that each invoice has an attachment. If you are using the sync option, block the option to create an invoice when no PDF is attached to the invoice.
ERROR_CONNECTOR_AUTHENTICATION	The token used to connect to Pennylane is not valid anymore.	Reconnect Pennylane to your existing consumer to generate a new authentication token.
ERROR_BOOKYEAR_NOT_FOUND	The accounting system is not set up for this date.	Create a fiscal year in the accounting system including the date of the invoice.
ERROR_BOOKYEAR_CLOSED	The bookyear/fiscal year is already closed in the accounting system	The fiscal year is closed, it must be reopened or the start date of the synchronization must be adapted accordingly.
ERROR_PERIOD_CLOSED	The accounting period is closed in Pennylane.	Reopen the period in Pennylane, or adapt the date of the entry or the start date of the synchronization to an open period.
ERROR_BOOKS_FROZEN	The accounting/books are frozen until a given date in Pennylane.	Unfreeze the accounting/books in Pennylane, or use a date after the freeze date.
ERROR_INVOICE_NUMBER_ALREADY_USED	The sent invoice number is already attributed to an existing invoice in Pennylane	Invoice seems to be already imported in Pennylane through another synchronization. Please contact the customer to see how this is possible.
UNEXPECTED_PENNYLANE_ERROR	The pdf received already exists in the application on another invoice	Invoice seems to be already imported in Pennylane through another synchronization. Please contact the customer to see how this is possible.
UNEXPECTED_PENNYLANE_ERROR	It’s not possible to create any more invoices on that folder	Account is not active anymore or blocked. Contact the customer to see if the account is still active + if date is not in a closed book/fiscal year.
UNEXPECTED_PENNYLANE_ERROR	Invoice lines quantity must be different than 0, Accounting frozen until Given Date (e.g., “Invoice lines quantity doit être différent de 0, La comptabilité est figée jusqu’au 30 septembre 2024”)	Please unfreeze accounting/books on Pennylane.
UNEXPECTED_PENNYLANE_ERROR	Invoice lines quantity must be different than 0	Pennylane API doesn’t allow lines with quantity 0. Chift will bypass those lines in the future.
UNEXPECTED_PENNYLANE_ERROR	The setup of the invoice tab is incomplete on Pennylane.	Set up an invoicing sequence for customer invoices in Pennylane => To be done in Pennylane so that Pennylane knows how to generate the invoice number
ERROR_CONNECTOR_CONFIGURATION	The invoice settings of Pennylane must be correctly set up (invoicing sequences must be defined) before creating invoices via API.	Set up invoicing sequences in Pennylane settings.
ERROR_DRAFT_SUPPLIER_INVOICE	You cannot create a draft supplier invoice in Pennylane.	Set the invoice status to validated/posted instead of draft.
ERROR_INVALID_BODY	Email addresses must be valid, or ledger account numbers must be at least 3 digits (without counting trailing zeros).	Provide a valid email address and use account numbers with at least 3 digits.
ERROR_INVALID_FIELD_FORMAT_BANK_ACCOUNT	Pennylane validates the bank account/IBAN format.	Provide a valid bank account number or IBAN.
ERROR_PDF_MUST_BE_UNIQUE	Pennylane performs a uniqueness check on attached PDFs.	Ensure each PDF attachment is unique and not already attached to another invoice.
ERROR_INVOICE_DATE_IN_FUTURE	You cannot create an invoice with a future date without attaching a PDF.	Attach a PDF when creating an invoice with a future date.
ERROR_INVOICE_DATE_IN_PAST	You cannot create an invoice with a date earlier than the date of the last validated invoice in the same Pennylane folder. This is a per-folder constraint: once a later invoice is validated, Pennylane blocks any invoice with an earlier date in that folder. There is no way to backfill a past date.	Push invoices in chronological order. If a past-dated invoice must be recorded, create a corrective entry at the current date instead.

​Introduction

​Activate Pennylane

​Partner keys

Activate Pennylane in your Chift account

​Connector settings

​Test Pennylane

​Vendor fees

​Connect Pennylane

Pennylane setup guide for end users

​Rate limits

​Limitations & specificities

​Coverage

​Troubleshooting

​Specific errors for Pennylane:

Introduction

Activate Pennylane

Partner keys

Connector settings

Test Pennylane

Vendor fees

Connect Pennylane

Rate limits

Limitations & specificities

Coverage

Troubleshooting

Specific errors for Pennylane: