Layer

API Reference

Embedded Components

Idempotency

Overview

The Embedded Accounting Integration Process

How It Works

Get started making calls to the Layer API

Initial Setup

Using Layer's prebuilt React UI components.

Onboard one of your business customers to Layer

Onboarding a Business

Invoices and Payments

Bank Transactions - Plaid

Bank Transactions - Direct

Transaction Categorization

Accounting Reports

JSON Data

Pagination

Rate Limiting

Returns a list of all active businesses that have been registered in Layer.

List businesses

Creates a new business in Layer. This endpoint is idempotent using the `external_id` field as the idempotency key, so subsequent requests with the same `external_id` will update or no-op.

Create business

Returns the business associated with the provided business id

Fetch business

Updates the business associated with the provided business id. Note that all fields are optional and can be omitted.

Update business

Archiving a business makes the business inactive. No additional data will by synchronized and business data is not accessible via normal API endpoints. However, data is retained and can be unarchived in the future.

Archive business

Unarchiving a business will re-activate it. All other endpoints will be able to access the business data again. No additional data syncing or modification will have taken place during the archived period. This is the only method available on a business while it is archived.

Unarchive business

Returns the document associated with the provided document id. This endpoint can fetch any document associated with the business, including transaction-specific receipts.

Fetch document

Archiving a document makes the document inactive. The document will no longer be accessible via normal API endpoints, but the document is retained and can be unarchived in the future.

Archive document

Creates a new auth token scoped to the specified business. The business auth token is used to authenticate Layer API requests from client-side applications. Note the return type is an AuthToken object rather than a standard Layer API response object.

Create business auth token

Returns the SMS settings for the business associated with the provided business id. Currently this setting is an `enabled` flag. Note that SMS must be enabled on both a platform level (see /v1/configure/sms) and an individual business level in order to receive SMS messages.

Fetch SMS configuration

Updates the SMS settings for the business associated with the provided business id. Currently this setting is an `enabled` flag.

Update SMS configuration

Returns the SMS message log for the specified business. This endpoint returns the most recent messages first.

Fetch SMS message history

Fetch the current platform Stripe configuration. Platform configuration includes the stripe secret used for API access, while business-level configuration includes specific Stripe entity IDs such as a Stripe connect account.

Fetch Stripe configuration

Update the current platform Stripe configuration. Platform configuration includes the stripe secret used for API access, while business-level configuration includes specific Stripe entity IDs such as a Stripe connect account.

Update Stripe configuration

Fetches a task for a business. Tasks only exist for businesses enrolled in bookkeeping services, and task lifecycle management is handled by Layer's bookkeeping team.

Fetch task

Submits or updates a task user response for a business. Tasks only exist for businesses enrolled in bookkeeping services, and task lifecycle management is handled by Layer's bookkeeping team. This endpoint is used by Layer's `<Tasks>` component to submit user responses, and if you use embedded components, you should not need to call this endpoint directly.

Submit task response

Marks a task as completed by the user. Tasks only exist for businesses enrolled in bookkeeping services, and task lifecycle management is handled by Layer's bookkeeping team. This endpoint is used by Layer's `<Tasks>` component to mark tasks as user completed, and if you use embedded components, you should not need to call this endpoint directly.

Mark task completed

Retrieve counts of outstanding transactions, tasks, or other items that require user attention.

Retrieve Notifications

Retrieve the count of categorized and uncategorized transactions for a range of months.
`start_year`, `start_month`, `end_year`, and `end_month` determine the range of months to fetch.
If not specified, range will start at January of the current year and end at the current month.

Fetch uncategorized transaction counts

Bank Transaction object

Imports transactions for a custom account. This action will import transactions from the specified start date to the present. If the account has already been imported, this action will overwrite the existing transactions.

Import transactions

Returns the bank transaction associated with the provided bank transaction id

Fetch bank transaction

Returns a list of bank transactions for the specified business. Transactions can be filtered by date range, direction, categorization status, amounts, and description searches. Results will be paginated, see [Pagination](/api-details/pagination) for details.

List bank transactions

This endpoint allows you to categorize a bank transaction that has been imported into Layer

Categorize a Transaction

Uncategorize a bank transaction. This will remove any categorization or match that has been applied to the transaction and reverse any ledger entries from the previous classification.

Uncategorize bank transaction

Match a bank transaction to a financial event such as an invoice payment or a payout. This should be used when platforms have pre-existing knowledge of what bank transactions are associated with a financial event, or when a user confirms a suggested match in a UI. This endpoint is used in Layer's `<BankTransactions>` embedded component and if you are using embedded components, you are unlikely to need to call this endpoint directly. Suggested matches can be found on a [Bank Transaction Object](/api-reference/bank-transaction/bank-transaction).

Match bank transaction

Confirm matches for multiple bank transactions. This should be used when platforms have pre-existing knowledge of what bank transactions are associated with a financial event such as an invoice payment or a payout.

Bulk match

This endpoint generates a pre-signed AWS S3 URL for a CSV file with transactions.

Download Transactions CSV

This endpoint returns the nested tree of transaction categories. These categories are derived from the business's chart of accounts and this list should be used for displaying options in a transaction categorization UI. Layer's `<BankTransactions>` embedded component already uses this endpoint, so if you're using embedded components, you probably won't need to use this API endpoint directly..

Fetch transaction categories

Tag multiple bank transactions with a custom tag. Transactions can be tagged in bulk or individually with this endpoint.

Tag bank transactions

Remove tags from bank transactions by tag id. Transactions can be untagged in bulk or individually. This endpoint only allows deleting tags on bank transactions and cannot be used to remove tags on other entity types.

Remove transaction tags

Account Identifier

Chart of Accounts object

This endpoint retrieves a business's chart of accounts.

Retrieve Chart of Accounts

This endpoint retrieves all balances for accounts within a business's general ledger.

List Account Balances

Profit and Loss object

Profit and Loss Details object

This endpoint retrieves a profit and loss.

Retrieve a Profit and Loss

This endpoint retrieves the Profit and Loss Details for a business.

Retrieve Profit and Loss Details

Returns profit and loss summaries over a specified time range. This endpoint is useful for displaying charts and comparisons, as the summaries are less detailed than the full P&L report but a range of months can be queried at the same time.

Fetch P&L summaries

This endpoint generates a pre-signed AWS S3 URL for a Profit and Loss CSV file.

Download Profit and Loss CSV

Compare Profit & Loss views across time periods and/or tags. This endpoint allows specifying multiple time periods (specified in months, years, or custom date ranges) and tags and will generate a comparison for every combination. Note that this endpoint is retrieval only, but uses a `POST` HTTP verb rather than `GET` because of the complexity of the parameters.

Create P&L comparisons

Balance Sheet object

Retrieve a Balance Sheet

Cash Flow Statement object

This endpoint retrieves a cash flow statement.

Retrieve a Cash Flow Statement

Plaid Configuration object

Sets Plaid credentials to be used with your Layer account.

Set Plaid Credentials

Retrieves a Plaid configuration for your Layer account.

Retrieve Plaid Configuration

SMS Configuration object

Updates the SMS configuration on your Layer account.

Set SMS Configuration

Retrieves an SMS configuration for your Layer account.

Retrieve SMS Configuration

Generates an activity summary across all businesses on the platform.

Fetch platform activity summary

Generates a list of activities for a specific business. Activities include categorization, SMS, and other business-specific events. This endpoint is paginated, see [Pagination](/api-details/pagination) for details.

Fetch business activities

Generates an activity summary for a specific businessfocused on recent categorization and SMS activity.

Get Started

Importing Financial Activity

Offering Accounting

API Details

Idempotency