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This guide walks you through the core path to offering accounting in your product with Layer: authenticate, onboard a business, pass in financial data, and surface it back to your users. For the concepts behind these steps, see Key concepts.

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Prerequisites

Before getting started with Layer’s API, you will need:
  • A Layer account. Reach out to your Layer contact or contact our team.
  • Client credentials (client_id and client_secret) provided by Layer.

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Environments

Layer provides two environments for development and production use:
EnvironmentBase URLOAuth Scope
Sandboxhttps://sandbox.layerfi.comhttps://sandbox.layerfi.com/sandbox
Productionhttps://api.layerfi.comhttps://api.layerfi.com/production
Use sandbox for development and testing. All examples in this guide use the sandbox environment.
1

Get a bearer token

Layer uses OAuth2’s client credentials flow to authenticate API clients. Calls to the Layer API require a bearer access token. To receive one, provide your client_id and client_secret in the body of a POST request to Layer’s authorization server.
curl -X POST https://auth.layerfi.com/oauth2/token  \
  -u <client_id>:<client_secret>  \
  -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
  --data-urlencode "grant_type=client_credentials" \
  --data-urlencode "scope=https://sandbox.layerfi.com/sandbox" \
  --data-urlencode "client_id=<client_id>"
The authorization server will respond with your granted access token:
{
  "access_token": "<access_token>",
  "expires_in": 3600,
  "token_type": "Bearer"
}
Extract the access_token value from the response. You’ll use this in the Authorization header for all API requests.
2

Make a test API call

Use the access token to make a request to the API by including it as a Bearer token in the authorization header.
curl https://sandbox.layerfi.com/whoami \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <access_token>"
The API will respond with your client name and client id:
{
  "data":{
    "type":"whoami",
    "clientName":"Layer Example",
    "clientId":"018f1657-dc66-7482-917b-c0c0e532f52b"
  }
}
Access tokens expire after 1 hour. To refresh your access token, make another call to Layer’s authorization endpoint with your client_id and client_secret. We recommend refreshing tokens for new sets of requests rather than persisting access tokens.
3

Onboard a business

Each of your SMB customers is represented in Layer as a Business. Creating one also provisions its General Ledger, where all accounting data is stored.See Onboarding a Business for the full flow, then create a business via the API.
4

Connect or import financial data

Pass your customers’ financial activity to Layer so it can be categorized, reconciled, and reported on.
5

Surface accounting in your product

Choose how to display accounting features. Either method can deliver any capability, and you can mix them.

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Next steps

Key concepts

Understand platforms, businesses, and the general ledger.

Embedding UI components

Add Layer’s pre-built components to your frontend.

Onboard a business

Create your first business and connect its data.

MCP server

Give AI agents access to Layer via Model Context Protocol.