Validate a sales data backfill

After backfilling invoices and payments, compare your source system with Layer to confirm two things:

Data completeness

Every record in the intended date range was sent, without missing or duplicate invoices, refunds, or payments.

Data consistency

The financial totals calculated from those records agree across your system and Layer’s accounting representations.

Layer’s data sync validation endpoint returns a compact set of totals for this comparison.

Amounts returned by Layer are integer cents. Calculate your source-system totals in the same unit and use the exact same date boundaries for both sides of every comparison.

Validation workflow

Complete the backfill

Import the full set of invoices, refunds, payments, and related sales data for the period you want to validate. Record the exact start_date and end_date boundaries used for the backfill.See Sales / AR data for the available invoice, payment, refund, and payout workflows. For large imports, use Bulk create invoices and Bulk create invoice payments where appropriate.

Calculate invoice totals in your system

Pull every invoice or sales receipt in the synced period, regardless of payment status. Calculate the following totals:

TOTAL_SALES — Sum all invoice totals.
CUSTOMER_REFUNDS — Sum refunds issued against invoices. Do not include refunded payments that left the invoice open.
TIPS — Sum tips included on invoices.
DISCOUNTS — Sum invoice-level and line-item discounts.
SALES_TAXES — Sum sales taxes reported on invoices.
NET_REVENUE — Calculate TOTAL_SALES - CUSTOMER_REFUNDS - DISCOUNTS - TIPS - SALES_TAXES.

These fields use accrual accounting in Layer. They reflect invoiced activity during the period and do not depend on whether an invoice has been paid.

Calculate payment processing fees

Pull the payments collected in the synced period and sum the processing fees reported on those payments.Compare this result with PAYMENT_PROCESSOR_FEES. This field uses the cash basis because it reflects fees on collected payments. It does not include hypothetical fees on invoices for which no payment was collected.

Fetch and compare Layer's totals

Call the validation endpoint with the same boundaries used for your source-system calculations:

Request

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://sandbox.layerfi.com/v1/businesses/{businessId}/reports/data-sync-validation?start_date=2026-01-01T00:00:00Z&end_date=2026-07-01T00:00:00Z' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <access_token>'

The response identifies the report and accounting basis used for each total:

Response

{
  "data": {
    "type": "Data_Sync_Validation_Report",
    "business_id": "83d8fb80-31ee-4d57-b684-44b4aaa5e01f",
    "start_date": "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z",
    "end_date": "2026-07-01T00:00:00Z",
    "totals": [
      {
        "field": "TOTAL_SALES",
        "description": "Total sales should match the sum of all invoice totals sent over the period. This statistic does not consider payments, only the invoiced amounts.",
        "value": 1250000,
        "generated_by": {
          "report": "PROFIT_AND_LOSS",
          "reporting_basis": "ACCRUAL"
        }
      },
      {
        "field": "CUSTOMER_REFUNDS",
        "description": "Customer refunds should reflect the total of refunds issued against invoices. Refunded payments that left invoices open are not included.",
        "value": 25000,
        "generated_by": {
          "report": "PROFIT_AND_LOSS",
          "reporting_basis": "ACCRUAL"
        }
      },
      {
        "field": "TIPS",
        "description": "Tips should match the sum of all tips included on all invoices over the period. Ignore invoice payment status.",
        "value": 10000,
        "generated_by": {
          "report": "BALANCE_SHEET",
          "reporting_basis": "ACCRUAL"
        }
      },
      {
        "field": "DISCOUNTS",
        "description": "Discounts should reflect the total of invoice and individual line item discounts on all invoices sent over the period. Invoice payment status is not considered.",
        "value": 15000,
        "generated_by": {
          "report": "PROFIT_AND_LOSS",
          "reporting_basis": "ACCRUAL"
        }
      },
      {
        "field": "SALES_TAXES",
        "description": "Total sales taxes reported on invoices across the period. Invoice payment status is not considered.",
        "value": 100000,
        "generated_by": {
          "report": "BALANCE_SHEET",
          "reporting_basis": "ACCRUAL"
        }
      },
      {
        "field": "PAYMENT_PROCESSOR_FEES",
        "description": "Payment processor fees should match the total reported fees on payments. Fees on invoices with no payment collected are not included.",
        "value": 30000,
        "generated_by": {
          "report": "PROFIT_AND_LOSS",
          "reporting_basis": "CASH"
        }
      },
      {
        "field": "NET_REVENUE",
        "description": "Topline sales less customer refunds, discounts, tips, and sales taxes.",
        "value": 1100000,
        "generated_by": {
          "report": "PROFIT_AND_LOSS",
          "reporting_basis": "ACCRUAL"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Compare each field independently. Matching only NET_REVENUE can hide offsetting differences between sales, refunds, discounts, tips, or taxes.

Investigate a difference by bisecting the period

If a total differs, narrow the problem by repeatedly splitting the date range:

Divide the mismatched period into two non-overlapping date ranges.
Recalculate the source-system total and call the validation endpoint for each half.
Keep the half containing the difference and split it again.
Repeat until the range is small enough to inspect individual records.

This is well suited to an automated agent: give it the original boundaries, the mismatched field, and access to both totals, then have it bisect until it finds a small set of example records.

Use identical boundaries on both systems at every iteration. Check records exactly on each boundary, timezone conversion, duplicate or missing external IDs, refunds that leave invoices open, and payment fee values before treating a difference as an accounting issue.

Data sync validation API

Review request parameters and the complete response schema.

Import sales and AR data

Review how invoices, payments, refunds, and payouts flow into Layer.

Get started

Integration steps

API details

Validate a sales data backfill

Data completeness

Data consistency

Validation workflow

Investigate a difference by bisecting the period

Data sync validation API

Import sales and AR data

Data completeness

Data consistency

​Validation workflow

​Investigate a difference by bisecting the period

​Related documentation

Data sync validation API

Import sales and AR data

Validation workflow

Investigate a difference by bisecting the period

Related documentation