Integrations
Integrations is where an admin connects Base to the services your business already runs on: Xero for the books, Gmail or Outlook for mail, Google Calendar for the programme, and an SMS number for texting. It is also where three organisation-wide email switches live: whether the assistant may send email unattended, whether business documents go out from your own mailbox, and whether email filed on a project is visible to the whole team. Once Xero is connected, the page grows an Accounts & tax panel that says which accounts and GST types claims and bills post to.
- You need to be an admin. The page is admin-only.
- Connecting an integration needs a paid plan. On a plan without it, pressing Connect opens the paywall instead.
- To connect a mailbox you sign in on Google's or Microsoft's own consent screen; have that account's password handy. Consider connecting a work-only mailbox, because what Base files from it becomes part of your organisation's records.
- For the Xero accounts panel, your Xero chart of accounts is read live, so Xero needs to be connected first.
- On the Xero card, press Connect Xero.
- Sign in at Xero and choose the organisation. You return to this page with the card showing Connected and the organisation's name.
Base then syncs contacts, invoices and bills with Xero and can pull the P&L, balance sheet and aged reports. The Accounting provider card above the integrations shows where the books are kept: Xero is the only provider Base can connect to today; MYOB and QuickBooks Online are listed as coming and cannot be chosen yet.
Tell Xero which accounts claims and bills post to
- Once Xero is connected, open the Accounts & tax panel on the Xero card. Every option is read from your real chart of accounts, so a typo cannot reach Xero.
- Pick the sales account (progress claims and retention releases go there as sales invoices), the purchases account (supplier and subcontractor bills, unless the cost code names its own account), the retention account (where retention withheld on each claim is parked) and, if you want payment runs recorded in Xero, the payments account. Leave payments unset to reconcile from the bank feed instead.
- For the month-end WIP journal, pick the work-in-progress asset account, the billings-in-excess liability account and, optionally, the WIP revenue adjustment account.
- Pick the GST rate for sales and for purchases.
- Press Save. The line reads "Saved. Applies to the next push."
Below the panel, Sync activity lists the last pushes and pulls, failures first, so a failed push is never silent.
- Press Connect Gmail or Connect Outlook.
- Read the disclosure that opens. It says exactly what the connection does: Base reads every new message from the moment you connect (about every ninety seconds), stores each one in your organisation's workspace, files attachments that match a project as project documents, lets AI providers process the content to file and summarise it (never to train on it), sends from the address only when you send or approve a draft or an admin has turned on unattended sending, and never labels, moves, archives or deletes anything in your mailbox.
- Press Continue to Google or Continue to Microsoft and sign in.
The card shows Connected with the mailbox's health. A note under it says whether tenders, purchase orders and claims you send will go from this mailbox (see the Business emails switch below). If both Gmail and Outlook are connected, the one connected most recently sends.
- Press Connect Google Calendar, read the disclosure (Base lists your upcoming events when you ask the assistant; it does not store your calendar or read other calendars) and press Continue to Google.
Programme tasks can then be synced as calendar events and site visits booked as appointments.
- On the AI email sending card, read the two states. Off, the recommended default, means the assistant drafts every outbound email for your approval before anything sends. On means it may send directly without a review step.
- Press the switch.
- On the Business emails card, press the switch. On, tenders, purchase orders and claims go from the sender's connected mailbox and appear in its Sent Items. Off, they go from Base.
- On the Share project email with the team card, press the switch. On (the default), an email in someone's connected mailbox that is filed on a project shows on that project for the whole team. Off, each person sees only their own.
- The Twilio SMS card lets you text clients and subcontractors on the shared number, or search for and buy your own. The fuller version of this, with the signature and WhatsApp switch, is the Messaging page.
- Press Disconnect on the card and confirm.
For Gmail this cancels Base's access at Google and deletes the credentials Base holds; for Outlook it deletes the credentials, and you can also revoke Base under your Microsoft account's app permissions. Mail already filed stays in the workspace unless you delete it.
- A connected mailbox is polled about every ninety seconds for new mail. Messages are filed against the projects, leads and contacts they match; attachments on a matched message are saved as project documents.
- Each card carries a health line. When a token has expired or a push is failing, the card says so and offers Reconnect rather than quietly showing Connected.
- Progress claims, bills, purchase orders, credit notes, payment runs and the WIP journal go to Xero through one service, using the accounts you set here. A claim whose lines do not reproduce its total is refused rather than sent.
- The assistant can explain what each integration unlocks and, once something is connected, use it on your behalf: Xero reports, sending email, syncing the calendar. Disconnecting, and turning unattended sending on, always need your explicit yes.
- The disclosure is not a formality. From the moment you connect a mailbox, every new message is read and stored in the organisation's workspace. If the mailbox has personal mail in it, connect a work-only account.
- The shared-email switch is on by default. Your filed project mail is visible to the team until an admin turns it off.
- Account codes are never typed. If the account you want is missing from a list, create it in Xero first; the list is your chart, read live.
- Saving the accounts panel applies to the next push, not to anything already in Xero.
- The System Email, Billing (Stripe) and Google Maps cards are information: they show what Base itself is running on and have nothing to connect.
- MYOB and QuickBooks cannot be chosen yet. Choosing one would stop every push, so the card does not let you.