bexio for electricians: why the accounting stays and the electrical software sits in front of it

An electrical contractor on bexio keeps bexio for the accounting and runs quotes, Rapporte, Regie and invoices in electrical software placed in front of it. With elektro.box that means: documents are created in elektro.box, bexio receives them as drafts, and the payment status comes back from bexio. It is an addition, not a switch — the accounting and your Treuhänder (fiduciary) carry on as before.

⚠️ What bexio itself can or cannot do is not stated here, apart from what we read in bexio's API documentation (see Sources). This article describes what elektro.box does with bexio.

Complement or replace: the question behind «bexio alternative»

Accounting software such as bexio keeps the books: accounts, receivables, payables, VAT. Electrical software keeps what happens in front of it: the quote built from NPK positions, the order, the Rapport from the job, the Regie, the change order. Someone searching «bexio for electricians» rarely has an accounting question; they have a question about the part before it — and that can be added without touching the books.

Replacing only makes sense if the business also wants to change its accounting. That is a decision of its own, taken with the Treuhänder, and has nothing to do with the quoting side. On what electrical software must offer, see «Trade software for electrical contractors» and «ERP and CRM for electricians».

What runs between elektro.box and bexio

Under «Integrations» you connect bexio to your account. From then on:

• Documents go to bexio as drafts. Issued quotes and invoices are transferred to bexio. elektro.box stays in the lead: the document number and the QR reference come from here, bexio receives a draft and issues nothing itself.
• The payment status comes back. Paid, partly paid and open are taken over from bexio. Payments are never transferred to bexio; they are booked where the money arrives.
• The sync runs by itself — every 5 or 10 minutes — and can be started at once with «Sync now».
• Switchable per area. The «Sync per area» overview shows for each area — invoices, payments, quotes, contacts, articles and more — whether it runs, how current it is and what your bexio subscription allows.

If you also use elektro.box as your general ledger, bexio can additionally be read only: the books are then read from bexio every night and shown next to your own figures. That is a different route from the one described here, and one to discuss with the Treuhänder.

Taking over contacts and articles — without duplicates

On first connection elektro.box imports your bexio contacts and articles once. Existing entries are linked, never overwritten. The rules in detail:

• A contact counts as already present if the e-mail address matches (upper and lower case do not matter). It is then linked to the existing customer instead of creating a second one.
• An article counts as present if the article number matches.
• What was linked rather than created is reported by the import as a possible duplicate. It does not merge the entries: whether two records are really the same person is for somebody who can see both.
• A company stays a company, a person becomes a private person — bexio tells the two apart for contacts, and elektro.box carries that over.

Duplicates that already exist in bexio — two contacts for the same company — are cleaned up in bexio, which has its own means for that, and we do not describe them here. If you clean them up before the import, you get a tidier customer list in elektro.box.

Contacts can afterwards be kept in sync continuously, on request. If both sides changed the same field, elektro.box's state wins, and the overwrite is recorded rather than happening silently.

When elektro.box and bexio disagree

Two systems can say different things about the same invoice. elektro.box does not set such cases aside; it shows them under «Conflicts with bexio». Typical ones:

• Transferred, but with a different total. bexio accepted the invoice and computed another total — for example because of a VAT rate. Once the cause is fixed in bexio, «Send to bexio again» is enough; if the total then matches, the conflict closes by itself.
• Cancelled there, paid here. elektro.box does not cancel on its own, because that would clear the paid amount, the payment date and the Skonto — the conflict would leave no trace.
• Skonto. A Skonto (an early-payment discount) that bexio cannot represent is reported as a conflict of its own. How a Skonto works and how it affects the invoice is covered in «Unpaid invoice».

«Acknowledge» records that someone has seen the conflict and leaves it as it is, or has corrected it on the other side. It changes nothing in the invoice and nothing in bexio. An acknowledged conflict stays on file with date and note.

Connecting in five steps

1. Decide which areas should run. Documents and payment status are the core; contacts and articles come in with the import.
2. Connect bexio under «Integrations» and check access per area («Check access»): what your bexio subscription allows, bexio only reveals when called.
3. Import contacts and articles and go through the possible duplicates reported.
4. Transfer one quote and one invoice as a trial and compare them in bexio: number, total, VAT.
5. Agree with the Treuhänder that drafts are coming from elektro.box and that what is already there is no longer entered by hand.

Where else elektro.box connects is on Integrations; what the product does besides, on Features. If you come from other trade software: «Switching from Schoch».

Common questions

Can I keep bexio as my accounting and still use electrical software? Yes. With elektro.box, quotes, Rapporte and invoices are created in elektro.box and go to bexio as drafts; the payment status is read back from bexio. The books stay in bexio.

Are my bexio contacts overwritten on import? No. Existing entries are linked, never overwritten. If an e-mail address matches an existing customer, elektro.box links the two and reports it as a possible duplicate.

Does elektro.box issue invoices in bexio itself? No. bexio receives a draft; the document number and the QR reference come from elektro.box.

What happens if bexio computes a different invoice total? elektro.box shows the case under «Conflicts with bexio». After the fix in bexio you send the invoice again; if the total matches, the entry closes by itself.

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Sources: the statements about elektro.box come from the product's own scope — bexio sync, import of contacts and articles, conflicts — and from the Features and Integrations pages, as of 4 October 2026. Read on bexio's side: the API documentation at docs.bexio.com, as of 4 October 2026, which lists the interfaces for creating and editing invoices and for issuing an invoice. bexio's price and feature pages could not be retrieved when this was written; this article therefore says nothing about their prices, plans or features. «bexio» is the name of the respective vendor.