How to connect to Clear Books

Clear Books authenticates with a single API key that belongs to your own Clear Books account. There is no OAuth sign-in screen and nothing to authorize inside Clear Books: you copy one key out of Clear Books and paste it into Vault.

The work is in getting the key, not in entering it. Clear Books does not hand out API access self-service — it is granted per account on request — so read the prerequisites before you start.

Prerequisites

An active Clear Books account on the UK platform.
API access granted by Clear Books for your account. Access is granted on request, not self-service. You request it through the Clear Books API support page and the contact form linked from it, describing your integration.
Permission to create an API key in your Clear Books account — the API keys screen is under system settings, so an account administrator may need to do this for you.

Before you request access: this connector uses the SOAP API

Clear Books runs two APIs, and this connector uses the older one. Clear Books states on its API support page:

The SOAP API has been discontinued and no new applications will be approved for it.

What that means in practice:

If your account already has a SOAP API key, it keeps working. Existing keys were not revoked, and this connector continues to work with them.
If you do not already have SOAP access, Clear Books will not approve a new application for it. New access requests are granted for the RESTful API instead, which this connector does not use.

So if you ask Clear Books for a SOAP API key and are turned down, you have not misconfigured anything and there is no workaround on the Apideck side — the platform no longer grants that access. Confirm with the team you are connecting to how they want to proceed, and raise the question with Clear Books through the support page above.

1. Find or create your API key in Clear Books

Log in to Clear Books at https://secure.clearbooks.co.uk/.
Go to Settings > Configure system > API keys.
Copy the existing API key, or create one if your account allows it.

Treat the key like a password: it grants access to your accounting data, and anyone holding it can read the records the connector reads.

If there is no API keys entry under Configure system, see Troubleshooting below — it usually means API access has not been granted for the account, or your user lacks the permission to manage system settings.

2. Connect in Vault

Open Vault and select Clear Books.
Paste your key into the SOAP API Key field — this is the only field on the form.
Click Save.

Apideck validates the connection immediately by fetching your list of purchase invoices (bills). If that call succeeds the connection becomes usable; if it fails the connection stays invalid — see Troubleshooting.

Notes

Testing without touching live books. Clear Books does not run a separate sandbox — register a free Clear Books trial account and use a key from that account instead.
One key per account. The key is scoped to the Clear Books account it came from, so a trial account and your live account each need their own connection.
The key does not expire on a timer, but the connection breaks the moment the key is regenerated or revoked in Clear Books. If you rotate it, paste the new value into Vault.
You can disconnect at any time from Vault, and you can revoke the key in Clear Books independently — either action stops the connector's access.

Troubleshooting

There is no "API keys" option under Configure system

Two common causes:

API access has not been granted for your account. The screen appears once Clear Books enables API access. Request it through the Clear Books API support page.
Your user cannot manage system settings. Ask an administrator on the account to open Settings > Configure system > API keys and supply the key.

Clear Books declined my request for a SOAP API key

This is expected for accounts that do not already have SOAP access — Clear Books is no longer approving new SOAP applications, and access to the RESTful API is not a substitute for this connector. Nothing on the Apideck side can grant it. Raise it with Clear Books through the support page, and let the team whose integration you are connecting to know.

The connection will not turn valid after saving

Re-copy the key from Clear Books. A trailing space or a partially selected value is the most common cause, and the key is masked in Vault so the mistake is hard to see.
Confirm the key came from the Clear Books account whose data you expect to sync.
Confirm the key is still active in Settings > Configure system > API keys and has not been regenerated or revoked.
Validation reads purchase invoices, so the account must be reachable through the API. If the key is definitely correct and current, the account's API access itself may have lapsed — check with Clear Books.

The connection worked and then stopped

The key was almost certainly regenerated or revoked in Clear Books, or the account's API access was withdrawn. Check the API keys screen first, then paste the current key into Vault.

Still stuck

For anything on the Clear Books side — API access, key creation, an account that cannot see the API keys screen — contact Clear Books through their API support page. For anything on the Apideck side, contact Apideck Support.