Connecting other software

Bottle runs the round. Other software runs your books, your shop, your customers’ phones and, lately, the assistant you talk to. Connections, in the sidebar, is where those are plugged in. This page is the map: what each one moves, what it leaves alone, and where to go.

Getting paid: Stripe

Takes payment by card link, straight into your own bank account. Bottle never holds the money. A pay-first order gets its link and its invoice the moment it is taken; a driver can show a code at the door; the office can send a link for anything owed. Set up under Getting paid in your name menu. Full guide: Getting paid.

Does not: move money for cylinder hire outside an invoice, take contactless on the driver’s own phone (that waits for the mobile app), or handle anything but sterling for now.

Accounting: Xero

Keeps your books in step. Customers go both ways; every invoice Bottle raises goes to Xero under its own number, with a payment against it when it is paid and a void when it is cancelled. Runs every few minutes and on demand. Set up under Accounting. Full guide: Accounting.

Does not: pull invoices from Xero, keep a ledger, file VAT, or delete anything on either side. QuickBooks and Sage are planned on the same shape.

Shops: Shopify and WooCommerce

Pulls your product list in from a shop you already run, so prices and names are typed once. Orders from the shop are next. Set up under Connections with the keys your shop generates for you. Full guide: Connecting your shop.

Does not: push prices or stock back to the shop, or touch the shop’s own customers.

Assistants: Claude and ChatGPT

Lets an assistant answer questions about your business in plain English: “who is due a delivery this week”, “how much does the Anchor owe”. You choose what it may see and do when you connect it, and it can never reach more than you can. Set up under Connections, by giving the assistant Bottle’s address. Full guide: Connecting an assistant.

Does not: act without the permissions you granted, or keep working once the person who connected it leaves the business.

Messaging: WhatsApp

Planned. A customer will message an order, an assistant will take the details, and it will land on the round like any other. Nothing to set up yet; it is on the Connections page so you know it is coming.

Keys for anything else

Your accountant’s software, a spreadsheet, a script of your own: an API key lets a program use the business without anybody signing in, with only the permissions you give it. Under Connections. Details for whoever writes the program are in For developers.

What every connection has in common

• Nothing is granted that the person connecting could not do themselves.
• Credentials are stored sealed and never shown again.
• Disconnecting stops it straight away and deletes nothing in Bottle.
• What was done through a connection is attributed to it, so a change in the books can be traced back.