Connecting your expense management software directly to your CRM closes the loop between sales activities and financial data, giving you a complete picture of customer profitability. This guide provides a detailed walkthrough of how to set up the Dext and HubSpot integration, what data gets synced, and how to troubleshoot common issues. We'll focus on the direct, native integration to get you up and running quickly.
Why Integrate Dext with HubSpot?
Automating financial data flow isn't just about saving time; it's about making smarter business decisions. When your team captures an expense receipt in Dext for a client lunch, that information is useful far beyond the accounting department. By integrating Dext with HubSpot, you link that expense data directly to the customer or deal record it belongs to. This creates a powerful, unified view of your client relationships and financials.
Here are the primary benefits of connecting these two platforms:
- Eliminate Manual Data Entry: Stop wasting time manually keying in expense details or invoice information from Dext into HubSpot contact records. The integration automates this process, freeing up your team for higher-value tasks while drastically reducing the risk of human error.
- Enhance Client Profitability Tracking: When sales-related expenses from Dext appear on the deal timeline in HubSpot, your team can see the true cost of acquiring and serving a client. This helps sales managers and finance teams analyze deal profitability with much greater accuracy.
- Streamline Client Billing and Reimbursements: By syncing receipt and invoice data, you can accelerate the billing process. All the necessary documentation and figures associated with a client’s project are already attached to their record in the CRM, making invoice preparation faster and more accurate.
- Create a Single Source of Truth: An integration ensures that both your finance team (working in Dext) and your sales or customer service team (working in HubSpot) see the same updated information. This aligned data prevents confusion and ensures everyone is working from the same playbook.
How to Connect Dext and HubSpot: A Look at Your Options
You have a few ways to integrate Dext and HubSpot, each with a different level of complexity and flexibility. For most users, the native integration is the best path forward.
- Native Integration (Recommended): Both Dext and HubSpot offer a built-in connector available through the HubSpot App Marketplace. This method is designed to be user-friendly, with a guided setup process that doesn't require a developer. It handles the most common use cases, like syncing contacts, expenses, and invoices, with reliability and security.
- Third-Party Automation Tools: Platforms like Zapier or Make can serve as a bridge between Dext and HubSpot. These tools are useful if you need to create highly specific, multi-step workflows that the native integration doesn't support. However, they require more configuration, involve another subscription fee, and data transfer might not be in real time.
- Custom API Integration: For large organizations with unique requirements, using the Dext and HubSpot APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) allows for a fully custom-built solution. This approach offers maximum flexibility but requires significant developer resources and ongoing maintenance. This is only necessary for a small fraction of users with very complex internal systems.
This guide will focus exclusively on the native integration, as it's the most practical, secure, and efficient choice for nearly all businesses.
Step-by-Step Guide: Setting Up the Native Dext HubSpot Integration
Getting the native connection running is straightforward. Before you begin, make sure you have administrator access to both your Dext and HubSpot accounts.
Step 1: Locate the Dext App in the HubSpot Marketplace
First, log in to your HubSpot account. Navigate to the App Marketplace by clicking the marketplace icon (a grid of squares) in the top-right corner of your main navigation bar and selecting "App Marketplace." In the search bar, type "Dext" and select the official application from the search results.
Step 2: Install the Application and Authorize Access
On the Dext app page, click the "Install app" or "Connect app" button. You will be prompted to log in to your Dext account to authorize the connection. HubSpot will then display a list of permissions the app requires, such as viewing and editing contact data. Review these permissions and accept them to proceed. This authorization step creates the secure handshake that allows the two platforms to share information.
Step 3: Configure Your Sync Settings and Data Mapping
Once authorized, you'll be directed to the integration's configuration page. This is the most important step. Here, you'll define exactly what data syncs and where it goes. You will typically be asked to:
- Choose Sync Direction: Decide if data flows one way (e.g., Dext to HubSpot only) or two ways (bidirectional). For most use cases, a one-way sync pushing financial data from Dext to HubSpot is sufficient.
- Map Data Fields: This is where you tell the integration how to match up data. For example, you might map the "Client Name" field in a Dext expense item to the "Company Name" property in HubSpot. Be thorough here to ensure data lands in the right place. You may also have opportunities to map custom fields for industry-specific data.
- Set Sync Rules and Frequency: Define when the sync should occur. Many native integrations offer real-time syncing, where data updates almost instantly after it's added in the source app. You can also set rules to filter what gets synced—for instance, only syncing expenses that are marked in a specific category like "Client Entertainment."
Step 4: Run an Initial Test and Activate
Before turning the integration loose on your entire database, test it with a few non-critical entries. Create a test contact in HubSpot and a corresponding test in Dext. Assign an expense or invoice to that contact in Dext and confirm it appears correctly in the contact's activity timeline or deal record in a few minutes. Once you've verified the mapping and logic works as expected, you can confidently activate the full automation.
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What Data Syncs Between Dext and HubSpot?
The native integration focuses on syncing the most valuable data points between your financial and customer-facing platforms. While specific features can evolve, the core data types typically include:
- Contacts and Companies: Customer contact information, including names, emails, phone numbers, and company details, can be synced. This keeps your CRM database aligned with the client information on your receipts and invoices, preventing duplicate records and outdated info.
- Invoices and Expenses: The core of the integration. When an invoice is created in Dext, a record of it can be pushed into HubSpot and associated with the correct contact or deal. The same applies to expense items captured with the Dext mobile app—the extracted data (vendor, date, amount) is sent over to HubSpot.
- Receipt Images: The actual digital receipt images captured by Dext can be attached directly to HubSpot records. This is incredibly useful for sales teams who need to provide proof of an expense for a client or for an internal audit, as they no longer have to request it from the finance team.
- Custom Fields: If you've set up custom properties in HubSpot (e.g., "Project ID" or "Client Tier"), a robust integration will often allow you to map data from Dext into these custom fields, giving you more tailored reporting capabilities.
Troubleshooting Common Integration Issues
Even the best integrations can run into occasional hiccups. Most issues are minor and easy to resolve. Here are a few common problems and how to fix them:
- Authorization Errors: If the sync suddenly stops working, your permissions token may have expired. The simplest fix is to go back to the HubSpot Marketplace, find the Dext app, disconnect it, and immediately reconnect it. This process refreshes the authorization and usually resolves the issue.
- Data Mismatch or Missing Fields: Data failing to appear where you expect is almost always a field mapping problem. Go back to your integration's configuration settings. Carefully review each field mapping to ensure the source field from Dext is correctly linked to the destination field in HubSpot. Correct any mismatches and rerun the sync.
- Sync Failures or Delays: A complete sync failure could be caused by temporary API outages on either Dext's or HubSpot's end. Check both platforms' status pages for reported incidents. If there are no outages, review the sync logs within the integration settings. These logs will provide error messages that can help you or support technicians pinpoint the problem.
- Incomplete Data Transfer: If only some data is coming through, check the filtering rules you created during setup. You may have inadvertently set up a filter that is excluding the records you expect to see. For example, a filter might be set to only sync items marked as 'Approved' in Dext, so any pending items will be ignored. Adjust the filters to include the necessary data scope.
Final Thoughts
Integrating Dext with HubSpot transforms two excellent standalone tools into a connected system that provides a 360-degree view of your client relationships and financials. By automating data flow, you eliminate administrative busywork, improve accuracy, and empower your teams with the real-time insights they need to make better decisions.
When your tech stack is streamlined, your focus can shift from managing data to providing strategic advice. While integrations solve the flow of operational data, navigating the complex tax questions that arise from those operations is another story. We built Feather AI to give accounting and tax professionals instant, citation-backed answers, so you can stop digging through regulations and focus on serving your clients with confidence.