One set of books. A workspace for every site.

Give each site or project a Datamolino folder with its own invoice email, people, coding rules and optional approval workflows. Connect several folders to the same Xero, QuickBooks Online or FreeAgent organisation.

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Three sites. One accounting organisation.

An illustrative setup for a business with one legal entity and three locations. Finance works across the folders; each local team gets its own workspace.

Two colleagues arrange three client or site folders linked to one shared accounting ledger. — One business. Separate workspaces.
Harbour Kitchen
The restaurant manager collects and approves local purchases.
Kitchen refit
The project lead checks contractor invoices in a project folder.
Separate intake and people. One shared accounting organisation.
Illustrative Harbour Hospitality setup: a folder for a restaurant and another for its refit, connected to the same accounting organisation. Set supported ledger tracking fields separately.

Harbour Kitchen: restaurant folder

Food suppliers send invoices to the restaurant’s folder email. The restaurant manager can approve the purchase while finance prepares the accounting.

Garden House Hotel: hotel folder

Housekeeping and hotel supplies arrive in a separate folder with the hotel team’s access, saved coding and optional approval stages.

Kitchen refit: project folder

Give the renovation its own folder for contractor bills and project-team access. All three folders can connect to the Harbour Hospitality accounting organisation.

Keep the location visible in the accounts.

Folders organise the document workflow. Ledger codes and supported tracking fields organise accounting reports.

Xero

Apply accounts, tax rates and tracking categories to invoice lines. Several folders can export to the same Xero organisation.

Xero invoice lines

QuickBooks Online

Choose account-based or product-based purchase lines and use the Class, Location or Customer fields enabled in the QuickBooks company.

QuickBooks invoice lines

FreeAgent

Connect several folders to the same FreeAgent account and use its supported category and export options. FreeAgent does not share every Xero or QuickBooks tracking feature.

FreeAgent integration

Invoice approvals that fit your business.

Use sign-off where it helps. It is included in Datamolino and optional for each folder.

In this configured workflow, a manager signs off the purchase and amount. Finance then checks accounts, tax and supported tracking fields before export. Editing permissions and automatic export must be configured for this flow. — One configured flow: purchase sign-off, then accounting review, then export. Set editing permissions and automatic export to suit this sequence.

Let the person who knows the purchase decide

A local manager knows whether a delivery, repair or project charge belongs to their site. The approver checks the purchase and amount, and approves or rejects the invoice on the web or in the mobile app.

Let finance complete the accounting

Configure the workflow so finance can finish account codes, tax and supported tracking fields after sign-off and before export. The setup guide explains the editing permissions and when to leave automatic export off.

Match the tool to the work

If capture, coding and invoice sign-off cover your process, you may be able to reduce the cost of a separate approval subscription. Compare wider requirements such as purchase-order matching, budget checks and payment controls before replacing ApprovalMax.

Set up purchase approval and bookkeeping Compare with ApprovalMax

Handle shared costs once.

A shared invoice and a separate invoice for each site are different jobs.

Route the invoice to one responsible folder
Agree which folder receives a shared bill so several teams do not submit the same invoice independently. Duplicate checks have a folder scope; separate folders do not establish a company-wide duplicate safeguard.
Allocate in the invoice’s accounting lines
Use Bill Split where the supported connection allows it. Splitting a bill creates allocation lines, not new documents in other site folders.
How to split a bill

Questions about this workflow

Can several folders connect to the same accounting organisation?

Yes. Multiple Datamolino folders can connect to the same Xero organisation, QuickBooks Online company or FreeAgent account. Each folder has its own document intake, members and settings. A business account is for one accounting company; a practice account can serve multiple client companies.

Do we have to use invoice approvals?

No. Approvals are included in your subscription and enabled per folder. Use them where purchase sign-off is useful, or capture, code and export without approval stages.

Do we need a different accounting company for every site?

No, when sites belong to the same accounting company, several folders can connect to that company. Separate legal entities may need separate accounting companies and an appropriate Datamolino account type.

Does a folder automatically create a tracking category or QuickBooks Location?

No. Select and review the supported accounting fields and defaults. Confirm the result in the connected ledger rather than assuming that the folder name is exported as a reporting category.

Bring one invoice from each site.

We will show how folder intake, access, coding and optional approval fit together before you connect the wider business.

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