Carbon
Business feature— included with the Business plan on Carbon Cloud. If you'd like to self-host this feature, you need a commercial license. Licensing →

Connect Ramp

Paid

Connect Ramp to Carbon in four steps, and pick how the two should work together.

Connect Ramp to keep purchase orders, bills and card spend in sync between Ramp and Carbon.

You need: permission to change Settings in Carbon, and a Ramp login with the Admin or Business Owner role.

First, one question: who keeps your books?

Ramp lets only one accounting system connect to it. So before you connect, Carbon asks which system that is.

  • Carbon is my accounting system. Card charges and bills from Ramp flow into Carbon's books, and reimbursements arrive as drafts for you to review. Once the card liability account is set, Carbon also sends your chart of accounts to Ramp so your team can code spend there.
  • Another system posts my ledger. Your other accounting system stays connected to Ramp and keeps posting the spend. Carbon only reads back which bills were paid.

In both modes, Carbon sends purchase orders and draft bills to Ramp, and creates their vendors there. Two things to know:

  • Each draft bill is sent once. If you change the invoice in Carbon afterwards, update the bill in Ramp too.
  • Suppliers need contact details. To create a vendor in Ramp, a supplier needs a contact email and a country on one of its locations (plus a state for US suppliers). Without them, that supplier's bills don't reach Ramp. Carbon doesn't update a vendor in Ramp when the supplier changes later.

Connect Ramp

Press Install in Carbon

Go to Settings → Integrations and press Install on the Ramp card.

Answer the question

Pick Carbon is my accounting system or Another system posts my ledger, then press Continue.

Allow Carbon in Ramp

Sign in to Ramp as an Admin or Business Owner, and allow access.

Finish in Carbon

You land back in Carbon. Open the Ramp integration and choose what syncs under Sync. Everything is on to start with.

If you picked Carbon is my accounting system, also fill in the accounts under Accounts. Card spend can't sync until Card liability account is set.

What Carbon can do in Ramp

Carbon is my accounting systemAnother system posts my ledger
Create and update purchase orders✓✓
Create draft bills, and see bills and their payments✓✓
Create vendors✓✓
See your business and its entities✓✓
See card transactions, receipts, reimbursements, repayments, transfers, cashback and statements✓
See Ramp's accounting connection and coding options✓✓
Connect as Ramp's accounting system and publish your chart of accounts✓
The exact Ramp scopes, for your Ramp admin

Carbon is my accounting system

accounting:read
accounting:write
bills:read
bills:write
business:read
cashbacks:read
entities:read
offline_access
purchase_orders:read
purchase_orders:write
receipts:read
reimbursements:read
repayments:read
statements:read
transactions:read
transfers:read
vendors:read
vendors:write

Another system posts my ledger

accounting:read
bills:read
bills:write
business:read
entities:read
offline_access
purchase_orders:read
purchase_orders:write
vendors:read
vendors:write

Something went wrong?

What you seeWhat to do
Another system is connected to Ramp as its accounting systemYour other accounting system already holds Ramp's one spot. Uninstall Ramp in Carbon, then connect again and pick Another system posts my ledger. Or disconnect the other system in Ramp, then open the Ramp integration in Carbon and save its settings.
Ramp denied the connectionRamp refused access, for example because it was cancelled. Connect again and allow access, signed in as an Admin or Business Owner.
The Ramp connection expiredCarbon couldn't match this sign-in to one you started: it took over an hour, or finished in another browser or Carbon account. Start again from Settings → Integrations.
A bill didn't reach Ramp, and Sync Activity says the supplier needs a contact email, a country or a two-letter stateAdd the missing detail to the supplier in Carbon. The bill is retried on the next sync.
Ramp connected but setup didn't finishOpen the Ramp integration and save its settings to finish setup. If that fails too, uninstall Ramp and connect again.

Picked the wrong answer to the first question? Uninstall Ramp in Carbon and connect again.

Running Carbon on your own servers?

Skip this on Carbon Cloud. The Ramp app is already set up.

On your own servers, you create the Ramp app once:

  1. In Ramp's developer settings, create an app and turn on the refresh token grant.
  2. Open Set scopes and turn on every scope in the first list above (it includes the second). If one is missing, Ramp refuses the connection with invalid_scope, and Carbon shows Ramp denied the connection.
  3. Add this redirect URL, where your Carbon address is the one in ERP_URL: https://<your Carbon address>/api/integrations/ramp/oauth.
  4. Set RAMP_CLIENT_ID and RAMP_CLIENT_SECRET in Carbon's environment, then restart Carbon. Until then the Ramp card says Not Configured.
Ramp's Set scopes dialog. Check your switches against the lists above rather than copying this picture.

Carbon tells Ramp where to send updates by itself when you connect. Ramp needs to reach your Carbon address over the internet for that. If it can't, Carbon still catches up every hour.

Setup guides

Connect your other apps.