Pax8 ConnectWise integration: how to check it is billing every seat

If you buy Microsoft 365 through Pax8 and bill clients from ConnectWise PSA, the Pax8 ConnectWise integration is supposed to be the bridge: seats change in Pax8, and the client's agreement in ConnectWise follows. When it works, invoices stay current without anyone retyping quantities. When one piece of it is not set up, or someone works around it, seats go unbilled and nobody notices, because the integration looks like it is running.

This guide explains what the integration is meant to do, the setup choices that decide what actually syncs, where drift still gets in, and a monthly audit that tells you whether every seat on the Pax8 bill reached an invoice. It is written from Pax8's public descriptions of the integration and general ConnectWise PSA practice. Menus and options change, so confirm details against Pax8's own setup guide and support.

What the integration is for

Pax8 offers its PSA integrations, including ConnectWise PSA, free to partners (Pax8's PSA integrations page). Pax8 describes them as letting you manage and import company data, import Pax8 products, place orders and update seat counts, customize billing agreements and prorate services.

In ConnectWise PSA, recurring billing usually lives in agreements. Each company has an agreement, and each product you bill on it is a line with a quantity and a price. The integration's job, for billing purposes, is to keep those lines in step with the subscriptions in Pax8.

That only happens for the companies, products and agreements the integration knows about.

The setup choices that decide what syncs

Before trusting the sync, check each of these in your own configuration:

• Company mapping. Every Pax8 company needs to be linked to the right ConnectWise company. A new client created in Pax8 is not billed through the integration until it is linked.
• Product mapping. Pax8 products need to be linked to products in your ConnectWise catalog. A new product, or a renamed one, may need a new link.
• Which agreement. If a company has more than one agreement, the integration needs to know which one gets the lines.
• Automatic or manual updates. Pax8 has described auto-sync for ConnectWise. Know whether yours updates quantities on its own or waits for someone to push changes.
• Price. Decide whether the agreement price comes from your catalog, from the integration, or is set by hand per client. A cost increase at renewal does not raise your price on its own.

Where seats still slip through

Even with the integration running, these are the usual gaps:

• Unlinked companies and products. The most common one. Everything that is linked syncs, so the integration looks healthy while a new client or a new product sits outside it.
• Bundled billing. If you bill a per-user package instead of each license, the agreement line is "Managed user", not "Business Premium". There may be nothing for a seat count to sync to, so new seats change your cost and not your price.
• Manual edits. Someone corrects a quantity by hand on the agreement, and the next sync either overwrites it or the line is now disconnected from Pax8. Either way, nobody is sure which number is right.
• Cancellations. A subscription that ends in Pax8 should end the agreement line. If the line was edited or moved, it can keep billing a client for a product you no longer pay for.
• Licenses bought elsewhere. Anything a client buys directly from Microsoft or from another distributor never touches the integration. If you bill for it, nothing checks that the license still exists.
• Timing. A seat added after your agreements were invoiced for the month shows up on the Pax8 bill now and on the agreement next month. That is a timing difference, not a leak, as long as it does appear next month.

A monthly audit

The integration's own logs tell you what it did. They do not tell you what it missed. The audit compares the two ends instead:

1. Export the Pax8 bill detail for the month: company, product, quantity, cost. Net mid-month additions and credits per company and product.
2. Export the ConnectWise invoice lines for the matching billing month: company, product, quantity, price. Use invoices, not agreements, because the invoice is what the client actually paid.
3. Compare per company and product. Seats on the Pax8 bill against seats invoiced.
4. Sort the differences by dollar value and look at the largest first.
5. For each difference, find the cause using the list above: unlinked company, unlinked product, bundle, manual edit, cancellation, or timing.
6. Fix the cause, not just the number. Link the company or product so next month syncs, then correct this month's invoice or agreement.

A difference that appears two months in a row is almost never timing.

Audit checklist

• Every company on the Pax8 bill is linked to a ConnectWise company, or marked internal.
• Every Pax8 product you resell per seat is linked to a ConnectWise product.
• No Pax8 subscription that ended this month is still on an invoice.
• Seats on the Pax8 bill match seats invoiced for every company and product, or the difference is explained.
• No agreement line is priced below your current Pax8 cost.
• Licenses billed to clients but bought outside Pax8 are listed and checked separately.

Running the audit without building it

License Drift runs this comparison from exports: your Pax8 export and your ConnectWise invoice export (or a QuickBooks export, if you invoice there). It does not connect to Pax8 or ConnectWise, so it checks the result of the sync rather than relying on it. It asks you to pair each new company and product once, remembers the pairs, and emails the under-billed, over-billed and cancelled-but-still-billed lines with a monthly dollar estimate, with a reminder on the day of the month you choose. The Pax8 billing guide covers the same check from the Pax8 side.