What the Rydoo connector does
Rydoo is where your travellers report expenses. VAT4U is where those expenses are checked and turned into VAT reclaims. The connector is the bridge between the two.
It works in the following way:
A connectors request from the Rydoo API for all expenses exported in a date range you choose, and writes them to a CSV buffer area, including links to the receipts and attachments on each expense
An import runs that file through the VAT4U import wizard, where you map fields, entities and categories, and the receipt files are fetched automatically
The split matters: an extraction never changes your VAT4U data on its own. Nothing appears in your expense list until you import the extracted file, so you can always inspect what was pulled before importing to VAT4U.
What it does not do: The connection is read-only. VAT4U reads from Rydoo and never writes anything - nothing in Rydoo is modified, approved, re-exported or deleted.
Before you begin — what you need
Rydoo API credentials — a client ID and a client secret, created in your Rydoo environment
Read-only permissions on those credentials (see Step 2)
Access to the Connectors page of the company in VAT4U
Important: API access is not part of every Rydoo subscription. Depending on your plan, you may or may not be able to create API credentials at all. If you cannot find where to create them, or your credentials are rejected with a permissions error, contact Rydoo — your account manager or Rydoo support — and ask them to enable API access for your subscription.
Step 1 — Create the API credentials in Rydoo
In your Rydoo environment, create an API client (OAuth client credentials). You will end up with two values:
a client ID
a client secret
Copy both — the secret is typically shown only once. Then grant the credentials the permissions in the next step before using them.
Step 2 — Grant the right permissions
The credentials need read-only access to expenses, receipts and your company configuration. Grant all five permissions below.
Permission | What VAT4U uses it for |
| Identifies which Rydoo company the credentials belong to. Without it the credentials are issued but every API request is refused |
| Reads your organisational structure — branches, groups, entities — so expenses can be matched to the right legal entity in VAT4U |
| Reads the exported expenses themselves: amounts, VAT, dates, merchant, category, traveller |
| Reads receipt and attachment links, so the invoice images come across with the expense data |
| Reads your custom field definitions, so custom fields arrive labelled instead of as raw IDs |
Security note: Do not grant write permissions — the connector never needs them. Read-only credentials mean an integration mistake cannot alter anything in Rydoo.
A missing permission usually shows up as a failed connection test in VAT4U rather than a partial extraction. company in particular causes every request to be refused even though the credentials themselves look valid.
Step 3 — Activate the Rydoo connector in VAT4U
Open the company you want to connect, go to its settings, and select the Connectors tab
Click the Rydoo tile. The Rydoo panel opens with status Inactive
Click Activate Rydoo integration — the access details form appears
Enter the Rydoo Client ID and Rydoo Client Secret, then click Save connection details. Both values are encrypted before they are stored
VAT4U immediately tests the connection by asking Rydoo for a single exported expense:
a green check mark means you are connected
a red icon means the credentials or their permissions need another look
You can re-run the test at any time with Retry connection
Once the status shows Active, the extraction list appears below and the Rydoo tile is marked ON on the Connectors page.
Security note: Your client ID and secret are stored encrypted in VAT4U's database. The secret is never displayed back to you. If you ever need to change credentials, use Show connection details → Edit and re-enter both values.
Deactivating deletes the stored credentials and stops all extractions, including scheduled ones. Expenses you already imported from Rydoo stay in VAT4U untouched.
Step 4 — Run an extraction on demand
An extraction is one request for a defined slice of your Rydoo data. Click Start on-demand extraction and fill in:
Extraction name
Free text, and worth taking seriously — months later the name is how you and your colleagues will recognise what an extraction covered. "Q1 2026 exported expenses" always beats "test 3".
Export date range
Both dates are mandatory. The range is matched against the date each expense was exported in Rydoo — not the receipt date and not the submission date. An expense from January that was only exported in March is picked up by a March extraction.
How the range is read: the start date is included and the end date is excluded. To cover the whole of March, set 01.03. to 01.04. Consecutive ranges therefore sit end-to-start with no gap and no overlap.
Deduplicate expenses
Ticked by default. See Understanding deduplication below — leave it on unless you have a specific reason not to.
While it runs
Extractions run in the background, so you can leave the page. The row moves through PROCESSING to FINISHED — or FAILED if Rydoo could not be reached. Use Refresh to update the list, or the Report → Running Jobs Report page for a system-wide view.
Only the latest version of each expense is extracted. Large periods are fine: the extraction pages through Rydoo's results until it has everything in the range.
What is in the extracted file
A semicolon-separated CSV, one row per expense, with these columns:
expenseId · refId · type · expenseStatus · expenseDate · exportedAt · merchant · merchantEnterpriseNumber · comment · amount · netAmount · taxAmount · taxRate · taxCode · currency · countryCode · country · region · city · isReimbursable · isInvoice · invoiceNumber · categoryName · categoryAccountingCode · branchName · branchEnterpriseNumber · groupName · projectName · tripName · userFirstName · userLastName · userEmail · paymentMethod · customFields · attachments · parentExpenseId · hasChildren
The attachments column holds links to the receipt image and any additional documents on the expense. Those links are what the import uses to pull the actual invoice files across.
On a finished row, More offers two actions: Download file (inspect the CSV yourself) and Import file (start the import wizard).
Understanding deduplication
Overlapping extractions are normal. You re-run one because the first attempt used the wrong dates, a scheduled extraction covers a period you already pulled manually, or two colleagues extract the same quarter. Import the same expense twice and you get two expenses in VAT4U — with double-counted VAT.
So each extraction can leave out expenses that were already extracted for this company. The option "Yes. Skip expenses already extracted" is enabled by default on both on-demand and scheduled extractions.
What it compares
Every Rydoo expense carries an expense ID. VAT4U remembers the IDs of all expenses it has written to an extraction file for your company, and checks each new batch against that history:
An expense whose ID was already extracted for this company is left out of the file, no matter which extraction pulled it or who started it
The history is per company — one customer's expenses can never suppress another's
If the same expense appears twice inside a single batch, the repeat is always dropped, even with the option switched off. Writing the identical row twice is never useful
An expense that arrives without a usable ID is always kept. It cannot be recognised as a duplicate, and silently dropping it would lose data
Re-running an extraction does not treat its own previous result as a duplicate, so a re-run gives you the complete file for that period again
How the result is reported
The finished row shows the number of expenses written to the file, plus an orange "N duplicate(s) skipped" tag when anything was left out (hover it for the detail). If the option was switched off, the row says "Deduplication off" so nobody mistakes a duplicate-free file for a deduplicated one.
Worth knowing: deduplication tracks what was extracted, not what was imported. If you extract a period and never import the file, those expenses still count as already extracted and the next extraction will skip them. To get them back, re-run that same extraction, or start a new one with the option switched off and drop the rows you do not need.
Step 5 — Import the expenses into VAT4U
On a finished extraction, open More → Import file. VAT4U creates an import from the extracted file and opens the import wizard with the data source already set to Rydoo. Work through the steps:
Start — confirm the import flow. The file is already attached; nothing to upload
Fields — map the file's columns to VAT4U expense fields. If a default Rydoo field mapping is configured for your account this is pre-filled and you only check it. Otherwise map it once and save the mapping, so the next Rydoo import starts from it
Documents — point VAT4U at the
attachmentscolumn. The receipts are then fetched from Rydoo automatically and attached to the matching expenses; nobody downloads and re-uploads anythingCompanies — map Rydoo branches, groups or entities to the legal entities in VAT4U. This decides which entity claims the VAT, so it is the step to get right
Categories — map Rydoo expense categories to VAT4U categories. Category drives the recoverability rules, so a hotel booked as "Other" will be assessed as "Other"
Data cleaning — tick the boxes for actions you want VAT4U to take during or after the import.
Import — finalise. The expenses are created, receipts are fetched, and the usual VAT4U processing takes over: data extraction from the receipts, compliance checks and VAT assessment
Mappings are saved per company, so the first Rydoo import takes real attention and later ones are mostly confirmation.
Keeping extractions and imports linked
The Linked imports column connects an extraction to the import(s) it produced. Importing from the extraction row links them for you; the edit icon lets you link or correct them by hand. It is the fastest way to answer "was this extraction ever imported, and where did it end up?" — click an import ID to jump straight to its expenses.
Step 6 — Schedule automatic extractions (optional)
Once your date ranges become routine, let VAT4U pull them. Click Schedule periodic extractions and set:
Setting | What it does |
Extraction name prefix | Each run appends its own date range, giving names like "Rydoo monthly — 01.03.2026 to 01.04.2026" |
Frequency | Every month, quarter or year |
Day | Which day of the period the extraction starts, from the 1st to the 28th |
Extraction period based on | Exported date — the date the expense was exported in Rydoo |
Deduplicate expenses | Same option as an on-demand extraction, and the same recommendation: leave it on |
The panel shows the next scheduled date before you confirm. Each run covers the period that just ended, so a monthly schedule set to day 5 pulls the previous month. Leave a few days' margin so the period's expenses are actually exported in Rydoo by the time VAT4U asks for them.
You receive an email when a scheduled extraction starts and another when it finishes. A schedule belongs to the user who set it — its extractions are recorded under their name. Edit it from the same button, or end it with Cancel schedule.
Scheduled extractions still need to be imported. VAT4U prepares the file and waits for you.
Scheduled runs are exactly where accidental overlap with manual extractions happens, which is why deduplication is on by default.
Understanding the extraction table
Column | Meaning |
Id | Internal extraction ID |
Extraction name | The name you gave the extraction (or the generated name for scheduled runs) |
Extraction date | When the extraction was triggered |
Started by | The VAT4U user who triggered it, or the schedule owner for scheduled runs |
Status |
|
Expenses | How many expenses were written to the file, plus a tag for any skipped as duplicates |
Linked imports | Import sessions linked to this extraction (click the edit icon to link or update) |
Retrieval parameters | Click the info icon to see the date range and options used |
Options | On a finished extraction: Download file and Import file |
Troubleshooting
The connection test fails
Re-enter the client ID and secret — a truncated paste or a trailing space is the most common cause. If they are correct, the credentials are most likely missing one of the five permissions in Step 2.
If the credentials are right and complete and it still fails, ask Rydoo to confirm API access is enabled for your subscription.
The extraction finished but found no expenses
Check the date range in the row's Retrieval parameters. The filter is the export date in Rydoo, so expenses that exist but have not been exported yet will not appear — and the end date is excluded from the range.
If the range is right, verify in Rydoo that the expenses for that period were actually exported.
Fewer expenses than expected, with duplicates skipped
That is deduplication doing its job — those expenses were already written to an earlier extraction file. Hover the orange tag to see how many were left out.
If you need them again anyway, re-run that earlier extraction (a re-run never suppresses its own result), or start a new extraction with the deduplication option unticked.
The extraction shows FAILED
Run Retry connection to confirm the credentials still work — an expired or rotated Rydoo secret is the usual explanation — then start the extraction again. If the connection is healthy and the extraction keeps failing, contact VAT4U support with the extraction ID; the failure is logged against it and visible in the Running Jobs report.
Receipts are missing from imported expenses
Check the Documents step of that import: if the attachments column was not mapped, the expense data came across without the files. Also confirm the credentials carry receipts:read — without it the links in the file cannot be opened.
The same expense was imported twice
This happens when an extraction ran with deduplication off, or when the same extracted file was imported twice. Deduplication protects against re-extracting an expense, not against importing the same file twice — use the Linked imports column to see what a given extraction already produced.
VAT4U also flags duplicate expenses during processing, so the second copy can be excluded rather than claimed.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need API access on my Rydoo subscription? Yes. The connector talks to the Rydoo API, and API access is not included in every plan. If you cannot create API credentials, contact Rydoo — only they can enable it.
Can VAT4U change anything in Rydoo? No. The credentials are read-only and the connector only reads. Nothing in Rydoo is modified, approved, re-exported or deleted.
Why does the date filter use the export date rather than the expense date? Because export is the point at which an expense is finalised in Rydoo. Filtering on export date gives you contiguous, non-overlapping periods and guarantees you never pull an expense that is still being edited.
Can I use the same Rydoo credentials for several companies in VAT4U? Credentials are stored per VAT4U company. If a single Rydoo environment covers several VAT4U companies, activate the connector on each one — but be aware each company keeps its own deduplication history, so the same Rydoo expense could be extracted once per company.
Do I have to import every extraction? No, but be deliberate about it: an unimported extraction still counts as extracted for deduplication purposes.
Can I look at the data before importing it? Yes — More → Download file gives you the CSV. The import wizard also shows a full preview at the Data cleaning step, before anything is created.
What happens to my data if I deactivate the connector? Previously extracted and imported expenses remain in VAT4U untouched. Deactivating only removes the stored credentials and stops future extractions, including scheduled ones.
Is the connection secure? Yes. Communication with Rydoo uses TLS, and access tokens are short-lived and requested per operation. Your client ID and secret are encrypted in VAT4U's database and the secret is never displayed again after saving.