Tally for Ramp
Ramp transactions, coded and synced — without the busy work.
Tally reads card transactions, drafts bills, updates memos, and flags items as ready-to-sync. Direct bill creation that bypasses draft is hard-blocked. Tally cannot move money or change card limits.
What Tally does with Ramp
Tally connects to Ramp to automate the data flow into your accounting stack — with explicit safety rules at every step.
Card transaction reading & memos
Reads every card transaction with merchant, amount, user, department, and current GL coding. Updates transaction memos to capture context for the close. Memo writes are the only transaction field Tally can touch.
Bill draft creation & attachment
Drafts bills with vendor, line items, and GL coding pre-filled. Uploads invoice PDFs as attachments. Drafts stay in DRAFT status until a Ramp user marks them Reviewed in the Ramp UI.
Reimbursement & receipt visibility
Reads reimbursements, receipts, and statements. Reimbursement coding cannot be edited via API (Ramp blocks PATCH on reimbursements), but Tally surfaces miscoded items for human review.
Ready-to-sync flagging
Once a batch of transactions, bills, or reimbursements is reviewed, Tally flags them as ready-to-sync to QuickBooks. Tally's QBO integration then handles the actual posting.
Vendor & GL account lookup
Reads accounting vendors (synced to QBO), bill-pay vendors, GL accounts, custom fields, departments, locations, and entities. Used for accurate coding suggestions.
Audit log access
Reads the Ramp audit log so a Ballast accountant can trace every change to a transaction or bill — by Ballast staff, by Ramp users, or by Ramp's automation.
How it works
Setup is straightforward and auditable. No copy-pasted CSVs, no shared logins.
Authorize Tally in Ramp
A Ballast accountant initiates the connection. Authorization happens through Ramp's standard OAuth or API-key flow with the minimum required scopes.
Credentials encrypted at rest
Tokens are immediately encrypted with AES-256-GCM and stored in Tally's PostgreSQL database. Plaintext credentials never touch logs or error reports.
Tally pulls and normalizes data
Tally fetches data from Ramp on a schedule, normalizes it, and ties it back to the corresponding records in QuickBooks Online.
Your accountant takes it from there
A Ballast accountant reviews exceptions, posts entries, and closes the books. You get monthly financials without lifting a finger.
Availability
This integration is provided to Ballast Consulting Group's accounting clients at no additional charge as part of their engagement. There is no per-seat fee, per-API-call fee, or per-integration fee billed to the client. The cost is included in your accounting fee.
Tally isn't sold separately. Access requires an active engagement with Ballast Consulting Group as your finance and accounting department. If you're interested in becoming a Ballast client, please reach out.
Security & compliance
Every Tally integration follows the same safety pattern. Here is how the Ramp integration specifically is locked down.
Single connection, narrow scope
Tally uses a single Client Credentials grant with Ramp — not OAuth-per-user. The connection has scopes for reads, bill drafts, transaction memos, and ready-to-sync flags. Nothing else.
Direct bill creation hard-blocked
POST /developer/v1/bills (which creates OPEN-status bills bypassing draft) is hard-blocked at the application layer. Ballast learned this lesson the hard way: an OPEN bill on an auto-pay vendor can trigger ACH payment immediately. Tally only creates DRAFT bills.
Method allowlist
Only POST /bills/drafts, PATCH /bills/drafts/{id}, POST /accounting/ready-to-sync, and POST /memos/{txn_id} are permitted writes. All other methods are GET-only. Anything else is rejected before transmission.
Memos auto-tagged
Every memo Tally writes has [Drafted by Ballast-Tally] appended automatically. The tag is added by the tool layer; agents cannot suppress it.
Encryption at rest
Ramp access tokens are encrypted using AES-256-GCM. Stored in the per-client config row in Tally's PostgreSQL database.
No card-program mutations
Tally cannot create, modify, or delete cards, card programs, or spend limits. Tally cannot change user roles or permissions in Ramp.
Frequently asked questions
Can Tally categorize my Ramp card transactions automatically?
Tally cannot edit transaction-level coding via the Ramp API — Ramp blocks PATCH on transactions. The only field Tally can update on a transaction is the memo. Card-transaction coding (vendor / GL / class) must be done in the Ramp UI or via Ramp's rules engine.
Can Tally pay bills?
No. Tally cannot move money on Ramp. The only writes Tally can perform are: drafting bills (which then need human approval in Ramp before payment), updating memos, and flagging batches as ready-to-sync.
Why are bill amounts in cents?
Ramp's bill API expects amounts in minor units (cents) — not dollars. Tally handles the conversion, but you'll see cents in the API documentation.
Why are there two vendor lists in Ramp?
Ramp has two namespaces: /accounting/vendors (synced to QuickBooks) and /vendors (Ramp bill-pay vendors). Tally's bill drafts use the bill-pay vendor UUID. The accounting-vendor list is read-only and reflects QBO.
How are bill drafts approved?
Ramp's API has no verb to advance a draft past DRAFT status. A Ramp user must mark each draft as Reviewed in the Ramp UI. This is by Ramp's design — not a Tally limitation.
Talk to Ballast about your books
Tally's Ramp integration comes at no additional charge when Ballast runs finance and accounting for you. If you need a team that actually understands the systems your business runs on, get in touch.