The Lockstep Platform provides a convenient way to build products for the financial technology industry. Using the Lockstep Platform, your developers can create powerful applications that work across many different accounting systems, all while working with a simple REST API.

Here's how to get started.

Take a tour of the API

Take a quick tour of the Lockstep Platform API with this short demo on YouTube. Once you're done, you can create a Free Developer Account or download Lockstep SDKs in your favorite programming language.

Create a free developer account and try the API

Let's begin by creating a free developer account on the sandbox environment. You can begin by visiting the Provision Free Developer Account page to create an API key. This API key will allow you to work with example data on the Sandbox environment. Because this account is on the "sandbox" environment, you can experiment with it without affecting your production data.

Once you have created a developer account, you should try using one of the Lockstep SDKs to add to your project. Lockstep provides software developer kits for Python, Java, JavaScript, C#, and Ruby. The Lockstep SDK contains all the developer documentation as docstrings so that compatible IDEs will show context-sensitive help as you work.

Check out your API data in Lockstep Inbox

Lockstep also provides Lockstep Inbox, a free online service that helps you visualize financial data and keep track of your accounting team's work. Lockstep Inbox can link with your financial system and your email provider and track inquiries about AP and AR actions for your team. Contact us at [email protected]

Once you have created an Inbox account, you can create an API Key for your account using this developer site. That API key will connect to the "production" environment for the Platform API and will allow you to work with your company's financial data.

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Use the Sandbox environment

Lockstep provides two environments for customers: "Sandbox" and "Production". When developing new software, make sure to write and test all code using the "Sandbox" environment. Keep your API Keys separate and secure!

Check out the example applications for ideas

Lockstep provides example applications showing many different ways to use the Lockstep Platform SDK to build features on top of your accounting or financial system's data.

Examples of apps might include the following:

• A credit score company might create an app to analyze new customers as they are added to the platform.
• A lending company might analyze new invoices and offer factorization services.
• A consulting company might create a connector to a new accounting system.

Developers of these apps can construct them as hooks that are triggered for specific events. When a user of the Lockstep Platform clicks the button "Sync with my ERP system," Lockstep will contact your app's webhook URL and request that you perform the requested action. You can then deliver the resulting data back to Lockstep.

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Revenue Applications

Lockstep app developers can earn revenue for publishing apps on the Lockstep App Marketplace. For more information, contact Lockstep.

Want to create a standalone app?

You can use the Lockstep Platform to build an app that has its own user interface. Apps such as this are not visible on the Lockstep Marketplace unless you wish them to be discoverable.

For developers constructing a standalone app, Lockstep provides a custom onboarding experience:

• A customer visits your website and begins the signup process.
• You call a Lockstep REST API to initiate an onboarding session, and you receive back a session ID.
• You redirect your guest to the Lockstep onboarding page, passing in the session ID.
• When the guest completes the Lockstep onboarding experience, we return back to your URL and deliver you an API key that can be used to communicate with this customer's data.

That's all there is! You can then make use of the Lockstep API to interact with the customer's data and to provide services.