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freee Zapier integrationAutomate freee with Zapier.

The freee Zapier integration gives you 2 triggers and 7 actions, with no search. It watches settled income and overdue deals in your freee books, and it creates items, partners, sections, segments and tags for you. It runs on the free plan.

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Overview

What the freee Zapier integration really does

The freee Zapier integration links your freee account (cloud accounting and HR software built for small Japanese businesses) to Zapier, the tool that chains apps together. In practice, it notices two kinds of accounting events in freee and it fills freee's own reference lists for you.

Three things you get out of it. First, an overdue-deal alert: Unsettled Deal fires when a deal goes past its due date by the number of days you choose, so late payers surface without anyone scanning the ledger. Second, a cash-in signal: New Income picks up income that has just been settled, which is the moment most teams want to tell someone or log something. Third, clean reference data: the seven Create actions add items, partners, sections, segments and tags to the company you pick, so the lists your accountant relies on stay in step with the tools where work actually starts.

Now the honest part. Zapier does not read or edit existing deals here, it does not send invoices, and it cannot look anything up in freee: the app has no search step at all. Every action creates something new. If a Zap needs to check whether a partner already exists, freee will not answer that question through Zapier.

Both triggers work by polling, so nothing is instant. If you are weighing other platforms on that point, see our Make vs Zapier comparison.

Vocabulary

Zapier words in one minute

Seven words come back on every line of this page. Here they are in plain English.

Zap
Your automation on Zapier: one trigger, then one or more actions that run each time the trigger's event happens.
Trigger
The event in an app that starts the Zap. Once the Zap is switched on, Zapier waits for that event.
Action
What the Zap does after it starts: the step that writes, sends or moves something on your behalf.
Task
The unit Zapier bills: one action your Zap completes without error. Your plan's count is a count of those.
Polling vs instant
A polling trigger is checked on a timer for new items. An instant one is reported by the app itself, the moment it happens.
Filter
A step that lets the Zap carry on only when what arrived meets your condition, and stops it otherwise.
Connection
Your freee account linked to Zapier one time, then reused by every step of every Zap that talks to freee.
Cost

What a freee Zap actually costs

freee is not a premium app, so it works on the free plan. The bill is counted in tasks, and only some steps count.

  • Free plan100 tasks a month, unlimited Zaps
  • Steps on the free plan2: one trigger, one action
  • freee on the free planYes, it is not a premium app
  • Trigger checksFree, never counted as tasks

The trigger never costs a task, and neither do the checks Zapier runs to find new income or overdue deals, however often they happen. Each action that succeeds counts once; an action that fails is not billed. A Zap with three actions eats three times what a one-action Zap does. The free plan gives you 100 tasks a month and unlimited Zaps, but only two steps per Zap: one trigger, one action. Add a filter or a second action and the Zap becomes multi-step, which needs a paid plan.

Connect

Connect freee to Zapier in 3 steps

  1. 01

    Open the Apps page

    In your Zapier account, go to the Apps page and click + Add connection. A connection is your freee account linked once, then reused by every Zap you build on it.

  2. 02

    Find freee and start the link

    Type freee in the search box of the dialog, pick it, then click Add connection. You need an existing freee account; Zapier does not create one for you.

  3. 03

    Sign in and grant access

    Sign in to freee in the tab that opens and grant Zapier access to the account. If the books you want to automate belong to someone else, you also need read or write access on them.

First Zap

Your first freee Zap: chase deals that run late

GoalWhen a deal is still unsettled several days after its due date, open a follow-up task in your task tool and tell the team in chat.

  1. 01

    Build: pick the trigger

    In the editor, under Build, choose freee as the trigger app and Unsettled Deal as the event, then select the freee connection you made earlier.

  2. 02

    Set the delay

    Pick the Company, then type a number in Days Exceeded. Enter 3 and the trigger only reports deals that are 3 days past their due date.

  3. 03

    Test the trigger

    Run the test. Zapier brings back the three most recent matching items from your account, so you map the next steps on a real deal rather than a guess.

  4. 04

    Add the follow-up task

    Click the plus icon and add your task tool as the action app. Map what the trigger brought back into the task title, so whoever picks it up knows which deal to chase.

  5. 05

    Tell the team

    Add a second action in your team chat and post a short message about the same deal. This second action makes the Zap multi-step, so it needs a paid plan. Test each step once.

  6. 06

    Publish

    Click Publish to switch the Zap on. From then on it reacts only to deals that go overdue after that moment, never to older ones.

Triggers

The 2 freee triggers

2 events start a Zap when something happens in freee. Zapier checks for them at the interval your plan allows.

1

New Income

Polling trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when there are new settled income.”

This one reports income that has just been settled in freee, in the company you choose. It is your signal that money has actually landed, not just that an invoice exists.

How it fires
Zapier goes and looks at regular intervals, and how often depends on your plan: every 15 minutes on the free one.
When to use it
a design studio that wants a message in its team chat each time a client project is actually paid, not just invoiced.
Watch out
Company is required, so one Zap covers one company; a business that runs two freee companies needs two Zaps.
2

Unsettled Deal

Polling trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when an unsettled deal exceeds its due date.”

Here the Zap starts when a deal is still unpaid after its due date, once it passes the number of days you set. You decide how late is too late, and freee stays the source of truth.

How it fires
Zapier goes and looks at regular intervals, and how often depends on your plan: every 15 minutes on the free one.
When to use it
a wholesaler that only wants to hear about customers who are a week behind, not about every payment that slips by a day.
Watch out
Days Exceeded is required and takes a whole number; leave it empty and the trigger cannot be saved.
Actions

The 7 freee actions

freee gives you 7 actions. For each one: what it does for you, when to reach for it, and what to watch out for.

1

Create Item

Action

In Zapier“Creates a new Item.”

Puts a new item into freee's item list for a given company, with the name you map into Item Name.

When to use it
your product catalog grows somewhere else and the accountant wants the same items available in freee when booking sales.
Watch out
Company and Item Name are both required, so map a field that is never empty upstream.
2

Create Partner

Action

In Zapier“Creates a new partner.”

Adds a new partner to the company you pick, under the name you map into Partner Name.

When to use it
a new client signs in your sales tool and you want the partner ready in freee before the first invoice.
Watch out
the action always creates; freee has no search in Zapier, so nothing checks first whether that partner is already there.
3

Create Section

Action

In Zapier“Creates a new Section.”

Opens a new section in the freee company you pick, named after whatever you map into Section Name.

When to use it
a growing agency adds a team in its HR tool and wants the matching section to exist in the books straight away.
Watch out
Section Name is required; a blank value stops the action and nothing is billed for it.
4

Create Segment1

Action

In Zapier“Creates a new Segment1.”

Adds an entry to Segment1, the first of the three segment lists freee exposes to Zapier, in the company you choose.

When to use it
every new project created in your project tool becomes a segment, so costs can be split by project later.
Watch out
it only takes a Company and a Segment Name; anything richer has to be done in freee itself.
5

Create Segment2

Action

In Zapier“Creates a new Segment2.”

Same job on the second segment list, so you can keep entries apart from those you send to Segment1.

When to use it
Segment1 holds projects and Segment2 holds sales regions, each fed by its own Zap.
Watch out
the three segment actions look alike in the editor; pick the wrong one and the entry lands in the wrong list.
6

Create Segment3

Action

In Zapier“Creates a new Segment3.”

Fills the third and last segment list, for anything that belongs neither in Segment1 nor in Segment2.

When to use it
a retailer tracks campaigns on Segment3 and creates one entry each time marketing launches a new one.
Watch out
like the other two, it needs a Segment Name on every run, so check that the source field is always filled.
7

Create Tag

Action

In Zapier“Creates a new Tag.”

Creates a new tag in the chosen company, ready to be put on entries when someone books them.

When to use it
a new client project opens in your project tool and you want a tag with its name ready in freee before the first entry is booked.
Watch out
Tag Name is required, and the action only creates the tag; putting it on an entry still happens in freee.
When it breaks

When a freee Zap breaks

Zapier attaches no help article to freee, so the cases below are the general limits that hit any Zap built on it.

None of them shows up as an error message at first. The Zap simply does less, or more, than you expected. If a run fails and you cannot see why, our Zapier troubleshooting page is the next stop.

  • Old deals are never picked up

    A Zap only reacts to what happens after you publish it. Deals already overdue on that day stay invisible to it; moving the backlog is a separate job.

  • A Zap that feeds its own trigger

    When a Zap writes into the very place its trigger watches, it sets itself off again and again and burns through your task count fast.

  • A bulk import gets held back

    If the trigger suddenly returns a huge batch, after a migration for instance, Zapier's flood protection can hold those items back.

  • The same item never fires twice

    Zapier keeps track of what it has already seen on a polling trigger, so the same settled income or overdue deal does not start the Zap a second time.
Need help

Need help automating freee with Zapier?

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FAQ

freee Zapier integration: your questions

01Is the freee Zapier integration free?
Yes, freee is not a premium app, so it works on Zapier's free plan. That plan gives you 100 tasks a month and as many Zaps as you like, with one catch: each Zap is limited to two steps, one trigger and one action. As soon as you add a filter or a second action, the Zap becomes multi-step and you need a paid plan. Checks for new income or overdue deals never count toward the 100 tasks; only actions that succeed are billed.
02How many tasks does a freee Zap use?
One task per action that succeeds, and nothing else. The trigger is free, and so are all the checks Zapier runs on freee to look for new items, however often they happen. A Zap that posts one chat message per overdue deal uses one task per deal. Add a second action, such as a follow-up task, and it uses two. An action that fails, for example because Tag Name was empty, is not counted against your plan.
03Does freee send events to Zapier in real time?
No. Both freee triggers, New Income and Unsettled Deal, are polling triggers: Zapier asks freee for new items on a timer. On the free plan that check runs every 15 minutes. On Professional it is every 2 minutes, and on Team and Enterprise every minute. The type comes from freee's own API, so it cannot be switched to instant from the editor. Paid plans can also run a check by hand from the editor.
04What does it take to connect freee to Zapier?
An existing freee account, plus access to the company you want to automate. The connection itself takes three moves: open the Apps page in Zapier, click + Add connection and pick freee, then sign in to freee in the new tab and grant access. Every freee trigger and action then asks for a Company, so the account you connect must be able to see that company, with read or write access if it belongs to someone else.
05Why does the Unsettled Deal trigger ask for a number of days?
Because it does not fire on every unpaid deal, only on deals that have passed their due date by the number of days you enter in Days Exceeded. That field is required and takes a whole number. Enter 3 and you hear about deals three days late; enter a bigger number and you only see the serious cases. Pick it with your bookkeeper, since it decides how many tasks the Zap will use downstream.
06What if the freee operation you need is not available?
Then Zapier cannot do it with freee today. The integration offers two triggers and seven actions, all of which create something: items, partners, sections, three segment lists and tags. There is no search and no update of an existing deal or invoice. If your workflow depends on one of those, the realistic options are to adjust the process around what exists or to look at another automation platform for that part.
07Zapier, Make or n8n for freee?
It depends on your criteria, not on a single winner. On Zapier, freee works from the free plan, with two polling triggers, seven actions that all create something, no search, two steps per Zap and a check every 15 minutes. If those operations cover your process, Zapier is enough. If your process needs to read or update existing deals, check what the Make or n8n connector for freee offers before choosing.
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