Overview
Our integration with Xplan keeps your clients in sync with their critical financial information. Data flows in both directions (with some exceptions), reducing duplicate entries and making it easy to keep your business management and financial planning platforms up to date.
Please note: This functionality will not be available in your organization unless the integration is enabled. For information on enabling the integration, please consult our Enabling the Xplan Integration article.
Integration Summary
This integration creates a direct connection between client records in Practifi and Xplan, causing all related child records (People, Income, Expenses, Goals, and Assets & Liabilities) to be shared between the systems. This means that if a Practifi record is linked to a client indirectly, e.g., an asset linked to a service linked to a client, that record will not be included in the sync. Certain child records sync in only one direction, such as Portfolio, Policy, and Chatter Post records.
If your Practifi client includes primary and partner contacts, they will initially appear in Xplan as unlinked, which can cause data accuracy issues. For example, if income is owned by the partner, it will appear to be owned by the primary contact upon the initial sync. You can resolve this by linking the contacts in Xplan and then resyncing from Practifi.
Once clients are in sync, any updates to existing and newly created child records will be shared. Changes made in Practifi are sent to Xplan in real time. In contrast, changes made in Xplan are sent to Practifi either on a scheduled basis or via the Send to Xplan button, so your team can keep both systems aligned with the cadence that fits your workflow. Your administrator can configure the schedule of this sync.
Please note: All Feed posts, notes, and files can be synced manually using the Send to Xplan button, and Feed posts can also be synced via a scheduled job.
Using the Integration
Sending a Practifi Client to Xplan
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In the Client record in Practifi, click the caret next to the Change Owner button in the record side panel. From the drop-down menu that displays, select the Send to Xplan option.
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A pop-up message will display to confirm that you have sent the client to Xplan. Click Finish to close this message.
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This process can take some time (around two to five minutes), but it is complete when the client is visible in Xplan. You will also receive a new notification under the Notification bell in the upper right-hand corner of Practifi to confirm completion.
Sync Unlinked Xplan Clients
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In the App Launcher of Practifi in the upper left-hand corner, search for and select Integrations. The Integrations table will open, displaying a list of all clients in your Xplan instance.
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Click the Sync Xplan Clients button at the top of the list to fetch all unlinked clients from Xplan. Refresh the list after some time to see the new unlinked clients. Once unlinked clients are displayed on the table, they can be linked individually with existing Practifi clients, or a new client can be created for them in Practifi.
Linking an Existing Xplan Client
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In the App Launcher of Practifi in the upper left-hand corner, search for and select Integrations. The Integrations table will open, displaying a list of all clients in your Xplan instance.
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Locate the client in the table and click the caret in the far-right column. From the drop-down menu, select Edit.
- A pop-up will display all the fields in the record:
- To associate an Xplan client with an existing Practifi one, enter the client name in the Account (Practifi Client) field.
- To create the Xplan client as a new Practifi client, check the Create New Client box.
- To create the Xplan client under an existing Practifi one, select the Parent Account field and check the Create New Client box. This will create a new Client Entity record under an existing Practifi client.
- Once you've chosen which clients you wish to link and how to link them, click Save.
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Please note: If you populate both the Practifi Client and Create New Client fields for a single Xplan client, the sync will fail because it would mean the Xplan client is synced to two Practifi client records.
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Updating Records Manually
There are situations where you might want to force the systems to update each other, such as when changes have been made in Xplan that a Practifi user needs to see before the next scheduled job runs. To force a manual update:
- From Xplan to Practifi for a singly linked client: Go to the Client record and click the caret in the record side panel. From the drop-down menu, select the Sync from Xplan option. This process can take up to ten minutes to complete.
- From Practifi to Xplan for a singly linked client: Go to the Client record and click the caret in the record side panel. From the drop-down menu, select the Send to Xplan option. This process can take up to ten minutes to complete.
Practifi Usage Changes
To use the integration effectively, the way you use Practifi should closely match the way you use Xplan. These behavior changes are summarized in the following sections.
General
- Linking existing clients: When linking two existing clients from both systems, child records will be duplicated. For example, if the same Asset record has been created in both systems and then the client is linked, both Practifi and Xplan will have two copies of the same Asset record. To resolve this, delete the duplicate records from one system or the other before establishing the sync.
Data Management
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Asset and Liability record ownership
- Practifi allows you to allocate Asset and Liability record ownership to clients, people, or client entities. Xplan allows ownership to be allocated only to people and requires that ownership percentages between people add up to 100% in order to sync successfully. As such, you cannot assign ownership to clients or client entities for synced Asset and Liability records.
- Xplan currently does not accept updates to Asset or Liability records made from Practifi that only change ownership information. If you wish to update these values, either do so in Xplan or make the change alongside another change to the record, e.g., editing the Description field.
- Xplan requires that both primary and partner people have their ownership percentages defined, even if one of those is zero percent. Attempting to create an Asset or Liability record in Practifi without both people defined will cause a sync error. When viewing Asset and Liability records in a table in Practifi, the Ownership column will show a person's name even if their ownership percentage is zero.
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Expense frequencies: Xplan contains expense frequency values with no Practifi equivalent, which may cause some inaccuracies with summary calculations. We've addressed these by setting the expense frequencies as follows:
- Twice a month - Mapped to fortnightly
- Four weekly - Mapped to monthly
- Bi-Monthly - Unmapped; selecting this value will exclude the expense from calculations
Unsupported Behavior
- Deleting records: Record deletion events aren't synced between systems. If you need to delete a record, it must be deleted in both systems. Because Practifi syncs in real time and Xplan syncs on a schedule, deleting from Practifi first reduces the risk that the record will be resynced before it's deleted in Xplan.
- Record owners: Modifying user ownership of records that are already synced is currently not supported. Changes to record ownership will need to be carried out in both systems.
- Relationship types: Modifying relationship types on records that are already synced is currently not supported. Changes to a relation type must be made in both systems.
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Objective relations: Though syncing from Xplan to Practifi doesn't have any limitations, linking or unlinking the objective relations on objective records that are already synced during the sync from Practifi to Xplan is currently not supported. This is due to the patch on objective relations being unsupported by Xplan's APIs. The objective relation sync from Practifi to Xplan works only under the following conditions:
- When the client is new, the data has never been sent to Xplan before, and it is sent over using the Send to Xplan button.
- For a client who already exists in Xplan, the Push Objectives trigger can be disabled in the custom settings. After creating a new objective and objective relations, the trigger can be enabled to try to send to Xplan again via this manual push.
Ownership Tracking
With the Alicante Bouschet release, we made several improvements to how Practifi synchronizes with Xplan, focusing on better data accuracy and more flexible ownership tracking. These changes help ensure that data remains properly synchronized and provide greater visibility into ownership information, supporting more accurate household-level reporting for your clients.
Superannuation
The owner of each superannuation account can now be viewed and managed directly in Practifi. Previously, all synchronized superannuation records defaulted to 100% ownership without indicating whether they belonged to the Primary Member or the Partner/Spouse, making it difficult to accurately track primary vs. spouse superannuation holdings.
A new Related Contact field (practifi__Related_Contact__c) has been added to the Asset/Liability object to capture ownership information during the Xplan synchronization. Permission sets have been updated to provide appropriate access to this field. Users can update this information through their customized user interface to reflect the correct owner, providing clearer reporting and more accurate financial pictures for each individual.
Retirement Income
Similar to superannuation, ownership can now be tracked for each retirement income stream. Previously, retirement income ownership wasn't captured during the Xplan synchronization. This enhancement provides the same level of ownership visibility for retirement income as is now available for superannuation.
A new Related Contact field (practifi__Related_Contact__c) has been added to the Retirement Income object. During the sync, this field is automatically populated with the Primary Member information. Permission sets have been updated to ensure users have appropriate access to view and manage this ownership data.
This allows accurate assignment of retirement income to the correct household member and maintains proper records for financial planning purposes.
Partner Retirement Income
Retirement income synchronization has been expanded to include Partner records, not just Primary Clients.
Previously, retirement income data flowed only for the primary member of a household. Now, when a Partner/Spouse has their own retirement income in Xplan, that information will also synchronize to Practifi, giving you a complete view of household retirement income.
When synchronizing from Xplan, the system checks whether a Partner ID exists on the Contact record and retrieves the corresponding retirement income data.
When pushing updates back to Xplan, the system checks the Related Contact field on the retirement income record:
- If the Related Contact is blank or matches the Primary Member, the data is pushed using the primary member's ID.
- If the Related Contact is the Partner, the data is pushed using the partner ID.
This ensures complete visibility into household retirement income in Practifi and maintains accurate ownership when syncing back to Xplan.
Field Mapping
Below is a breakdown of how information is shared between Practifi and Xplan. Information is either shared in real time or manually and scheduled.
- Real-time: The sync of this information between the systems happens automatically upon the creation of the record or through updating the mapped fields on the record.
- Manually and scheduled: The sync of this information from Xplan to Practifi or from Practifi to Xplan can be done either by manual intervention by clicking the Sync from Xplan or Send to Xplan button, respectively. You can also send the information via a nightly feed, which requires Practifi to intervene and deploy it in your organization.
| Practifi | Sync Type | Xplan |
| Client (Household, Organization with the type of Trust, Company, or Superfund) | Real-time Manually and scheduled |
Client |
| Primary Contact | Client | |
| Partner Contact | Partner | |
| Dependent (Member) | Dependent | |
| Goal | Goal | |
| Income | Income | |
| Expense | Expense | |
| Asset (excluding Investments) | Asset | |
| Liability | Liability | |
| Objective | Objective | |
| Retirement Income | Retirement Income | |
| Feed Post (Only related to Client, Primary, and Partner contact, includes attachments) | Manually and scheduled | Document Note |
| Notes (Only related to Client, Primary, and Partner contact) | ||
| Attachments (Only related to Client, Primary, and Partner contact) | ||
| Activities (Tasks & Events) | Real-time | |
| Investment Asset (including Holdings) | Manually and scheduled | Portfolio (Account and Holdings) |
| Asset (Superannuation) | ||
| Insurance |
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