Revolut Business and Swiss bookkeeping: the problem
More and more Swiss SMEs and freelancers run their business account with Revolut Business - cheap foreign currencies, fast cards, a modern app. But bookkeeping gets awkward: Revolut's own official integration list names only two accounting tools - Xero and FreeAgent. Both come from the UK and know neither the QR-bill nor the Swiss chart of accounts. For a Swiss business, that is no solution.
You may know the result: you export account statements by hand, type transactions in, or cobble together CSV imports. This is exactly where LumaBill's automatic Revolut sync comes in.
What is Revolut Business sync in LumaBill?
LumaBill connects directly to your Revolut Business account and pulls new transactions automatically - without you ever having to upload a file again. After a one-time OAuth connection, the whole chain runs by itself:
- New transactions are pulled roughly every 6 hours
- Duplicate bookings are automatically deduplicated
- Payments are matched to open invoices
- Matching transactions are booked as journal entries and reconciled
It is exactly the same pipeline as the CAMT.053 import - just without the manual upload. You no longer download anything and no longer upload anything. Your bank talks to your bookkeeping directly.
How the connection works, step by step
Setup is a one-time affair. After that you do not have to do anything.
- In your Revolut Business account you set up an API certificate once and authorize access (OAuth). This is a one-time technical step on Revolut's side.
- In LumaBill you open Bookkeeping > Banking > Banks and connect your Revolut account.
- You assign the Revolut account to a bank account from your chart of accounts (e.g. "1024 Revolut").
- Done. From now on LumaBill pulls in new transactions automatically.
From the moment the connection is active, reconciliation works in the background. You open your bookkeeping and the movements are already there - captured, matched and booked.
Requirements: CHF account and double-entry bookkeeping
For the sync to work, you need two things:
- Pro plan with double-entry bookkeeping. The automatic booking as a journal entry requires double-entry mode. In simple bookkeeping (the Swiss Milchbüechli method) the sync is not available.
- A CHF account (pocket). Today the CHF account of your Revolut Business account is synced.
The query is poll-based (roughly every 6 hours), not webhook-based. New transactions therefore do not appear in real time, but at the latest on the next polling cycle.
How are fees booked?
Revolut deducts a fee on some transactions. LumaBill automatically splits this fee into its own entry on account 6900 Bank charges (Bankspesen). That way the actual payment amount stays cleanly separated from the fees - exactly as Swiss bookkeeping requires. You do not have to add anything manually.
The Swiss advantage: what Xero and FreeAgent cannot do
This is where the real difference lies. Revolut officially points only to Xero and FreeAgent - two UK tools. Neither is built for Switzerland:
- No support for the QR-bill (the successor to the old payment slip)
- No Swiss chart of accounts (the SME chart of accounts)
- No QR-reference detection for automatic invoice matching
LumaBill is a Swiss bookkeeping tool. It offers automatic Revolut sync and full QR-bill support - including issuing QR-bills, which Revolut itself cannot generate at all. That makes the "Revolut Business + LumaBill" stack the first genuinely Swiss combination of a modern business account and local bookkeeping.
The outdated CHF account claim
A stubborn myth: many older articles claim Revolut Business offers no CHF account and no Swiss IBAN. That is no longer true. Revolut Business now provides a Swiss CHF IBAN.
This removes the last argument against a Swiss Revolut stack: you can let your clients pay into a CHF account with a CHF IBAN, issue QR-bills via LumaBill and have the incoming payment reconciled automatically. An end-to-end Swiss setup - with no media break.
Revolut sync or CAMT import: which fits me?
Both routes lead to the same goal; the difference is convenience:
| Revolut sync | CAMT import | |
|---|---|---|
| Bank | Revolut Business (CHF) | Any Swiss bank |
| File upload | No, fully automatic | Yes, upload XML manually |
| Update | Every 6 hours, automatic | On each upload |
| Matching | Automatic | Automatic after upload |
| Requirement | Pro + double-entry | Pro |
If you run your business account with Revolut Business, the automatic sync is the most convenient way. For all other Swiss banks, the CAMT.053 import remains the fastest way to get transactions into your bookkeeping without typing.
Conclusion: finally book Revolut Business the Swiss way
The automatic Revolut sync closes the gap that Revolut itself leaves open:
- Fully automatic - one OAuth connection, then no more uploads
- Every 6 hours new transactions are pulled, deduplicated, matched and booked
- Swiss bookkeeping with QR-bill and SME chart of accounts that Xero and FreeAgent do not offer
- Fees land cleanly separated on account 6900 Bank charges
- CHF IBAN included - the Revolut stack is now a full Swiss setup
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