Dext automation · runs weekly

Publish ready Dext items to your accounting software

Month-end means opening the Dext inbox, ticking every Ready item and publishing, while To review items wait for a fix.

Cotlet does it in your own Dext account with list_items, publish_items and archive_items, called by your AI agent, an n8n workflow or a script.

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Hosted · nothing to install or maintain

Can Dext do this on its own?

Dext publishes to connected accounting software from its web app, with the Admin role or publishing permission (checked 14 Oct 2026). No public API or Zapier action publishes an item. Nothing runs a publish on a schedule.

How you do it in Dext today

  1. Go to Costs or Sales and open the Inbox tab.
  2. Tick the checkboxes next to the Ready items; items in To review cannot be published.
  3. Select Publish in the toolbar and choose the Publish to destination; with Xero, also choose Publish as.
  4. Published items appear in the accounting software within a few seconds and a copy goes to the Archive tab.

How to publish ready Dext items to your accounting software

Prompt

Publish all Ready Dext Costs items for October to Xero as drafts, then list anything still in To review.
  1. 01

    Take only Ready

    list_items with status ready and your date range returns items that can be published. To review items are counted and left alone.

  2. 02

    Check the destination

    The agent reads publish_to on each item and stops if two destinations are mixed, so a batch never lands in the wrong ledger.

  3. 03

    Publish in one batch

    publish_items sends the chosen IDs. It records transactions in the ledger, so it asks for your OK by default.

  4. 04

    Report failures

    Items that fail show a publishing error in Dext. The agent lists them with the message and does not retry, because a second attempt can duplicate a transaction.

What you get back

Example data

Ready items in October: 41
Published to Xero as Draft: 40
Publishing error: 1 (Supplier not matched)
Still in To review: 5
Moved to Archive: 40

Other ways to ask

  • Publish only items under 200 USD and list the larger ones for me.
  • Publish Sales invoices for last week to QuickBooks and list the rest.
  • Show what would be published for October, but publish nothing.

What Dext allows, and what to know first

  • Dext publishing needs the Admin role or a publishing permission granted by an administrator.
  • Only items with the Ready status can be published, in bulk or one by one.
  • By default Dext moves an item to the Archive after publishing; this can be changed in Business settings, Automation.
  • Unarchiving a published item and clearing its publishing data lets it be published again, which may create a duplicate in the accounting software.

publish_items asks for your OK by default. To run it weekly without you, switch confirmation off for that tool in your dashboard.

Sources: Dext Help: Editing, publishing and exporting items · Dext Help: Moving items into or out of the Archive

Call publish_items from a script

curl

curl -X POST https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/dext/items/publish \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"item_ids":["it_7f3a10","it_7f3a11"],"publish_to":"Xero","publish_as":"draft"}'

Example response

{
  "published": [
    {
      "item_id": "it_7f3a11",
      "publish_to": "Xero",
      "publish_as": "draft"
    }
  ],
  "failed": [],
  "skipped": [
    {
      "item_id": "it_7f3a10",
      "reason": "missing category"
    }
  ]
}

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the call is dext_write → publish_items. Example data.

Schedule it in n8n, Make, Zapier or cron

Dext tools this automation uses

Cotlet Dext tools used to publish ready Dext items to your accounting software
Tool Parameters
list_items inbox, status, supplier, date_from, date_to, limit, cursor
publish_items item_ids, publish_to, publish_as
archive_items item_ids
All 10 Dext tools with descriptions

Frequently asked questions

Is it safe to connect Dext to Cotlet?

Yes. You sign in to Dext yourself, in your own Cloud Browser in the EU, and we never save your password. Your agents only get Dext once you enable it, every background request is listed, and the browser profile is stored encrypted with AES-256-GCM, the cipher 1Password uses for its vaults. The AI model never sees a login, posts and messages wait for your OK, and Disable for agents cuts access in one click. Independent scanners grade cotlet.dev A+ on Qualys SSL Labs, securityheaders.com and Mozilla Observatory; live results are on https://cotlet.dev/security.

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