API what now?
API stands for Application Programming Interface, and it’s a way for your software to communicate with another system without either knowing how the other works behind the scenes. It makes doing business a lot easier, faster, and more reliable when someone doesn’t need to manually key in transaction data or copy and paste from one system to another.
For example, you can hook your online shop up to a credit card gateway’s API. When someone buys something, your website can send the details to the payment system, and find out straight away if the payment went through OK. You never need to store the customer’s credit card details, and then if it’s also connected to Xero via an API, the transaction can go straight into your accounting system without any need for human intervention.