QuickBooks Sync FAQ

Frequently asked questions about the BuildBook > QuickBooks sync

Updated this week

What is synced from BuildBook to QBO from BuildBook?

  • Customers and subcustomers

  • Vendors

  • Bills

  • Expenses

  • Invoices

What is NOT sent to QBO from BuildBook?

At this time, Bills, Expenses, and Invoices are pushed to QBO. Once the sync is active, certain edits made within Bills in BuildBook will not sync over, including adjustments to the Payment Amount or changing the Status from Paid to Unpaid.

The project Budget and anything outside of the Project Financials tab (Estimates, Files, Selections, Opportunities, etc.) do not push at this time.

What should I do to prepare for the integration?

There's no prep work required to turn QuickBooks Sync on. However, here are some steps you can take to make sure things work as expected:

  • Make sure the QuickBooks plan is Plus or Advanced

  • Set up cost codes for your team and make sure your bills, expenses, and invoices are sorted onto budget line items using cost codes, as this is how items push into QuickBooks

  • Make sure the items table is enabled on expenses in QuickBooks:

    • Open an expense

    • Go to the gear icon in the top right

    • Click "Show items table," if not already selected

    • Confirm that an Items table is visible under the categories table on all existing bills and expenses in QuickBooks online (repeat for Bills, if needed)

How does the QBO integration work?

Currently, Bills, Expenses, and Invoices are "pushed" from BuildBook to QuickBooks Online. Nothing is "pulled" from QBO to BuildBook. Learn more here.

What happens if I disconnect my account?

Any time your account is disconnected, all bills, expenses, and invoices across all projects will stop syncing. You will have to re-connect your account and turn on sync for any projects you'd like to re-sync.

If you've disconnected your account and re-connected it to the same company, all of your cost codes and sync connections will re-connect. This prevents duplicates when syncing.

If you've disconnected your account and connected it to a new QBO company at any point, the connection between your BuildBook data and QuickBooks data will be lost. The integration will behave like it did the very first time you connected, even if you go back to the original company after syncing to a different company. For this reason, we recommend selecting one company to sync your BuildBook instance to and never syncing to a different company (unless you're trying to start completely fresh).

How do vendors push to QBO?

Vendors push to QBO with bills and expenses. When a bill or expense is pushed with a vendor, that vendor will be either added to QBO (if it doesn't exist) or matched to an existing vendor (if the exact same vendor name already exists in QBO). Once a vendor is pushed via a bill or expense for the first time, any edits made to that vendor in BuildBook will automatically update in QBO.

Once I import my Cost Codes from BuildBook to QBO and sync, how do I sync newly created Cost Codes?

Any time a new cost code is added, you must return to your Accounting Settings page and choose "Export Unmatched Cost" to repeat the process of importing the new codes into QBO, returning to BuildBook, and Automatching the codes.

Archived cost codes cannot be matched and never (at this time) appear in the QBO syncing process.

  • Projects with archived cost codes must update those cost codes to active codes to sync with QBO (even if they were matched and synced previously)

What do I do if the integration isn't working properly?

  • Always start by checking the status log to find the status of a specific bill, expense or invoice.

  • If Bills or Expenses aren't pushing as expected, double-check that the imported services in QBO have both the "Buy" and "Sell" checkboxes selected

  • If Invoices aren't pushing, make sure

  • Other errors appear in the Error Log tab (Errors tab). Check this if any problems arise, and reference our Errors Help Doc

Who should I reach out to with questions about the integration?

Please feel free to chat with our support team via the ? icon in the upper right corner when logged into BuildBook with any questions or concerns you have about the QuickBooks Sync feature.


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