Connecting QuickBooks Online

Overview

If you use QuickBooks Online as your bookkeeping software, you'll be happy to know we have an integration between the two platforms! Once the integration is active, our system can automatically sync relevant contact, invoice, and payment information with QuickBooks.

If you are setting up QBO for the first time and want to make sure you are making the right choices for your business, please review our article about QuickBooks Online Best Practices.

Before making any major business decisions, please consult with your accountant or bookkeeper.

This article will review:

Connecting Your QuickBooks Account

To connect your serviceminder account to your QuickBooks Online account, go to Control Panel > Integrations > Accounting. Then click the Connect link listed in the QuickBooks Online section.

You will be presented with a QuickBooks Online login dialog. Uncheck any options that don't apply to you then Click the green button.

QuickBooks Payments is for those that use QuickBooks for payment processing ONLY. Most likely, you will want to uncheck that box.

After you enter in your credentials, you will be given a prompt to grant permission to serviceminder to access your QuickBooks Online account. Once this is completed, you'll be returned to serviceminder and your account will be connected to QuickBooks Online.

After connecting the sync, you will see the section appear under Control Panel > Integrations > Accounting tab. Additional settings are offered:

Push Customers Only: Selecting this option makes sure that leads and other users are not pushed into QB, which would clutter up your bookkeeping system. (Most Orgs choose to have this ON).

By default, serviceminder will automatically apply a Customer category to Contacts that are invoiced. However, there are settings at the Service-level that allow you to tell the system if when you want Contacts to be called Customers (though most owners leave this settings as default).

Add Contact ID to Name: This makes sure financial information doesn't get crossed between customers with the same name. (Most Orgs choose to have this OFF).
Import Payments: If you are using QBO payments “Swipe device” this allows for payments run on that device to sync back to SM. (Most Orgs choose to have this OFF).
Default Income Account: In QBO you set up Income Accounts for accounting purposes, choosing the default account in SM on this page means if you create a service or part that doesn’t exist in QBO, when the invoice syncs QBO will use that “default income account” to assign the funds in QBO. (Most Orgs choose to have this ON).

Any time you want to disconnect from QuickBooks Online, you can return to Control Panel > Integrations > Accounting and a disconnect link will be available.

As part of QuickBooks security and our own security compliance, serviceminder has NO visibility into your QuickBooks account.

When Do We Push Items to QuickBooks Online?

Anytime an invoice is generated (and approved), we publish that invoice to QuickBooks Online. If the customer doesn't exist in your QuickBooks Online account, we automatically push that customer info & any invoice to QuickBooks. Any services or parts that you add to serviceminder will be automatically added to your account when an invoice is pushed over. So don't worry if you don't see a part in QuickBooks Online yet if you haven't had an invoice that contained it.

Whenever a payment is recorded in serviceminder against an invoice, we'll push it over to QuickBooks. This includes write offs, credit memos, and refunds as well. You will still need to go into QuickBooks Online, periodically, to record actual bank deposits. Obviously, we can't automate this portion because we don't know the details of physical deposits. QuickBooks Online also doesn't have a mechanism that would let us generate the deposits.

There are two reports in serviceminder that relate to the QuickBooks Online sync:

Invoice reconciliation
Payment reconciliation

There is also a QuickBooks Errors snapshot that will tell you if something doesn't sync and the error reason.

Primarily the sync is only one way, from serviceminder to QuickBooks Online. The only exception to this is you can check the box on the integrations setup page that says "Import Payments". The primary reason for this is when a businesses is using QBO Payment Processing for credit cards. This "payment sync from QBO" makes it more convenient. (Buy why not user serviceminder|Pay instead?)

Classes

If configured, we can also push over accounting class information to both contacts and invoices. Note that QuickBooks Online must be configured to track classes and it must be configured to track "Per Transaction" and not "Per Transaction Row."

Accounting Classes can be configured in serviceminder via Control Panel > Integrations > Accounting, just above the QuickBooks section.

The Mappings tab allows you to assign accounting classes to contacts by Postal Code, or to assign a Default Accounting Class to all contacts within your organization. This is commonly used for locations that have more than one organization in serviceminder so that they can identify which organization the income came from in QuickBooks.

FAQS

How do we fix duplications or incorrect payments not transferring between serviceminder and QuickBooks?

serviceminder is a one-way sync to QuickBooks; meaning things done in serviceminder end up in QuickBooks but not everything done in QuickBooks syncs to SM.

In most cases, we do not recommend using the Import Payments option from QuickBooks integration. That is specifically for card swipe tool from QuickBooks ACH and this can lead to issues if owners do not understand exactly what it is for.

A payment made with that setting turned on for the card swipe tool will apply only if the invoice is already created in serviceminder. It is easy for CPAs or owners to be confused about how to apply those payments or link them within QuickBooks.

However, if you have direct payments into your bank account from your customers, then you may want to check that box since that means you don't have any actual payments you need to take and add to Invoices directly within SM.