QuickBooks integration: send your clients straight to QuickBooks Online

If you invoice from QuickBooks Online, you no longer need to type each new client in twice. With the new QuickBooks integration, The Site Book connects to QuickBooks on Pro and above: click Sync with QuickBooks on a project and its client lands in QuickBooks as a customer, ready for you to raise the invoice.

We built it because Xero was never the whole picture. Plenty of builders and their bookkeepers run their accounts on QuickBooks, and re-keying the same client name, email and phone number from your site paperwork into your accounts is exactly the double handling The Site Book is meant to remove.

What the QuickBooks integration does

From any project, one button sends the project's client to QuickBooks Online:

• A new client becomes a new QuickBooks customer, with the email address and phone number from the project.

• A client QuickBooks already knows is matched by name instead of being duplicated, and any missing email or phone is filled in.

• A customer your bookkeeper has renamed in QuickBooks is still found on the next sync, as long as the project's client has not changed.

It is an on-demand sync rather than a background one. You decide when a client goes across, which is usually the moment you are ready to invoice the job.

Your books stay yours

Accounts are not something a site tool should be careless with, so we kept the integration deliberately narrow:

• It never creates invoices. The Site Book adds or matches customers only. Pricing, invoices and payments stay in QuickBooks, where your bookkeeper controls them.

• It never clears anything. A sync only fills in an email or phone number QuickBooks does not already hold. If your bookkeeper has typed in a different contact, it stays.

• One company, one QuickBooks file. Each Site Book company links to exactly one QuickBooks company, chosen on Intuit's own sign-in screen, so a client can never land in the wrong set of books.

Only an owner or admin can connect QuickBooks, and disconnecting is one click in Settings → Integrations.

How to connect QuickBooks

1. In The Site Book, open Settings → Integrations and find QuickBooks under Accounting.

2. Click Connect QuickBooks, sign in to QuickBooks Online and choose the company you invoice from.

3. Open a project and click Sync with QuickBooks in the Export & share card.

4. Open Customers in QuickBooks: your client is there, ready to invoice.

How a client is matched, step by step

Duplicate customers are the thing bookkeepers dread most from any integration, so it is worth spelling out exactly what happens when you click Sync with QuickBooks.

The first time a project is synced, The Site Book looks in your QuickBooks company for an active customer whose display name is exactly the project's client name. If there is one, that customer is used. If there is not, a new customer is created with the client's name, email address and phone number. If the project has no client name yet, the project title is used instead.

The Site Book then remembers which customer the project went to. On every later sync of the same project, it goes straight back to that customer, even if your bookkeeper has since tidied up its name in QuickBooks. If you change the project's client to someone else entirely, the next sync treats them as a different client and finds or creates their own customer, so one client's record is never overwritten with another client's details.

Two projects for the same client end up on the same QuickBooks customer, which is what you want when you invoice a repeat customer for a second job.

Who can connect and who can sync

Connecting is an owner or admin job, because it links your company to a set of books. The sync then runs on that person's own QuickBooks connection, so the owner or admin who connected QuickBooks is the one who sends clients across from each project. Site supervisors, who work in the field, cannot sync to your accounts. If your plan changes or someone leaves the company, The Site Book checks again before every sync, so access always follows your current team.

A note on customer names

QuickBooks keeps names unique across customers, suppliers and employees, including ones that have been made inactive. If your client's name is already used by an inactive customer or by a supplier, the sync tells you so in plain English. Make the old customer active again so the sync can match it, or adjust the client name on the project, then sync again.

Xero or QuickBooks?

Use whichever your accounts already run on. The two integrations behave the same way: a project's client becomes a contact in Xero or a customer in QuickBooks, on demand, with the same permission and plan rules. Each Site Book company connects one set of books.

Which plans include it

QuickBooks is included on Pro and above, alongside Xero, Google Drive, Dropbox and Zapier. The integrations page has the full list, and the Help Centre guide walks through every step.