Connecting QuickBooks Online to Buildxact means you enter your expenses and income once, saving you time and money. This article covers how data flows between the two, how to connect, and how to set up syncing in each direction. It's written for QuickBooks Online in North America, and the same process applies to UK users.
Watch the video below to see this in action, or continue reading for step-by-step details.
How data flows between Buildxact and QuickBooks
Buildxact sends purchases (expenses) and customer invoices (income) to QuickBooks. QuickBooks then connects with your bank, so you can match payments and reconcile.
Customer invoices
When you mark an invoice as Invoiced in Buildxact, it waits with any other items ready to go to QuickBooks. Emailing or sharing an invoice marks it as invoiced automatically. When you click Sync, it lands in QuickBooks as an invoice. When your client pays, the payment shows in your bank and you can match it against the invoice in QuickBooks.
Take card payments through QuickBooks? Buildxact doesn't have an online payment gateway. Instead, Buildxact invoices have a text field at the bottom where you can add payment instructions, such as who to make cheques payable to or that you accept e-transfer. If you want clients to pay online or by card, mark the invoice as invoiced in Buildxact, sync it, then issue it to your client from QuickBooks.
Purchases
For purchases, you choose which direction the data flows:
Buildxact to QuickBooks: purchase orders you receive in Buildxact are sent to QuickBooks as bills. You can then pay them, or match them against your bank feed if you've already paid, for example by credit card.
QuickBooks to Buildxact: bills and expenses entered in QuickBooks come into Buildxact, where you choose which job and cost category each one belongs to.
Only purchase orders sync to QuickBooks, not work orders. This is on purpose, so internal work costs can go on work orders without ending up in QuickBooks.
Which direction is better? If bills already get into QuickBooks another way, for example through an automated app, by emailing them to QuickBooks, or because your accountant enters them, pull them from QuickBooks into Buildxact. If you enter purchases in Buildxact first, send them from Buildxact to QuickBooks.
Before you start
Check your QuickBooks version
Buildxact connects with the online versions of QuickBooks, not the desktop versions. It works with all online versions except Simple Start.
Set up your tax
If you're in the US, Canada or the UK, check and update your tax settings in Buildxact before you connect. This keeps Buildxact and QuickBooks in step, so both give the same result when they calculate tax.
Connect Buildxact to QuickBooks
In the left-hand menu, click Integrations.
In the Integrations sub-menu, click Application Integrations.
Click Connect next to QuickBooks.
If the QuickBooks login page opens, enter your QuickBooks login details. If you're already logged in to QuickBooks, this step is skipped.
If you're asked to select your business, make sure you pick the right one.
Buildxact then opens the integration settings. There are two sections: Buildxact to QuickBooks and QuickBooks to Buildxact.
Need to change your settings later? Go to Integrations > Application Integrations and click the cog icon next to QuickBooks.
Buildxact to QuickBooks settings
What to sync
Received purchase orders: send your purchases to QuickBooks as bills.
Invoiced job invoices: send your customer invoices to QuickBooks.
Sync item date
This sets how far back Buildxact looks for items to sync.
Been using Buildxact for a while? Set it to the date you connect, so old items don't flood into QuickBooks.
Been using QuickBooks for a while? Pick a changeover date, such as the end of the month, when you'll stop entering items in QuickBooks yourself. You can set a future date, and nothing syncs until it arrives.
Expense accounts
These are only needed if you sync purchase orders. When you untick purchase orders, the required markers disappear.
Buildxact checks whether the contact on the purchase order is in your Suppliers or Contractors group, then sends the bill to the matching account. Choose an account from your QuickBooks chart of accounts for each, for example Supplies and Subcontractors.
Tax types
The tax lists show the tax rates set up in your QuickBooks. For example, a Canadian account in British Columbia shows GST and PST, while a US account in Austin, Texas shows a rate like 8.25%.
For items with tax, choose the matching tax rate.
For items without tax, choose a 0%, exempt or no-tax code.
Tax lists empty? In QuickBooks, go to Sales tax (in some versions it's just Taxes). If you see a prompt to turn on automated sales tax, complete that step first. This makes your tax rates available to Buildxact.
Income account
Choose the QuickBooks account your customer invoices go to, then set the tax types the same way as for expenses.
Added a new account in QuickBooks? Buildxact refreshes your account and tax lists every time you sync. A new account shows here after your next sync, or after you disconnect and reconnect in Integrations > Application Integrations.
Click Save when you're done.
Sync with QuickBooks
Get items ready to sync
Purchase orders: mark the order Received or Part Received. Enter the supplier's invoice or receipt number. If it's very long, the last four digits are usually enough. If the number has been used before, Buildxact warns you so you can check you haven't entered it twice, but it still lets you save.
Customer invoices: mark the invoice Invoiced, or email or share it.
The Integrations menu item shows an orange number with the count of items waiting to sync.
How to sync
Go to Integrations > Application Integrations. While you're connected to QuickBooks, you'll see To Sync, which lists the items about to be sent, and Sync Log below it.
Click Sync.
A message says the sync can take up to 5 minutes, but it rarely does unless you're syncing hundreds of items. You can leave the page and come back.
When it's finished, you'll see whether the sync was successful. If it failed, an exclamation mark shows next to the Integrations count.
Check the Sync Log to see what was sent and any errors. To see older syncs, click View Log.
Exclude or resync items
To stop an item syncing, click Exclude:
Purchase orders: open the purchase order, scroll down to the Invoices/Receipts section and select the invoice or receipt. Then click Exclude.
Customer invoices: open the invoice and click Exclude.
If you change your mind, you can unblock it. After an item syncs, the button changes to Resync. Use this if you need to send it again, for example if it was deleted in QuickBooks. Buildxact keeps a record of everything it syncs so it doesn't send things twice by accident.
Contacts
Each time you sync, Buildxact checks whether the supplier or client already exists in QuickBooks. If they don't, Buildxact creates them for you. If you've used QuickBooks for years and you're new to Buildxact, consider bulk importing your contacts into Buildxact first. Click Need help at the bottom right of the main menu and search for importing contacts.
What the data looks like in QuickBooks
Purchase orders become bills
Go to Expenses in QuickBooks and look under Bills. Buildxact always creates a bill, not an expense, because it doesn't assume the purchase has been paid. You can then pay it or match it to your bank.
Buildxact sends the contact, bill date, bill number, account and tax.
QuickBooks calculates the due date from the payment terms on the contact. If there are no terms, it's due on receipt, so the due date matches the bill date.
Customer invoices become invoices
Go to Sales in QuickBooks and look under Invoices (or All sales). Buildxact sends the customer, invoice number, invoice date and due date. If your estimate had some tax-exempt items, QuickBooks may balance the tax lines so the totals match.
QuickBooks to Buildxact settings
Use this if you want bills and expenses entered in QuickBooks to come into Buildxact. Open your QuickBooks integration settings (Integrations > Application Integrations, then click the cog icon next to QuickBooks). In the QuickBooks to Buildxact section, turn on importing bills. If you're pulling purchases in from QuickBooks, turn off syncing received purchase orders to QuickBooks, so items don't loop back and forth. If there's a special reason you need both turned on, contact our support team and we can advise.
Select account codes sets which QuickBooks accounts Buildxact looks at. We recommend leaving this blank to start, so everything shows. Once you know which accounts are relevant, you can narrow it down.
Click Save.
Work with imported bills
In the left-hand menu, click Jobs.
Under Jobs, click Imported Bills.
This is a rolling 30 days of bills and expenses from QuickBooks. For example, on 1 April a bill entered on 28 February won't show. Work through your imported bills at least once a month. Most people do it weekly or every two weeks.
Click View line items to see more detail. Item names come from the description in QuickBooks, so the more detail you add there (for example "Plumbing quote - 123 Smith Street"), the easier it is to decide where each bill goes.
Assign a bill to a job
Job: select the job.
Category: select the cost category. You can type to search, or type a new name to create a category, for example if you didn't budget for it.
Item: optional. Select an existing line if you want to match the bill to it, such as a quote or an allowance. Leave it blank to add the bill as a new line in the category.
Click Create Order. If you've already created a purchase order for this bill, click Link to an existing order instead. See Linking imported bills to existing purchase orders.
Check the contact and add a description if you like. Copying the QuickBooks description works well.
Click Save & Close.
The bill disappears from the list, and the new order shows in the job's actual costs. If you didn't select an item, it's added at the bottom of the category.
Ignore bills
Click Ignore for bills that aren't job related, such as a meal on the way back from site, or overheads like phone bills and office lease. Whether you bring in costs like fuel depends on how you estimate your jobs.
Need help? Reach out to our support team — we're here to help!