Connecting QuickBooks Online to Buildxact means you enter your expenses and income once, saving you time and money. This article covers how to connect, how to set up syncing in each direction, and how to work with imported bills. It's written for QuickBooks Online in Australia and New Zealand.
Using QuickBooks in North America? See this article instead:
How data flows between Buildxact and QuickBooks
You choose whether data syncs from Buildxact to QuickBooks, or from QuickBooks to Buildxact. There are integration settings to support both, depending on your accounting and cost tracking process.
Connect Buildxact to QuickBooks
In the left-hand menu, click Integrations.
Click Application Integrations in the sub-menu.
Click Connect next to QuickBooks.
If the QuickBooks login page opens, enter your login details. If you're already logged in to QuickBooks, this step is skipped.
In the pop-up, click Allow access.
You'll be taken back to Buildxact and prompted to set up the integration settings.
Buildxact to QuickBooks settings
The numbers below match the numbers in the screenshots.
What to sync: choose whether to sync purchases (Received Purchase Orders), customer invoices (Invoiced Job Invoices), or both.
Sync item date: how far back Buildxact looks for items to sync. This is useful as a "line in the sand" when changing from another program. It uses the received date on purchase orders and the invoiced date on customer invoices.
Supplier expense account: the default account for purchases where the contact on the order is set as a Supplier.
Contractor expense account: the default account for purchases where the contact on the order is set as a Contractor.
Expense tax with tax (old tax settings): the tax type for purchases with tax. Usually pre-set.
Expense tax without tax (old tax settings): the tax type for purchases without tax. Usually pre-set.
Expense tax with tax (new tax settings): the tax type for purchases with tax. Usually pre-set.
Expense tax without tax (new tax settings): the tax type for purchases without tax. Usually pre-set.
Income account: the QuickBooks account your customer invoices go to.
Income tax with tax (old tax settings): the tax type for invoices with tax. Usually pre-set.
Income tax without tax (old tax settings): the tax type for invoices without tax. Usually pre-set.
Income tax with tax (new tax settings): the tax type for invoices with tax. Usually pre-set.
Income tax without tax (new tax settings): the tax type for invoices without tax. Usually pre-set.
Old tax settings apply to jobs linked to estimates created before November 2020. New tax settings apply to jobs linked to estimates created after November 2020.
You can further customise which account items go to. See How does QuickBooks know which account to use? below.
Click Save Settings and close.
Selecting the correct QuickBooks accounts
This section helps you choose the right QuickBooks accounts for your purchases and client invoices.
Expense account (purchasing)
Select an account with the type Expense.
Revenue account (client invoicing)
Select an account with the type Income.
How does QuickBooks know which account to use?
When Buildxact sends a purchase or invoice to QuickBooks, it also sends the account the item should land in. You can change this account at several points.
Set a default account on a contact
Open the contact and set a default account there. This is useful if a supplier always needs to go to a different account from the main default.
Change the account on the order
Changing the account on the order itself is good for exceptions, or when you want to change the account at the last second.
Sync with QuickBooks
Buildxact is ready to send items to QuickBooks when there are:
Purchase orders marked Part Received or Received
Customer invoices marked Invoiced or Received
How to sync
The Integrations menu item shows the number of items waiting to sync.
Click the green Sync button, or the blue Sync now button on the Integrations screen.
A message appears while the sync runs.
When it's finished, a message shows when the last successful sync happened.
Click View Log to see your sync history.
QuickBooks to Buildxact settings
Use this if you want bills entered in QuickBooks to come into Buildxact.
Import bills: turns on QuickBooks Online bills coming into Buildxact's Imported Bills.
Select account codes: once importing is turned on, choose which QuickBooks Online account codes to pull bills from. You can select more than one.
Work with imported bills
The bills and expenses you enter in QuickBooks appear in Buildxact under Jobs.
In the left-hand menu, click Jobs.
Select Imported Bills.
Select the job for the bill using the search box. The search shows 20 jobs at a time.
Click View line items to see the lines on the bill.
Click Ignore Bill to hide bills or items that aren't related to any job.
Only bills created in the last 30 days appear in this list. They're ordered by the date on the bill in QuickBooks.
Create a purchase or work order
You can create an order for a whole bill, a category or an individual item. A job must be selected before the +Create Order button becomes active.
Select the job, and the category and item if needed.
Click +Create Order.
Split a bill into multiple purchase orders
Click View line items to see the lines on the bill.
Assign the job.
Assign the category.
Assign the item (optional).
Click +Create Order.
Repeat steps 2 to 5 for each line item.
Link a bill to an existing purchase order
If you've already created or sent a purchase order for this bill, link the bill to that order instead of creating a new one. This keeps the cost from being counted twice in your job.
This process is slightly different to the regular imported bills flow. See the article below for the specifics.
What the data looks like in QuickBooks
Purchase orders become bills
A purchase order in Buildxact becomes a Bill in QuickBooks.
The bill number combines the Buildxact job number and purchase order number.
Use the drop-down to move the bill to another expense account.
Customer invoices become invoices
A customer invoice in Buildxact becomes an Invoice in QuickBooks.
Buildxact sends the customer details.
Buildxact sends the invoice due date.
Please note: once the invoice is marked as paid in QuickBooks, the payment is recorded against the invoice in Buildxact. This doesn't happen instantly. The payment comes through the next time Buildxact syncs with QuickBooks.
Identifying contacts
To send purchases to separate supplier and contractor expense accounts in QuickBooks, Buildxact needs to know which of your contacts are suppliers and which are contractors. Double-check this is set correctly for all your contacts.
Need help? Reach out to our support team — we're here to help!