QuickBooks Integration: How it Works

This article will explain the ins and outs of how our integration with QuickBooks Online works, and will save you time.

Andrew Garcia avatar
Written by Andrew Garcia
Updated over a week ago

It's safe to say that no one wants to spend countless hours copy and pasting information into QuickBooks. We're hoping that's why you're here. 

To get to the screen where you can enable the QuickBooks Integration click your name in the top-right corner and then Account.  Then click Integrations and you'll see the QuickBooks Integration as the top tile.

It's very important to note that when you activate the QuickBooks integration *dramatic pause* nothing will happen (well, your card on file will be charged the additional monthly fee, but that's it - promise).

We won't automatically randomize, edit, and delete any of your existing invoices and we won't change all of your Customers name's to "Bevo".  

Now that we've got that out of the way, here's what you will see....

The first thing you'll notice is the QuickBooks section now looks like this:

Step 1 - Import Contacts

Once you click the "Import Contacts" button your existing Customers (and their related businesses) will be imported to Goodshuffle Pro.  This allows you and your sales staff to build out projects even faster, since we'll be able to autocomplete the customer as soon as you start typing the first few letters of their name!

The import process will start in the background, so you don't have to stay on this page for it to complete.  After a few seconds you'll see a notification in the bottom corner of your browser telling you "QuickBooks Import Complete" to indicate that it's done.

Step 1.1 - Contact / Business Synchronization

With the integration active, any time a person or business is added to a project that is sync'd with QuickBooks Online, those details will be pushed to QuickBooks Online and update the Customer record there as well.  Going forward, all contact changes should be made primarily through Goodshuffle Pro.

Step 2 - Enable Project Synchronization

Remember, this is a safe place.  Clicking the blue "Activate" button will not automatically push any projects you've already created to QuickBooks.  We realize you may have already reconciled those Projects manually before activating this integration (gasp!) so we don't want to mess with that. 

The "Activate" button will only apply to future projects. It's up to you to decide if you want to sync the old ones. 

What will happen to old/current projects is that all of your existing signed-contract-only projects will now have this nifty line in the header of each Project:

If you click the "Sync" text, a few things will happen:

  1. An Invoice for the project will be created in QuickBooks

  2. Credit Card charges for the project will be synced as Payments and attached to the Invoice

  3. Refunds will be synced as Expenses

  4. Transfers will be synced as Bank Deposits

After you sync, you'll see something like this:

Goodshuffle Pro will automatically update the invoice as new versions of the contract within the Project are signed, but in the event that you want to manually trigger a resync, simply click the "Resync button".  

It's important to note that Invoices in QuickBooks are only created when Projects reach the Contract Signed status.  New Projects, Quote Sent, and Unsigned Changes (just the additions/removals that aren't signed) are not pushed to QuickBooks.

Step 3 - Additional Settings

In the screenshot below, you'll notice settings made available to you to control how the GS Pro creates invoices in QuickBooks.

Of particular importance is the "External Bank Account".  Not only does this control where GS Pro creates Bank Deposit entities in QuickBooks, but it's also the source account used for offline check refunds (we'll get into refunds later in this article).

What About the Projects I've Already Entered into Goodshuffle Pro Before I Activated the Integration?

Great question!
Any projects or payments you've entered before activating the integration will not be automatically sync'd with QuickBooks Online after you activate it.
Before you activate the integration all projects and payments will default to 'Do Not Sync', and will stay that way after the integration is activated. We do this because you may already have some data from these projects manually recorded in QuickBooks, and we want to avoid creating any duplicate entries.

The good news is, if you would like to set these projects to sync with QuickBooks Online, you can click the Sync button on the top right of your projects to re-enable the auto-sync.

Now that we've covered setting up the integration, let's walk through how it actually behaves....

What Happens When an Invoice is Created

Let's start from the top.  

First, if the Project is using a Contact that QuickBooks hasn't seen before, Goodshuffle Pro automatically creates a Customer for your client.  If the same Contact is used for other Projects, we don't automatically update that Customer record.

We then unpack the Customer's contact information into the Invoice, set the Invoice Date to the date the client signed the contract, and set the Due Date equal to the date that full payment is due.

We don't override or set an Invoice # and will automatically use the next invoice number available (unless you've enabled the Sync Invoice #'s option that is visible in the same panel where you activated the QuickBooks Integration).

When you view a sync'd Goodshuffle Pro invoice in QuickBooks Online you'll see that we've unpacked all of the line items into the Invoice. 

Your services (such as labor, photographers, and so on) will be listed as Services, any rental items will be listed as Product Rentals, and if any items are added to a project with a 'Purchase' pricing structure, they'll show as Product Sales.

Your Services, Product Rentals, and Product Sales will be broken out on your Chart of Accounts.

You can customize how these revenue accounts are broken out in QuickBooks Online.

Tax On Invoices

If your Project has tax on it you'll notice a line item for tax.  

When Goodshuffle Pro first creates an Invoice, it automatically creates a specialized Service account called "Tax Type Name (Tax Service)" that includes the tax amount calculated in Goodshuffle Pro.  For example: Sales Tax (Tax Type), Entertainment Tax (Tax Type), and so on.

If you've overridden the tax on the project, you'll see an Overridden (Tax Service) line item.

The "Tax Type (Tax Service)" is linked to the "Tax Type Tax Payable" Liability account. For example your "Sales Tax (Tax Service)" will be linked to "Sales Tax Payable".  This account is automatically created if not already present.  This will allow your accounting department to run reports on the total Tax collected across all invoices. 

These tax types (and Overridden taxes) will be broken out on your Chart of Accounts.

Note: Goodshuffle Pro will not connect with the Tax Center in QuickBooks Online.

Invoices in QuickBooks Online can only support one tax per item/ per invoice. Many of our users need to charge multiple taxes on a single item or on an entire invoice. For example, a drink machine may require Sales Tax, Rental Tax, and Food & Beverage Tax.

With that in mind, you can run a detailed tax report within Goodshuffle Pro. You can learn more here.

If you've set a contract level "Additional Discount", that will be reflected in the subtotals section of the Invoice, along with a summary of any payments that may have been captured.

Finally, we automatically attach a copy of the signed contract because, well, we love your accountant and we're sure this will make their (or your!) life easier.

Ok...phew!  We made it through the hardest part... now onto Payments.

How are Online Credit Card/ACH charges sync'd?

I'm glad you asked.  You may have noticed in the top right corner of the Invoice that a payment had been applied to it already.

If you click the blue "1 Payment" text you'll get taken to a screen in QuickBooks that looks like the image below showing the details of the Payment that Goodshuffle Pro created when the Credit Card/ACH charge was sync'd:

Basically, the Payment was linked to the Customer that made it, the proper amount is set, and the Reference no. was set to match the same reference number Goodshuffle Pro has for the payment.  Of course, the payment was also linked to the Invoice it belongs to.

"But, how are refunds on this charge sync'd with QuickBooks?" Great question!

How are Online Refunds sync'd?

Goodshuffle Pro pushes online refunds to QuickBooks and generates an Expense linked to an Accounts Receivable Account that look a little something like this (well, exactly like this):

Similar to the Payments, this refund has been linked to the QuickBooks Customer, with the proper date, payment method, and amount set. 

Also, attributing the Expense to Accounts Receivable allows us to reduce the amount of the original payment that is applied to the Invoice.  For example, you'll see this charge for $1000 that was refunded a couple times and as a result, only $700 of the original payment is, and should be, applied to the Invoice.

You may have noticed that both the Payments and Expenses (aka Refunds) were being "Deposited to" and "Refunded From" the Undeposited Funds Account, and there's a very good reason for that which is covered in the next section.

What about Offline Refunds?

As you've probably noticed in Goodshuffle Pro you can record refunds that you handled offline (outside of the system).  This is typically the case when you write a check to a customer to handle a refund.  The screenshot below is an example of a vendor writing a $25 check to refund a credit card charge that was processed through Goodshuffle Pro:

In this case, we push the refund to QuickBooks as a "Check".  QuickBooks requires "Check" refunds to be "Refunded From" an account of type "Bank", so in order to meet this requirement we use the bank account that you selected in Step 3, earlier in this article.

Processing Fees & (Batch) Transfers

Let's bring this home...

When a transfer is created Goodshuffle Pro creates a Bank Deposit in QuickBooks . That Bank Deposit is linked to an Account called "Goodshuffle Transfers" that gets automatically created.  This allows you or your accountant to quickly report on and see a listing of all transfers that originate from Goodshuffle Pro.  The Account will look like this in your Chart of Accounts.

And a single transfer in that account will look like this:

If you click on that entry and click "Edit" you'll see the details of the transfer:

What we see in the image above is a Bank Deposit showing the actual amount that hit/will hit your bank account.  You'll see a check mark next to each Payment (aka Charge) and Expense (aka Refund) that was accounted for in this transfer and below you see the Net Payment Processing fees from the charges and refunds included in this transfer.  It's because we attributed those Payments and Expenses to the Undeposited Funds account that we're now able to link them to this Bank Deposit.

To learn more about Batch transfers and why multiple charges and refunds from
different projects are included in the same transfer, check out this article.

Passing Processing Fees Onto Clients

This isn't legal in all states so before enabling a Payment Policy that passes fees onto your clients please check with a local tax professional.

Any processing fees paid by the client will be listed as a 'Merchant Fee' on the invoices in QuickBooks.

Then, on the transfer (or the Deposit in QuickBooks), those fees will be deducted from the deposit as 'Payment Processing Fees', so you'll just receive what the client is actually paying you for the project.

 
On the receive payment screen, you'll also see confirmation that fees will be deducted from the payment.

This line item is implemented as a Service, connected to an account in your Chart of Accounts called Merchant Fees (Expense/Bank Charges).  

Any refunds against charges where processing fees were passed on will be reflected as Expenses showing the gross amount refunded (e.g. the number you typed in plus the refundable processing fees).  In the case of a refund, you'll notice the line item for the net processing fees will be reduced.

It's important to note that these Merchant Fees are purely to track the total dollar amount that you charged the client and should not be confused with the Payment Processing Fees related to Bank Deposits that reflect the net processing fees for all of the charges and refunds grouped within that particular Bank Deposit.

In Conclusion

If you recall from the beginning of the article we talked about how a Project had a sync/re-sync button.  Well, the same thing exists for Charges, Refunds and Transfers in Goodshuffle Pro. Simply click the "+" icon to see the details and the aforementioned sync/re-sync buttons.

What about my A/R Reports?

Let's say you've just created an invoice in Goodshuffle Pro.

This will create an event on your A/R Register

Looking in to more detail will reveal that the invoice has created a Debit on your A/R Account.

When your client pays, it will reduce the amount in your A/R Register.

Any payments will also be recorded in the A/R Aging Report.

Here is a screen shot with more details on the payments for that customer on that report.

Diving deeper into when a client pays reveals that it will Debit Undeposited Funds (increasing the amount in Undeposited Funds) and Credit A/R (reduce the amount in A/R).

Finally, with a transfer, you will see a Debit to your bank account (increasing the amount in your bank), a Debit to the Payment Processing Fees Account (increasing the Processing Fees Expense Account), and Crediting the Undeposited Funds Account (reducing the amount in the Undeposited Funds Account)


Want to see how the integration works with a non-US account? Click here!


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