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QuickBooks is a widely used, cloud-based/desktop accounting software, designed to help small and mid-sized businesses manage their financial health. It streamlines bookkeeping tasks by automating invoicing, expense tracking, bank reconciliation, tax preparation, and reporting. In this guide you will learn answers to commonly asked questions we get regarding the QuickBooks integration. For troubleshooting information, see our help guide Troubleshooting | QuickBooks Online.
Timely note: you can check for any alerts or errors by heading to the setup > integrations (formerly add ons) page. Any errors will be displayed at the top of the page. Once an error has been addressed, it will disappear/be hidden after 30 days. If your question or error isn't covered here, please get in touch with us by submitting a Help Form at our Help Centre.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
What QuickBooks products can I connect to Timely
We can only connect to QuickBooks Online products, not QuickBooks Desktop accounts. From the QuickBooks online packages, you can connect either the essentials or plus plans.
You can only connect an active QuickBooks Online account to Timely, however, if you are still in a trial period with QuickBooks, the integration can't be performed. However, it is possible to connect an active QuickBooks Online account during your Timely trial. It's not possible to connect a Simple start or QuickBooks Self-Employed account to Timely.
How do I sync my Timely customers to QuickBooks?
When it comes to the customer information, this is only synced to QuickBooks when an invoice for that customer is synced across. So your customers won't automatically be synced across in bulk.
We send customers to QuickBooks based on the First name + Last name + Company name in Timely. To match with an existing contact in QuickBooks, we look for their "Display name" which is a combination of the same fields as we use. If there is a customer in QuickBooks with the same First name and Last name, but they have a different display name (e.g. they have a different/no company listed), then this flags an error.
Once a customer is synced to QuickBooks, we will record the QuickBooks ID of the customer we synced the invoice to. Any future invoices for that same customer will then be synced to the same record in QuickBooks.
If you would like to sync all customers in bulk to QuickBooks, you can import your customer list from Timely directly. The customer list report can be exported in Excel or CSV format, which will allow you to re-format and import that into QuickBooks. See our help guide How to import your client data into Timely for information on how to do this.
QuickBooks also have a guide that walks you through the import process from their side.
How do I sync my historic invoices to QuickBooks?
QuickBooks Online requires any invoice synced from Timely to use a tax code that originates from their platform. Any invoices that were raised before the connection was established can't be synced to QuickBooks. The only way to sync those invoices from Timely would be to delete/edit the existing invoices and raise them again, using tax codes that originate from QuickBooks.
As part of the setup process, you will need to import your tax codes from Vend and apply these to your products and services in Timely. Our How to connect your QuickBooks account to Timely will walk you through that process in greater detail.
Alternatively, if you have a backlog of invoices you wish to bring across, you may want to investigate importing those to QuickBooks directly. QuickBooks doesn't allow you to import sales invoices in bulk directly, but there is a third-party system that does allow you to do this.
To download your sales history in Timely, you can use the invoice details report.
How do I disconnect QuickBooks from my Timely account?
If you no longer want your invoices automatically syncing from Timely to QuickBooks, you can disconnect QuickBooks from your Timely account. See our help guide How to remove QuickBooks from your Timely account for instructions on how to do this.
Other relevant information for QuickBooks customers
There are a few other things to note when using the QuickBooks integration:
- If you sync an unpaid invoice to QuickBooks, the invoice's due date in QuickBooks will be set based on your invoice terms in Timely. You can update those settings by heading to this link, clicking edit settings and updating the global terms.
- There is a known rounding issue between Timely and QuickBooks when discounts are applied to invoices. This is related to a discrepancy in how those tax rates are calculated between the two systems. We recommend updating the invoice in QuickBooks, so that it matches the total balance recorded in Timely.
- There is a 25 character limit on each of the First name, Last name and Company fields in QuickBooks. This is something to keep in mind when recording customer names in Timely.