QuickBooks Online
Link your QuickBooks Online company to Joby so invoices, payments and customers keep both systems in step — each direction under your control, each type of record its own decision.
You'll need Owner or Admin access for this.
What it is
Video walkthrough — coming soon
A short video of this screen is being recorded and will appear here. Until then, the step-by-step below covers every button on the page.
QuickBooks Online is the connection between Joby and your bookkeeping. Once it is linked, the money side of your work stops being double entry: an invoice you send in Joby becomes a QuickBooks invoice, a payment you record is booked against that same invoice, and the customer it belongs to is created in QuickBooks the first time you invoice them.
You connect it from Settings›Connections & AI›Integrations, on the QuickBooks Online tile. After that the tile's button changes from Connect to Manage, and Manage opens the QuickBooks page itself — the screen this guide is about.
Joby → QuickBooks (ongoing)
Runs by itself in the background. Invoices, payments — and estimates if you turn them on — are pushed across within about a minute. You choose the stage: when an invoice is created, when it's sent, or only once it's paid.
QuickBooks → Joby (your choice)
One-time imports bring your existing customers and invoices across. Separate switches keep Joby up to date afterwards — new customers, invoice payments and paid-status changes made in QuickBooks can flow back automatically, each one its own decision.
Every record type syncs — or doesn't — per your choice, in each direction independently. The What syncs card on the page is the whole contract: one row per record type, one switch per direction.
Before you start
- You need to be an owner or admin in Joby, and have a login for the QuickBooks Online company you keep your books in.
- One Joby organization connects to one QuickBooks company. If you run several companies, connect each Joby organization to its own QuickBooks company.
- Nothing is written to QuickBooks during setup. Connecting reads your chart of accounts and customer list; records only start moving after you finish the short setup and see the page in its normal state.
Step-by-step: first-time setup
1. Connect your QuickBooks company
- Go to Settings›Connections & AI›Integrations and find the QuickBooks Online tile (it's under Accounting, or type QuickBooks in the search box).
- Click Connect. A QuickBooks sign-in window opens — sign in, pick the company, approve the connection.
- When it finishes, Joby takes you straight to the QuickBooks page to finish setup.
2. Confirm where income is recorded
The first card asks "Where should QuickBooks record your income?" — with both answers already picked from your own chart of accounts. Most businesses just click Continue.
- Income goes to — QuickBooks requires an income account on every invoice line; this is the account your Joby invoices post revenue to. We preselect your "Services" or main income account.
- Payments deposit into — where recorded payments land, usually Undeposited Funds or your checking account.
Both can be changed any time later from the Posting accounts row. Sales tax is not set up here — QuickBooks calculates it automatically from the customer's address.
3. Let Joby check both customer lists
Joby reads your QuickBooks customer list and compares it with your Joby customers — by email, then phone, then name plus postal code. Matching never happens on a name alone, because two "John Smith"s are usually two people. The check runs in the background and keeps going even if you leave the page.
4. "Here's what we found"
The summary shows three numbers:
- Customers matched — the same person in both systems, now linked. No records are created for these.
- QuickBooks customers that will be added to Joby — people in your books who aren't in Joby yet. You choose: Add them to Joby, or Leave them in QuickBooks. Leaving them changes nothing — you can bring them in later.
- Possible duplicates that need your review — pairs that look similar but whose details disagree. Each one is a simple question: are these the same customer? The dialog tells you why it's asking (same email but a different name, for example). You can also press Decide later — the questions wait in the Needs your attention card, never lost.
Once you choose, setup is done. Nothing about setup ever copies your whole Joby customer list into QuickBooks — a Joby customer reaches your books only with the first invoice you send them.
How to check it's working
- The badge next to the page title reads Syncing (green) when everything flows, Needs attention (red) when something waits on you, Paused (amber) when you've paused it, and Importing… while a background import runs.
- Recent activity lists the last records that actually went across — "Invoice 000431 · 4 minutes ago". If your work shows up here, your books are current.
- Last sync in the header is the last time a record was actually processed, and Sync now pushes whatever is waiting without waiting for the automatic run — its message tells you exactly what happened, including when there was nothing to do and why.
- In QuickBooks itself: Sales›Invoices — Joby invoices appear under the same invoice numbers, with payments applied against them.
Common mistakes
- Expecting QuickBooks edits to appear in Joby with everything off. The "from QuickBooks" switches are off by default. If your bookkeeper works in QuickBooks and you want Joby to follow, turn on the inbound switches for invoices and payments.
- Pausing and forgetting. Pause stops everything outbound. The badge shows Paused and the attention card offers Resume — but nothing will remind you outside this page yet, so don't pause and walk away.
- Choosing "when created" without wanting drafts in the books. QuickBooks has no draft invoices. "When it's created" means drafts appear there as real invoices; if you draft freely and send later, keep the default "when it's sent".
- Importing the whole book when you wanted this year. Set the date range and use Check QuickBooks first — the preview is exact and writes nothing.
- Answering "Decide later" and wondering where the question went. It's in the attention card, under "questions you put off" — nothing is lost.
More detail (8)
What syncs — the matrix
The What syncs card is one row per record type with a switch for each direction. Flipping a switch saves immediately and applies from that moment on — nothing is re-sent retroactively.
| Record | Joby → QuickBooks | QuickBooks → Joby |
|---|---|---|
| Invoices | On by default. You pick the stage: when created (right away, drafts too — QuickBooks has no draft concept, so a Joby draft appears there as a real invoice), when sent (the first time it leaves draft — the default), or only once paid (nothing unpaid ever reaches your books). | Off by default. Turn it on and an invoice marked paid in QuickBooks updates its Joby copy and closes its job, exactly as if it had been paid in Joby. One-time import is always available regardless. |
| Payments | On by default. Recorded against their invoice in QuickBooks, including deposits taken on an estimate once it becomes an invoice. | Off by default. Turn it on and payments recorded in QuickBooks against a Joby-known invoice come back as Joby payments. |
| Customers | Always with their first invoice — added to QuickBooks the first time you invoice them. Your whole customer list is never copied across. | Off by default. Turn it on and customers added in QuickBooks appear in Joby, matched by the same careful rules as setup. |
| Estimates | On request — sent to QuickBooks as quotes. Off by default. | — |
The "from QuickBooks" switches poll your books every 15 minutes. Records that came from QuickBooks are never overwritten by the outbound sync, and records Joby pushed out are never re-imported — each invoice, payment and customer exists once, linked across both systems.
What never syncs: cancelled and voided invoices; your price book as a whole (items are created in QuickBooks only when an invoice line needs them); and nothing is ever deleted in either system because of the other.
Bringing history across
Customers — Check now
Bring history across›Customers›Check now re-runs the same scan as setup. If it finds QuickBooks customers who aren't in Joby, a card appears with Add them to Joby and Leave them in QuickBooks buttons. Ambiguous ones become review questions, never silent duplicates.
Invoices — Import
- Bring history across›Invoices›Import opens a dialog where you can narrow the import: a date range, and Only paid invoices.
- Check QuickBooks shows you exactly what would happen — how many invoices come in, how many closed jobs are created for the paid ones — before anything is written. The preview writes nothing. Use Adjust filters to change the range and check again.
- Import starts a background run. It survives closing the page, shows its progress on the page ("Importing invoices… 240 so far"), can be stopped mid-way, and picks up where it left off if interrupted — always within the date range you approved.
- A paid QuickBooks invoice becomes a paid Joby invoice plus a closed job, the same as if it had been paid in Joby. Invoices whose customer isn't in Joby yet are counted and skipped — bring customers in first to include them.
Running an import twice is safe: anything already brought across is skipped.
When something needs you
The Needs your attention card appears only when there is something to act on, and every row in it has a button that resolves it:
- "N customers need a decision" — the same-customer questions. Review walks you through them one at a time, with the reason each is being asked. Answering also releases any invoices and payments that were waiting on the answer — they sync on their own once you decide.
- "N records QuickBooks didn't accept" — usually a missing posting account, a duplicate name, or a record QuickBooks rejected. The row shows a plain-English reason; fix the cause and press Try again. Nothing is lost — failed records wait until they go through.
- "N questions you put off" — everything you answered Decide later to. Answer now brings them back.
- "Syncing is paused" — you (or a teammate) pressed Pause. Resume starts it again; nothing queued was lost.
If the connection itself breaks — QuickBooks password changed, permissions revoked — the errors say so, and reconnecting from the Integrations page to the same QuickBooks company puts everything back exactly as it was, matches included.
The page at a glance
Header
Company name, the health badge, when something last synced, and Sync now.
Needs your attention
Only present when something waits on you. Decisions, retries, postponed questions, paused sync — each with its fix.
What syncs
The matrix: one row per record type, one switch per direction, the invoice-stage choice, and your posting accounts.
Bring history across
One-time customer scan and invoice import, plus the matched-customers list — who matches whom, and why, changeable.
Recent activity
The last records that went across, with times. Proof the automation is alive.
Connection
The connected company, Pause / Resume, and Disconnect.
Posting accounts in detail
QuickBooks requires two decisions Joby can't skip, which is why they're the one question in setup:
- Income account. Every line on a QuickBooks invoice must reference a product or service, and every product or service must post to an income account. Without one, QuickBooks rejects the invoice outright. Joby creates lightweight service items as needed and points them at the account you chose.
- Deposit account. Where payments are recorded. Left unset, QuickBooks books everything to Undeposited Funds, which most bookkeepers then have to clean up — so Joby asks once and records payments where you actually want them.
Joby preselects the obvious candidates from your own chart of accounts; changing them later (the Posting accounts row) affects only records synced after the change.
Access and security
Your QuickBooks login stays with Intuit
Joby never sees your QuickBooks password. The connection uses Intuit's own sign-in, and you can revoke it any time — from Joby's Disconnect button or from QuickBooks' connected-apps list.
Owners and admins only
Connecting, changing what syncs, resolving customer questions, importing and disconnecting are all owner/admin actions. Other roles can't reach this page.
Disconnecting
- Disconnect (bottom of the page) stops all syncing. Nothing is deleted on either side — records already in QuickBooks stay in QuickBooks, records in Joby stay in Joby.
- Reconnect to the same QuickBooks company and everything resumes where it left off: settings, customer matches, sync history.
- Connect to a different QuickBooks company and the old matches are cleared — they described records that no longer exist on the other side — and setup runs again against the new books.