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QuickBooks Online Integration: Setup and Sending Invoices to QBO
QuickBooks Online Integration: Setup and Sending Invoices to QBO

You can link your Productive account to QuickBooks Online with a couple of clicks. Send invoices from Productive straight to QuickBooks.

Updated over a month ago

Integrating QuickBooks with Productive allows you to send invoices from Productive to your QuickBooks account. When configuring the integration, you can also enable additional features to keep your financial data in sync between both platforms:

  • Invoice payment synchronization

    When you mark an invoice as paid in QuickBooks (including partial payments or tranches), the status can automatically be updated in Productive. Find out more about it here.

  • Send expenses to QuickBooks

    Send budget expenses from Productive to QuickBooks to ensure accurate financial tracking and reporting.

  • Expense payment synchronization

    When an expense is marked as paid in QuickBooks, it can also be marked as paid in Productive.

In this article, we'll cover the initial setup and show what sending invoices to QuickBooks looks like.

Integrating your QuickBooks Online account with Productive is available on the Professional and Ultimate subscription plans.

Linking Your QuickBooks Online Account To Productive

To link your Productive account to QuickBooks Online:

  1. Log into Productive

  2. Go to Settings > App Marketplace

  3. Find QuickBooks Online in the list and click Connect App

If you have created multiple subsidiaries in Productive, you will need to select the one you wish to integrate.

Click on Connect to QuickBooks and log in to your Intuit Account (which includes QuickBooks Online) to finish the authentication.

Setting Up The Integration

After completing the authentication process in QuickBooks, you'll need to make several decisions:

1. Invoice Number Generation:

Determine whether QuickBooks or Productive will be responsible for generating invoice numbers.

2. Invoice PDF Generation:

Choose whether QuickBooks or Productive should generate the PDFs for your invoices.


3. Payment Synchronization:

Decide whether payments should be synchronized. Please note that this synchronization is unidirectional, happening only from QuickBooks to Productive, not the other way around.


4. Memo Field Information:

Select the type of information from Productive that will be sent to the Memo field in QuickBooks. Options include the subject of the invoice, information from the note field, PO number, or data from the invoice custom field.

Following that, you have the option to either select a default item in QuickBooks where the service types will be sent or you can establish links in Productive between service types and specific items in QuickBooks:

Copying Invoices To QuickBooks

After you have integrated QuickBooks with Productive, when creating an invoice, a new button "Copy to QuickBooks", will be accessible on the invoice creation screen.

Following that, you'll be prompted to fill in the following settings:

1) Customer:
If the customer does not exist and you leave this blank, QuickBooks will automatically create one.

2) Tax rate:

You also have the option to choose a tax from QuickBooks. If no tax is selected, the resulting invoice in QuickBooks will not include any tax. It's important to remember that taxes from Productive are not mirrored in QuickBooks.

Copying An Invoice To Quickbooks After It Has Already Been Copied

If you've previously copied an invoice to QuickBooks and need to make updates or create a new one, open the invoice and hover over the "Invoice copied" option. From there, you can choose to update the existing invoice or create a new one.

A) Choosing "Update existing" will modify the previously copied invoice in QuickBooks. If the invoice has been copied multiple times, only the last copy will be updated.

B) Selecting "Create new" will generate a new invoice in QuickBooks, even if a copy already exists.

Enabling Sending Expenses to QuickBooks

To send your budget expenses from Productive to QuickBooks, follow these steps:

  1. When setting up your QuickBooks integration, navigate to the Expenses card and enable exporting expenses to QuickBooks.

  2. Select the Default QuickBooks expense account code where you want the expenses to land when copied from Productive.

  3. Optionally, map certain service types to your QuickBooks account code for more flexibility and organization.

For detailed steps, refer to our guide on setting up expense syncing with QuickBooks.

Invoice and Expense Payment Sync

If you have not enabled it while setting up the integration, enable the payments sync at a later date by:

1) Navigating to Settings > App Marketplace > QuickBooks
2) Clicking the pencil icon to edit the integration

3) Toggling the "Synchronize payments from QuickBooks to Productive" option on

With this on, if you mark an invoice or expense as paid in QuickBooks, the status will also reflect in Productive.
Read more about sending expenses from Productive to QuickBooks and the expense payment sync here.

Good to Know

Any payment edits or deletions made in QuickBooks will also be mirrored in Productive.

The sync is 1-way (QuickBooks Productive), meaning that if an invoice or expense is marked as paid in Productive, this change will not be taken into account in QuickBooks.

Disconnecting QuickBooks Online From Productive

  1. Go to Settings > App Marketplace

  2. Click on the bin icon on your QuickBooks integration button

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