Quickbooks Online Integration

Discovery natively supports QuickBooks Online integration. Watch this video to learn more.

To create a link between your QuickBooks Online Company and your Discovery Tenant, please follow these steps:

1

Go to Settings → Accounting → Integration. If you don’t see it, contact your Tenant’s Administrator.

2

Select QuickBooks Online as your Accounting System and click Save. Then click on the green Connect to QuickBooks button. A new window will open to allow you to log into QuickBooks Online to complete this step. This page will remain open to continue to the next step.

3

On the GL Accounts tab, click the Refresh Accounts button to have Discovery scan your available General Ledger Accounts from QuickBooks.

Likewise, on the Vendors tab, click the Refresh Vendors button to have Discovery scan QuickBooks Online account for available Vendors. These refreshes run in the background and can take a minute. Accounts of the Accounts Receivable type in QuickBooks are not imported (see step 4).

On the Customers tab, click the Refresh Customers button to import your QuickBooks Online customers. You’ll need them to link client accounts to QuickBooks customers (see Linking Client Accounts to a QuickBooks Customer below).

4

After refreshing your accounts list, choose the Accounts Receivable GL Account, then click Save.

You can leave the Accounts Payable GL Account blank. QuickBooks Online doesn’t use it: vendor bills post to your QuickBooks company’s default Accounts Payable account. That setting is only used by QuickBooks Desktop.

Important: DO NOT use the default accounts receivable GL account from QuickBooks Online. We recommend creating a GL account of the "other current assets" type in QuickBooks Online for integration with Discovery.

Your QuickBooks authentication will automatically stay up to date using the OAuth2 token handling process. If the connection ever stops working, the page shows "It doesn’t look like we have a valid token, please reconnect to fetch a new token!" Click Connect to QuickBooks again to reconnect. (The Refresh Token button only appears while the connection is still valid.)

5

Optional: Turn on Use Vendor Invoice Date When Posting to date vendor bills with the vendor invoice date instead of the fiscal period date.

6

Optional: Using the toggle, specify if you wish to send the vendor invoice due date to QBO when posting. The due date is taken from the vendor contract's payment terms (Calculated Due Date), or from the extracted due date when the contract has none. When off, your accounting system applies its own default payment terms instead.

7

With your chart of accounts now complete, go to Settings → Line Item Categories and assign the a Cost GL Account and Revenue GL Account to each category.

8

Additionally, if you have any Receipt Locations or Sales Taxes already set up, you'll need to go to those screens and assign GL accounts to each one.

9

Finally, for each vendor in Discovery that you plan to export invoices for, you must associate the Vendor in Discovery with the Vendor in QuickBooks Online. This is accomplished by editing the Discovery Vendor and selecting the QuickBooks Vendor name from the list in the External Accounting Id drop-down field. This list is populated in step 3 above. If you do not see your QuickBooks Online Vendor name in the list, try going back and clicking on the Refresh Vendors button again to get the latest Vendor list from QuickBooks Online. Be sure to click the Save Changes button on the Vendor edit page to record this change.

To link many vendors at once, use Bulk Updating Vendors. The Vendors tab’s Export to CSV gives you each vendor’s External Accounting ID.

10

Optional settings on the same page:

Sync Quickbooks Classes: adds a QuickBooks class to posted lines. See Setting a QuickBooks Class on a Service
Allow Vendor Invoice Unposting: lets users unpost posted vendor invoices. See How Do I Unpost a Vendor Invoice?
Create Adjusting Journal Entries: appears if previous-period charges are allowed. See Moving Client Charges to a Different Fiscal Period

Linking Client Accounts to a QuickBooks Customer

If you want QuickBooks to show revenue broken down by customer, you'll need to link each Discovery client account to its corresponding QuickBooks customer. This applies whether you're posting journal entries or syncing invoices directly — and it only needs to be done once per client. If you post journal entries, this step is optional: entries post without a customer attached. If you sync client invoices, it’s required, because an invoice can’t be sent until its client account is linked.

Any QuickBooks Online-connected tenant can link a Discovery client account to a QuickBooks customer, regardless of which posting method is in use. Setting a customer enables per-customer visibility in QBO revenue reports.

Step 1: Open a Client Account in Discovery.

Step 2: Locate the External Accounting Customer field and select the matching QuickBooks customer.

Step 3: Click Save Changes.

With journal entries, the customer appears on the revenue lines of entries from that client account’s invoices and credit memos. With invoice syncing, the QuickBooks invoice or credit memo itself is created under that customer.

How to Post Journal Entries

Journal entries are the default method for sending fiscal data from Discovery to QuickBooks. Use this method if you want a summarized export of client invoices, credit memos and payments, including voids and refunds, without creating individual invoice records in QuickBooks. Journal entries aren’t sent automatically. You send them from this screen.

1: Go to Settings → Quickbooks Online. This opens the Journal Entries page.
2: Click Send Unposted Entries To Accounting System.

Note: If a client account has an External Accounting Customer set, that customer will be included on the revenue line items of the journal entry in QBO. See Linking Client Accounts to QuickBooks Customers above.

The same journal entry in QuickBooks Online after it’s sent: same number, date, accounts and amounts.

For a full walkthrough, from the client invoice to the QuickBooks entry, see How Do I Send a Client Invoice?

Alternate Method: Syncing Client Invoices and Credit Memos

If you prefer to have individual client invoices and credit memos appear in QuickBooks rather than as journal entries, use this method instead. This option requires each client to be linked to a QuickBooks customer before invoices will sync.

Important Notes

This option is only available for QuickBooks Online users. It is not supported for QuickBooks Desktop.
Each client account must be linked to a QuickBooks customer. An invoice for an unlinked client can't be sent. Discovery shows "The Client Account for this invoice is missing an external accounting customer."
Enter client payments in QuickBooks Online, not Discovery. Payments recorded in QuickBooks update the invoice's balance and status in Discovery.
Every synced invoice and credit memo line is posted to the same QuickBooks Product/Service item, the one with ID 1 in your QuickBooks company. If that item is deleted or inactive, invoices won't post.
Location sales taxes cannot be used with the Sync Client Invoices option. If any of your locations have sales taxes assigned, you will receive an error when attempting to enable the option: "You have locations with sales taxes assigned. You must remove them from those locations before turning on Sync Client Invoices With Quickbooks."

1: Go to Settings → Accounting → Integration, turn on Sync Client Invoices With Quickbooks and click Save.
2: On the Customers tab (shown for every QuickBooks Online tenant), you will see a list of QuickBooks Online customers, similar to how the Vendors tab displays vendors.

Use this list to confirm that your QuickBooks customers are available for linking.
If a customer does not appear, click the Refresh Customers button.
3: To ensure invoices sync correctly, each client in Discovery must be linked to a QuickBooks customer. See the Linking Client Accounts to a QuickBooks Customer section above for instructions.
4: OPTIONAL: Turn on Use Client Invoice Date When Posting to date QuickBooks invoices with the invoice date (and credit memos with their document date) instead of the fiscal period date. Discovery shows a warning that this doesn’t conform to standard accounting practice. This toggle only appears while Sync Client Invoices With Quickbooks is on.
5: Once clients are linked, each invoice or credit memo is created in QuickBooks Online when you send it from Discovery, under the linked customer. If QuickBooks rejects it, it isn’t sent. See How Do I Send a Client Invoice?

Not using QuickBooks?

Organizations that are not connected to an accounting system can use Manual Posting to lock approved vendor invoices for editing without syncing to a third-party system. Manual Posting is configured in Settings → Accounting → Integration and is only available when no accounting system is connected. See Manually Posting Vendor Invoices for more information.

If you have additional questions or need more in depth information, please feel free to send us a message using the help beacon in the lower right-hand corner.