Sync an invoice balance with QuickBooks

After a client or vendor invoice is posted to QuickBooks Online, Discovery updates its balance when QuickBooks sends a webhook. If that webhook never arrives, Total Due on a client invoice or Balance on a vendor invoice can stay stale even though QuickBooks is already current. Sync with QuickBooks re-fetches the invoice's current balance from QuickBooks on demand and writes it back to Discovery.

When to use

Use this when the invoice is already posted to QuickBooks Online and the amount in Discovery does not match what you see in QuickBooks. The usual case is a payment recorded in QuickBooks that never made it back to Discovery.

This does not record a payment you received in the office. To enter a check or other payment in Discovery, see How Do I Process a Client Payment?

When the button appears

The Sync with QuickBooks link sits next to Total Due on a client invoice, and next to Balance on a vendor invoice. It only appears when:

• Your tenant is connected to QuickBooks Online (not QuickBooks Desktop, and not Manual Posting).
• The invoice has already been posted to QuickBooks.
• For a client invoice, the invoice has also been sent.
• For a vendor invoice, the status is Posted or Paid.

If you do not see the link, one of those conditions is not met.

Sync a client invoice

1. Open the client invoice show page.
2. Next to Total Due, click Sync with QuickBooks.
3. The link changes to Syncing… and stays disabled until QuickBooks responds. The page does not jump.

On success, Discovery flashes Balance synced with QuickBooks Online: $X and updates Total Due to that amount. If the balance was already in sync, the flash still appears and the value stays the same.

Sync a vendor invoice

1. Open the vendor invoice edit page.
2. Next to Balance, click Sync with QuickBooks.
3. The link changes to Syncing… until QuickBooks responds.

On success, Discovery flashes Balance synced with QuickBooks Online: $X and updates Balance. If QuickBooks reports a zero balance, the vendor invoice status changes to Paid.

What happens

• Discovery overwrites the invoice's stored balance with the current QuickBooks balance.
• A stale accounting-error banner on that invoice is cleared after a successful sync.
• On a vendor invoice, a zero QuickBooks balance moves the invoice to Paid.

What does not happen

• Discovery does not create a Client Payment or a vendor payment record from this click.
• The invoice is not re-posted. Nothing new is created in QuickBooks.
• If the vendor invoice cannot move to Paid (for example, its fiscal period is closed), the status stays as it was and you see an error flash.

If the sync fails

Discovery flashes Unable to sync balance: plus the reason from QuickBooks. A common case is an invoice that was deleted in QuickBooks. The error is saved on the invoice, so a banner remains after you reload:

Unable to sync balance with external accounting system due to the following error(s):

Unposted invoices that failed to post still use the older banner: This invoice cannot be posted to the external accounting system until the following errors are corrected:

Related

• Quickbooks Online Integration
• How Do I Post Approved Vendor Invoices to Quickbooks?
• How Do I Process a Client Payment?

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.