How Items Sync Between Jobber and QuickBooks Online Updated July 19, 2024 21:30

Overview

Our sync works behind the scenes to make sure your accounting needs are covered, while you use Jobber to power your day-to-day operations.

Once you have completed the setup of your QuickBooks Online - Jobber integration, you can begin to sync different pieces of information. Jobber syncs to both the US and Global versions of QuickBooks Online. 

Syncing is triggered manually so that you have complete control of your business information in both systems. When you want to sync information between Jobber and QuickBooks, click the QuickBooks icon in the top right of Jobber, and select Sync & Settings, then click Sync to QuickBooks. We don't suggest running multiple syncs back-to-back; a typical workflow for many Jobber users is to run a sync at the end of the day. One sync will pass all the information that has been flagged to sync between Jobber and QuickBooks. 

Jobber and QuickBooks are two different systems so you may find that when you sync an error occurs. If that happens, we'll let you know right away on the Sync & Settings page and also by sending an email to the admins on your account. You can check out our QuickBooks Online Sync Error Messages article to learn how to resolve them.

This article will cover how the following items sync:

• Clients
• Properties vs Sub-Customers
• Products & Services
• Invoices
• Payments
• Timesheets

Note: Each QuickBooks account can only connect to one Jobber account at a time.

Sync Settings

In Jobber you can select which items you would like to sync with QuickBooks. To do this click the QuickBooks icon > Sync & Settings.

Clients are the foundation of our sync, so they cannot be unchecked.

Clients/Customers

• Sync both ways between Jobber and QuickBooks
  • After the initial sync, if you need to update the customer's display name, that edit must be done in QuickBooks in order to update the client's name in Jobber. 
• Only Active customers in QuickBooks will sync with Jobber
• Both Archived and active clients sync from Jobber to QuickBooks
• In Jobber, if a client has a lead label (available on select plans) it will sync to QuickBooks

Regardless of where the client has been created, it will sync into the opposite program. To avoid any duplication of clients when syncing it's best that either your Jobber account or your QuickBooks account does not have any clients in it to start. If you have clients in both accounts, let us help! Contact our Success Team at support@getjobber.com.

When a sync is taking place, Jobber looks at the First and Last Name fields in QuickBooks to try and determine if they are the same client/customer.

• Our sync relies on the client's billing address, any changes to a billing address must be done in your QuickBooks account and then you can run a sync to update that client in Jobber.
• If you’ve created a client without an email address in Jobber, it will sync to QuickBooks with the preferred delivery method set to 'Print'.
• Clients will appear as a Company in Jobber if there is only a Company name in QuickBooks and no first or last name, or if the Display name is different from the first and last name. Display names should be changed in QuickBooks and then will update in Jobber on your next sync.

Properties vs Sub-customers

In Jobber, a client can have multiple properties. In QuickBooks, a customer can have multiple sub-customers.

A customer in QuickBooks will sync to Jobber as a client. Sub-customers will sync to Jobber as properties as long as the sub-customer has a shipping address that is different than the customers'. While QuickBooks will let you create sub-customers under sub-customers, Jobber will only sync 1 level deep and will not be able to bring these over.

Any properties created in Jobber will not sync to QuickBooks.

Products & Services

• Sync both ways between Jobber and QuickBooks.
• Only Active products and services in QuickBooks will sync to Jobber.
• Products and services created in Jobber will sync to QuickBooks as services, regardless of what they show in Jobber. Services or non-inventory items created in QuickBooks will sync as services to Jobber. Inventory items created in QuickBooks will sync as products to Jobber. Bundles in QuickBooks do not sync over to Jobber.
• Products in Jobber that are added in QuickBooks as inventory will update your quantity on hand in QuickBooks. When a product is used on an invoice, when that invoice syncs to QuickBooks the quantity of the product on the invoice will be deducted from your inventory in QuickBooks.
• Although this is a two-way sync, QuickBooks is the source of truth for this sync. If changes need to be made to the item, they must be done in QuickBooks to keep everything in sync. 
  • Deleting a product/service in one program does not remove it from the other, so if you need to delete an item, make sure to delete it out of both programs.
• The fields that sync on products and services are:
  • Item type: Is this is a product or service?
    • Note: When a new item is created in Jobber or QuickBooks, it will appear as a service - if this item is a product, once it has synced to QuickBooks edit it in QuickBooks to update the item type to product. 
  • Name: The name of the product or service. The name field of the product or service will inform each program whether a new item needs to be created or already exists.
  • Description: A description of the product or service. 
  • Unit price: What your client pays for a product or service.
  • Taxable status: Is this item exempt from tax or do you charge tax on it?
  • Note: If you are on the Grow Plan, there are some fields supported in Jobber that do not sync to QuickBooks. These include line item images, markups and unit costs.
• In QuickBooks, line items can be customized to be sub-items, categorized into different types of products/services, and allocated into varying income accounts. If an item has been customized like this and then used on an invoice in Jobber, errors will occur in the sync preventing the invoice from syncing to QuickBooks. To prevent any errors, please ensure your products and services are not sub-items, categorized, or allocated to an income account other than 'Sales'

Invoices

• Sync one-way from Jobber into QuickBooks.
• Invoices will only sync to Customers in QuickBooks, not to sub-customers. Because properties don't have an active sync, only the billing address will appear on an invoice in QuickBooks.
• Jobber will sync:
  • due date
  • issued date
  • billing address
  • line items
    • The line items will appear on the QuickBooks invoice showing: name, description, quantity, dollar amount, and service date (if available).
    • QuickBooks does not support one-off custom line items. They are placed under a service called 'Custom Service' in QuickBooks and will add the name from Jobber into the item description.
  • client message 

There are two ways that you can set up your invoices to sync:

1. Push Selected Invoices - these will only be invoices that you have chosen specifically to sync to QuickBooks by clicking More Actions > Push to QuickBooks from the invoice.

2.  Push Invoice when marked sent - any invoices that have been marked as sent (no longer in drafts) will be sent over to QuickBooks on your next sync.

Invoices sync one time, which means if you make any edits to an invoice after it has already synced to QuickBooks you will need to do so in both programs to ensure they match. The only additional information synced after the initial invoice is when the full payment has been added to the invoice - the Paid status will update in QuickBooks.

We push invoices to QuickBooks starting on the date that you begin your invoice sync to QuickBooks. If you have invoices in your Jobber account that were created before you started syncing, please get in contact with our Success Team at support@getjobber.com to have those synced over to QuickBooks.

Payments and Deposits

• Payments sync one-way from Jobber into QuickBooks. In your QuickBooks settings, check Push new payment records to start syncing payments. 
• Payments where the payment method was cash, check, credit card (Note: this is the "credit card" option under the "payment records" heading when collecting a payment. Not the option under the "Jobber Payments" heading which charges a card), bank transfer, money order, or other will appear as Unapplied funds or Undeposited funds and will need to be reconciled to your correct Chart of Accounts within QuickBooks.
• Payouts from Jobber Payments can be set up to sync to QuickBooks including the fees. In your QuickBooks settings in Jobber, check Push Jobber Payments payouts and fees. When this is enabled each payout in “paid” status is flagged to sync to QuickBooks and depending on the types of transactions that make up the payout, the transactions are allocated to the appropriate account in QuickBooks. Fees from each of these transactions are also synced to QuickBooks and are allocated to an account for Jobber Payments Fees. As part of the sync, accounts are created in QuickBooks to map each transaction to, however, these accounts are created as needed so they won’t exist until there is a transaction that should be allocated to that account. Transaction types include:
  • Payments (including invoice payments and quote deposits) 
  • Instant payouts
  • Tips
  • Fees
  • Refunds
  • Disputes
  • Stripe Capital
  • Learn more about How Jobber Payments Fees and Payouts Sync to QuickBooks Online
• Like invoices, this is a one-time sync. If edits need to be made to the payment or deposit after a sync has been completed, they will need to be edited manually in both programs.
• Invoice payments that include tips will create a journal entry for the tip portion to Undistributed tips when the payment is synced to QuickBooks.

If an invoice is marked as "Paid" in QuickBooks, that status will sync back to Jobber and the invoice will show as paid. Keep in mind, payments do not sync from QuickBooks to Jobber, so only the invoice status in Jobber will show as 'paid' and the balance will remain the same. The only way to resolve this is by creating a payment in Jobber for that invoice. Because of this, we recommend that payments for invoices are only recorded in Jobber to avoid manually entering the same information twice.

If you have past payments in your Jobber account that you need to be synced to your QuickBooks account, please get in contact with our Success Team at support@getjobber.com.

Timesheet hours

In order to sync timesheets to QuickBooks, the payroll feature in QuickBooks must be enabled first. 

In Jobber, the box to Push new approved timesheet hours must be checked to sync timesheets. Your account will show the date that timesheets are syncing as of; if this date needs to be adjusted our support team can help. 

• Timesheets sync one-way from Jobber into Time Tracking entries in QuickBooks. Timesheets can be viewed in QuickBooks by going to Reports > Time Activities by Employee Detail.
• When viewing the Time Activities by Employee Detail report, additional columns can be added into the report. By default, the description and duration of each time entry from Jobber will show, however, Start time and End time can be added by clicking the Gear Icon in the top right corner of the report and adding additional columns.

• Timesheets first need to be approved in Jobber to be able to sync. Approving a timesheet is what flags it to sync to QuickBooks the next time a sync is run. To approve timesheets in Jobber, go to Timesheets > Approve Timesheets.
• Notes left on timesheets in Jobber will sync to QuickBooks in the memo/description field.
• Employee names need to be exactly the same in both Jobber and QuickBooks in order for timesheets to sync. Small discrepancies like using a nickname instead of a first name can cause issues with timesheet syncing. 
• Before syncing, overnight hours will need to be edited and split between two days. A single time entry from Jobber cannot run over two different days as QuickBooks does not support overnight timers. 
  • For example: If an employee works from 10:00pm until 3:00am, the time should be edited to show 10:00pm -11:59pm and then 12:00am - 3:00am. 
• Learn more about time tracking in QuickBooks Online.