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Mapping financial accounts

QuickBooks needs every Invoice line to have a Product/Service and, for a company registered for GST or sales tax, a tax code. CiviCRM supplies them through the Acctg Code of the Financial Accounts attached to each Financial Type. This is the step that most often decides whether an Invoice is pushed, so it is worth getting right before your first sync.

Map your QuickBooks product/service to CiviCRM Financial account codes

Each QuickBooks Product/Service has a unique name. This is used in the CiviCRM Financial Account codes to correctly code each Invoice in QuickBooks Online.

These are QuickBooks Products and services (also called items), not the accounts in your QuickBooks Chart of Accounts. Copying your CiviCRM Financial Accounts into the Chart of Accounts does not create them. A QuickBooks company with no items shows "Get started with products and services", with Create items and Import items buttons.

  1. Open the QuickBooks company and go to Sales > Products and services. You can also open it directly at https://qbo.intuit.com/app/items (for a Development/sandbox company, https://sandbox.qbo.intuit.com/app/items).
  2. Identify each QuickBooks Product/Service that you want to sync with CiviCRM, and create any that do not exist yet. You do not need one for every CiviCRM Financial Account, only for the Income Accounts of the Financial Types used by the Contributions you will sync. For example, a membership organisation might need only five: donations, member dues, event fees, and two conference accounts.
  3. Open the CiviCRM Financial Account setting page (Administer > CiviContribute > Financial Accounts, or civicrm/admin/financial/financialAccount) and update the Acctg Code of corresponding Financial account to be the same as each QuickBooks Product/Service name: Product Name -> Acctg Code
  4. When setting up Contributions in CiviCRM, ensure that the Financial Type for the Contribution is set to use the correct Financial Account as the Income Account.
  5. During sync, the Contribution line item will be set to the corresponding QuickBooks Product/Service.
  6. When a CiviCRM Acctg Code does not match any QuickBooks Product/Service name, which means that no product/service in QuickBooks has the same name, that particular line item will NOT be pushed through the invoice.

The match is exact: it is case sensitive and punctuation such as brackets counts, so the Product/Service Member Dues (4400) needs the Acctg Code Member Dues (4400). Either the Product/Service Name or its full Parent:Child name (for sub-items) can be used. The list of Products/Services is cached for up to 7 days, so a Product/Service you have just added or renamed in QuickBooks may not be noticed straight away. Clearing the CiviCRM caches may refresh it sooner.

Map your QuickBooks tax code to the Sales Tax Account's Acctg Code

If your QuickBooks company is registered for GST or sales tax, each Invoice line should carry a tax code. If your organisation is not registered, you can skip this whole section: a line item with no Sales Tax Account is still pushed, just without a tax code.

For AU Companies:

  1. Go to GST > Rates&Settings. There are many tax accounts listed there, with names in column Tax name, copy the tax name you want and paste it into the Acctg code field of corresponding Tax financial account.
  2. Open the CiviCRM Financial Account setting page (civicrm/admin/financial/financialAccount) and update the Acctg Code of corresponding Financial account to be the same as each QuickBooks tax account name.
  3. If a financial type does not contain any GST, a financial account also needs to be created with the corresponding Tax account name in QuickBooks filled out. For example, create a new financial account called NO GST with GST rate as 0, acctg codeas GST free (a tax account name which has GST rate as 0 also). And assign that financial account as corresponding line itemsSales Tax account`.
  4. When setting up Contributions in CiviCRM, ensure that the Financial Type for the Contribution/line item is set to use the correct Financial Account as the Sales Tax Account.
  5. During sync, the Contribution line item will be assigned with corresponding Tax account.
  6. When a CiviCRM Acctg Code does not match any QuickBooks Tax account name, which means that there is no tax account in QuickBooks with the same name, that line item is still pushed, but without a tax code, and the mismatch is not reported (see Special notes).

For US Companies:

If none of your Contributions are taxable, you can skip this section entirely - whenever a financial type has no sales tax financial account configured, the extension automatically sends a NON (non-taxable) tax code for that line item, which already satisfies QuickBooks Online's requirement that every item have a tax code.

  1. For US companies, each line item or product/service in an invoice can only be marked with NON (for non-taxable) or TAX (taxable), and the entire invoice will have a single tax rate selected as a state tax or a combination tax rate.
  2. Users need to make sure that:
  3. In CiviCRM:
    • The financial type of each line item in the contribution is associated with a sales tax financial account
    • All those associated financial accounts need to have TAX or NON as the acctg code field.
    • All those associated financial accounts need to have the name of the desired QuickBooks TaxCode (not to be confused with a Tax Rate) as the account type code field in CiviCRM. e.g. California. For US companies using QuickBooks Online's Automated Sales Tax, this is usually the name of the state, and is generated automatically by QuickBooks rather than being listed anywhere for you to copy from - the QuickBooks API can be queried to confirm the exact name.
    • Make sure that all the financial types of line items have the same value of account type code in the sales tax financial account. The extension will pick the first line item that is taxable and with a account type code. And use that name to get the ID of tax account from QuickBooks Online.
  4. In QuickBooks Online:
    • Make sure there are matched products/services that have the name that is same with the values of the acctg code of all Income financial account of all financial types used in the contributions.
    • Make sure all used tax accounts have been created and have names recored in the account type code of the sales tax financial account of matched financial type.