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QuickBooks Online Integration

Learn how to connect your QuickBooks Online account to Workglue to keep customers, jobs, and financial data in sync.

Connect your QuickBooks online account to Workglue to automatically sync customers, jobs, cost codes, and financial data between both programs. Workglue helps keep your QuickBooks Online organization by only sending jobs in the Active stage. Once your accounts are connected, you can choose which financial data flows between the two programs based on how your business handles invoicing, estimating, and bill tracking.

What is QuickBooks Online?

QuickBooks Online is cloud-based accounting software used for invoicing, bookkeeping, and financial reporting. The integration with Workglue lets you sync customers, jobs, and cost codes between both platforms so your job costing data and accounting records stay aligned without double entry.

How Workglue maps to QuickBooks Online

  • Accounts in Workglue are Customers in QuickBooks Online

  • Jobs in Workglue are Sub-Customers in QuickBooks Online.

  • Cost Codes in Workglue are your Products & Services in QuickBooks Online.

Before you start

QuickBooks Online Essentials or higher is recommended. Sub-customers are available in all QuickBooks Online plans, but full job costing features require Plus or Advanced. If you are on Simple Start, the connection will work, but you will get the job-level reporting that makes the integration the most useful for contractors.

Make sure your QuickBooks Online account is set up with customers, products and services, and the chart of accounts you want to use in Workglue. The integration imports this data when you initiate the first sync.

If you have years of historical data in QuickBooks Online, you can set a Job sync start date during setup to limit how far back jobs sync from QuickBooks.

 

How to connect QuickBooks Online to Workglue

The integration uses your Intuit login. There is no API key needed.

Step 1: Connect QuickBooks Online to Workglue 

  1. In Workglue, go to My Account > Integrations.
  2. Scroll to the QuickBooks section.
  3. Select Connect QuickBooks Account.
  4. Log in to your Intuit account and authorize Workglue to access your QuickBooks Online data.

Once connected, you will see a green Connected. badge confirming the integration is active. Workglue will not import any data from QuickBooks Online until you initiate the first sync.

Step 2: Set your Sync Settings

Sync Settings control what data syncs automatically between Workglue and QuickBooks Online after the initial connection. Two are always on, three are optional.

Always on:

  • Automatically sync Customers & Jobs
    Customers and sub-customers sync in both directions. Required for the integration to work.
  • Automatically sync Item/Products
    QuickBooks Products & Services sync into Workglue as cost codes. Required for the integration to work.

Optional:

  • Automatically sync Estimates
    Estimates can be created and viewed in either program. Workglue can write estimates to QuickBooks Online and read estimates from QuickBooks Online. Turn this on if you want estimating data to flow both ways automatically.
  • Automatically sync Invoices from QuickBooks
    Invoices are created in QuickBooks Online only. Workglue receives invoices as read-only records for job costing. You can click an invoice in Workglue to view the invoice number, balance, and line items in a pop-up, but all editing happens in QuickBooks Online. Turn this on if you want invoice data visible against your jobs in Workglue
  • Automatically sync Purchases (Bills & Expenses)
     Bills and expenses entered into QuickBooks Online flow into Workglue for job costing. This is one way from QuickBooks to Workglue.

Job sync start date

Set the date that controls how far back jobs sync from this QuickBooks Online. Only jobs (sub-customers) created on or after this date will sync from QuickBooks. Use this to skip historical data you do not want pulled in. When you are done, select Save Settings.

Manual Sync Options

Manual sync options let you run a one-time sync on demand and export your QuickBooks data as a CSV before importing it into Workglue.

After connecting QuickBooks, consider exporting your data first to review it before importing into Workglue. This helps catch duplicates, inactive records, or unexpected entries before they land in your Workglue account.

Step 3: Run your first sync.

To run a manual sync

  1. Choose which entities to pull from QuickBooks Online. Customers & Jobs and Items/Products are always selected. You can additionally choose Invoices, Purchases (Bills & Expenses), and Estimates.
  2. To overwrite existing customer address and phone numbers in Workglue with the values from QuickBooks Online, select Update (overwrite) existing address, phone, etc. Leave this off to keep your existing Workglue contact information intact.
  3. Select Sync from QuickBooks to run the sync.

To export your QuickBooks data as a CSV without importing, select Export QuickBooks Data (CSV).

Manual Mappings

Use Manual Mappings to link a Workglue record to its matching record in QuickBooks Online. Mapping creates a connection between two existing records so Workglue and QuickBooks recognize them as the same entity going forward. Nothing gets created, deleted, or merged. Use this when records do not auto-match during sync, or when the same record was created separately in both systems, and you need to tell Workglue they are the same one. The Manual Mappings interface is divided into tabs by record type.

Cost Codes

Map a QuickBooks Product or Service to an existing Workglue cost code.

  1. Select a QuickBooks cost code from the dropdown. Mapped codes display (mapped) next to the name.
  2. Select the Workglue cost code you want to link it to.
  3. Select Map selected cost code.

Editing cost code fields: Cost Code Name, Cost, Price, Description, and Taxable status all live in your QuickBooks Products & Services settings. To change any of these values, edit the cost code in QuickBooks Online and the changes will sync to Workglue. The Hide from mobile and Hide from web settings are Workglue-only display options and do not affect QuickBooks.

Customers

Map a QuickBooks customer to an existing Workglue customer.

  1. Select a QuickBooks customer from the dropdown.

  2. Select the Workglue customer you want to link it to.
  3. Select Map selected customer.

QuickBooks jobs (sub-customers) are excluded from manual customer mapping. Sub-customers sync automatically as Workglue Jobs based on the parent Customer mapping. If a sub-customer is not appearing in Workglue, check that the parent Customer is mapped and the Job sync date is set correctly.

Customer Type

Map a QuickBooks customer type to a Workglue customer type, or create a new Workglue type from the QuickBooks type name.

  1. Select a QuickBooks customer type.
  2. Either select an existing Workglue customer type and select Map selected type, or select Create from QuickBooks type to generate a new Workglue type using the QuickBooks type name.
Purchase Categorization

Purchase Categorization tells Workglue which QuickBooks accounts should be treated as Equipment or Subcontractor purchases. Without this, equipment and subcontractor costs are listed as materials in Workglue reports, making it harder to see where your job costs are actually going.

  1. Toggle on Separate Equipment & Subcontactor purchases.
  2. Under Equipment Accounts, select one or more QuickBooks accounts (e.g., Cost of Goods Sold: Equipment Rental). The drop-down pulls from your QuickBooks chart of accounts, so your list will reflect your own accounting setup.
  3. Under Subcontractor Accounts, select one or more QuickBooks accounts (e.g., Cost of Labor: Subcontractor).
  4. Select Save Purchase Settings.

Disconnecting QuickBooks Online

To disconnect, select Disconnect in the QuickBooks integration settings. Disconnecting stops future automatic syncs. Data already synced into Workglue stays in Workglue. You can reconnect at any time by repeating the connection steps.

Reconnecting to a different QuickBooks Online account

If you reconnect to a different QuickBooks Online account after disconnecting, Workglue tags the new connection with a different color so you can tell which records came from which QuickBooks account. Cost codes and other QuickBooks-linked records show their QuickBooks color-coded flag indicating their source account.

This is useful if you change accountants, migrated to a new QuickBooks account, or merged businesses.

Using PaintScout with this integration

If you also use PaintScout, connect QuickBooks to Workglue, not to PaintScout. Your QuickBooks Products & Services sync into Workglue as cost codes, which Paintscout then maps to during its own setup. Connecting QuickBooks directly to PaintScout can create duplicate customer records.

Set up your integrations in this order: QuickBooks Online first, then PaintScout. See the PaintScout Integration article for PaintScout setup steps.

Job stages and the QuickBooks sync

Workglue has three job stages: Sales, Active, and Closed. Each stage interacts with QuickBooks Online differently.

  • Sales. Sales-stage jobs are opportunities and leads you have not won. They do not sync to QuickBooks Online. Nothing about a Sales-stage job appears in QuickBooks Online until the job stage is changed to Active.
  • Active. When a job moves to Active, it syncs to QuickBooks Online as a Sub-Customer under the parent Customer. Active is the only stage that creates QuickBooks records.
  • Closed. The job is archived in Workglue; no information may be added to the job.

Workglue blocks the move from Sales to Active if any required fields are missing on the job.