Connect QuickBooks and post entries

What it does

• Reads your chart of accounts, classes, vendors, customers and items from QuickBooks.
• Queues a journal entry draft when stock moves in a way your books should see: a purchase receipt, a work order completion, an inventory adjustment, a customer return that closes, a vendor credit you enter, or a receivables push from Reports.
• Posts a draft to QuickBooks only after you approve it.

Connect

1. Sign in as the owner. Only the owner sees QuickBooks, under Money in the sidebar.
2. Open QuickBooks and press Connect QuickBooks.
3. Intuit's consent page opens. Approve the sandbox company. Declining returns you with Consent declined and saves nothing.
4. You come back to the QuickBooks screen. The first sync runs on its own and the screen shows the company, a Sandbox badge, In sync, the time of the last sync and how many drafts are waiting.

If the server has no Intuit keys, Connect is off and the screen says so. Tokens are kept encrypted on the server and never reach your browser.

Syncing

• Sync now pulls again. The sync log lists each run with its counts (accounts, classes, new, updated, matched, to decide) and whether it finished or failed.
• Vendors and customers are matched by name and items by SKU. A record that exists on both sides is linked, not duplicated.
• Sync only reads from QuickBooks into Lockstock. It does not edit your QuickBooks vendors, customers or items.
• If a sync fails the status turns to Out of sync with the reason, and nothing partial is kept. Reconnect if Intuit asked for it.

Intuit access tokens last an hour and refresh tokens about 101 days. Intuit replaces the refresh token each time it is used, and Lockstock saves the newest one.

Changed on both sides

If a vendor, customer or item changed in Lockstock and in QuickBooks since the last sync, the screen shows both values side by side (name, email or phone). Keep Lockstock leaves things as they are. Use QuickBooks takes the QuickBooks value into Lockstock. Nothing is overwritten until you choose, and a choice cannot be made twice.

The account map

Every journal line needs a QuickBooks account. The account map sets one for each purpose, with defaults picked from the sandbox chart of accounts. Changing one saves at once.

• Inventory asset
• Cost of goods sold
• Accounts payable
• Accounts receivable
• Work in progress
• Purchase price variance
• Inventory adjustment

A draft with a line whose account is not set is marked with what is missing and cannot be posted until you map it.

The posting queue

1. Drafts wait in the queue (Waiting tab), each with its date, accounts, debit, credit, memo and, where there is one, a link to the receipt or work order it came from.
2. Tick the drafts you have reviewed and press Approve and post. Nothing posts before that.
3. Each draft posts once as a journal entry and turns Posted with its QuickBooks number (the Posted tab). A double click, a retry or a second tab never makes a second entry.
4. If Intuit refuses a draft it stays Failed with Intuit's own message, and you can press Retry after fixing the cause.
5. Discard removes drafts you do not want. The receipt, work order, return or adjustment behind it stays.

• Debits must equal credits, or the draft cannot be posted.
• A line on Accounts Payable needs a vendor in QuickBooks. Lockstock uses the receipt's vendor, matching by name, and creates the vendor once in the sandbox if QuickBooks has none. Receivable lines work the same way with the customer.
• Costing method changes wait until the queue is empty, so a draft is never posted with a different method than it was made under.

Disconnect

Disconnect asks Intuit to revoke Lockstock's access and deletes the saved tokens. Records already synced stay in Lockstock, and drafts in the queue stay unposted until you connect again. Deleting your account also revokes the connection.