This article explains how the QuickBooks integration works behind the scenes: what gets sent to QuickBooks, when it syncs, and what to look for on the QuickBooks side. For connection steps, see How to Connect QuickBooks. For account setup, see QuickBooks Mapping.
The big picture
Your POS is the system of record for sales and inventory. QuickBooks is the system of record for your books. The integration connects the two: every night, it summarizes the day's activity in your POS and posts it to QuickBooks automatically, so your books stay current without manual data entry.
Four kinds of activity sync to QuickBooks:
Activity in your POS | What's created in QuickBooks | When |
Sales, returns, and payments | One journal entry per store location per day | Every night, covering the previous day |
A shipment is received on a purchase order | One bill per shipment | The night after you receive it |
A vendor return is closed | A vendor credit | The night after you close the return |
An inventory transfer between locations is closed | A journal entry moving inventory value between locations | The night after you close the transfer |
When the sync runs
The sync runs automatically overnight and covers activity through the previous business day (Eastern Time). You don't need to trigger anything.
A few useful details:
- If a sync is missed for any reason, the next run automatically catches up on any missed days.
- Every journal entry and bill we create carries a unique reference number, so re-syncing a day updates the existing entries in QuickBooks rather than creating duplicates.
- If a sync error occurs, our team is notified and will follow up.
How daily sales journal entries work
Instead of pushing every individual sale into QuickBooks, the integration posts one summarized journal entry per store location per day. So if you did $2,000 in sales across 40 transactions, QuickBooks gets a single balanced journal entry with the day's totals. Your POS keeps all the transaction-level detail; QuickBooks gets the accounting summary.
Each journal entry breaks the day out into separate lines, each posted to the QuickBooks account you chose during mapping:
- Sales (net of discounts), broken out by channel (in-store vs. online)
- Sales tax collected
- Cost of goods sold for what was sold, plus reversals for returns
- Inventory asset value — a balancing line that adjusts your inventory asset account for the day's cost movements (goods sold, returns, shrink adjustments)
- Payments by type — credit card, cash, and custom payment types, each posted to its mapped account
- Gift cards and store credit — sold and redeemed amounts, posted to their liability accounts
- Layaway deposits received, returned, or converted to sales
- Over/short — any cash drawer discrepancy from register close
Finding these entries in QuickBooks
In QuickBooks, go to Transactions and filter the transaction type to Journal Entry. Entries created by the integration have a reference number made of the date and your location ID, like 2026-07-13#12345678. That format is our signature — anything with it came from the POS. Journal entries you or your bookkeeper create by hand won't have it.
Tip for reconciliation: many stores map their payment accounts (cash, credit card) to an Undeposited Funds account in QuickBooks rather than directly to a bank account. This gives you a staging area to match daily POS totals against actual bank deposits, which is especially helpful if your card processor deducts fees before depositing. Ask your bookkeeper which approach fits your workflow — you can change the mapping at any time.
How purchase orders become bills
A purchase order is received in shipments, and each shipment syncs to QuickBooks as its own bill, so you can track and pay them through Accounts Payable like you're used to.
A bill is created when you receive a shipment — not when you create or close the purchase order. If a vendor sends an order in three deliveries, you get three bills, each matching the invoice that came with that delivery. The bill appears in QuickBooks after the next overnight sync.
What the bill looks like in QuickBooks:
- The bill date is the date you received the shipment. The vendor invoice number you entered on the shipment appears in the bill's memo, and the bill number is a reference Material assigns to that shipment.
- The vendor is matched by name to your QuickBooks vendor list. If the vendor doesn't exist in QuickBooks yet, we create it automatically.
- Line items are not itemized by product. The bill has a summary line for the product total (using your mapped Generic Product) and, if the shipment has a shipping cost, a Freight line. Freight posts to your inventory asset account (the account you mapped for Purchases), because shipping is part of what your inventory cost you.
- The bill posts to the Accounts Payable account you mapped, so it shows up in your unpaid bills list until you pay it in QuickBooks.
Things to know when receiving
- Enter the shipment's shipping cost and any invoice discount on the receiving screen. Whatever is on the shipment when you confirm it is what goes on the bill. If you leave them blank, the order's estimate for those units is used.
- Enter the vendor's invoice number on the shipment if you use it to reconcile payments; it lands in the bill's memo. You can add it to the shipment later, but the bill that already synced won't pick it up.
- Partial shipments and back orders need no workaround anymore. Receive each delivery as it arrives and each one becomes its own bill. The purchase order stays open until everything is in.
- If a bill comes over wrong, fix the shipment's costs in Material (see Purchase orders). The bill updates in QuickBooks after the next overnight sync. For shipments received more than 90 days ago, reach out to support.
After you fix a shipment's costs
Fixing a shipment's costs can change the cost of goods sold on days we've already sent to QuickBooks. To keep your books matching:
- A banner lists the days that need resyncing. Click Resync to update them.
Resyncing replaces the journal entries Material posted for those dates, so nothing is duplicated.
Prefer to enter bills yourself?
Some bookkeepers like to enter bills straight from vendor invoices. You can turn off bills and vendor credits in the Vendor bills section of your QuickBooks Mapping. Sales, adjustments and transfers keep syncing. Keep in mind that your inventory value in QuickBooks will then only match Material if you record your purchases and vendor returns there yourself.
Vendor returns and transfers
- Vendor returns: when you close a return order to a vendor, a vendor credit is created in QuickBooks against that vendor, which you can apply to future bills.
- Inventory transfers: when you close a transfer between two of your locations, a journal entry moves the inventory value from one location to the other in QuickBooks, so per-location reporting stays accurate.
How inventory is valued
Your POS values inventory using weighted average cost. When you receive items at a new cost, the unit cost is averaged against what you already have on hand. Shipping you pay your vendors is included in that cost. It's spread across the units in the shipment, adds to your inventory value when you receive it, and moves into cost of goods sold as those items sell. Cost of goods sold and inventory asset lines in the daily journal entries use this average cost, so your inventory asset value in QuickBooks tracks the value in your POS. If you've turned off vendor bills, it only keeps matching if you record your purchases in QuickBooks yourself.
What does NOT sync
Knowing what the integration doesn't do is just as useful:
- Individual sales transactions. Sales come over as daily summaries, not one entry per sale. Transaction-level detail lives in your POS reports.
- Customers. Customer records are never sent to QuickBooks.
- Individual products or SKUs. Bills and journal entries use summary lines, not per-product items. Product-level inventory lives in your POS.
- Purchase orders themselves. What syncs is each shipment you receive against a purchase order. Closing a purchase order doesn't create anything in QuickBooks.
- Outside payment processor fees. If your card processor is separate from your POS, their fees aren't visible to us and won't appear in the sync. Your processor's statement (and an Undeposited Funds mapping) is the way to account for those.
Requirements
- QuickBooks Online Plus or higher. Lower plans don't support the inventory tracking features the integration needs.
- Location tracking enabled in QuickBooks, so entries can be tagged by store location. See How to Connect QuickBooks for setup steps.
If the numbers look off
A quick checklist before you worry:
- Missing bill? Check that the shipment was actually received (it should be listed under View shipments on the purchase order, or on the Shipments tab). Then allow one overnight sync. Also check that Send Bills and Vendor Credits to QuickBooks is set to When stock is received in your mapping settings.
- Amounts landing in an unexpected account? Review your account mapping. Activity in an unmapped account gets posted as an Over/Short adjustment.
- Can't find a journal entry? Filter QuickBooks transactions by type "Journal Entry" and look for the
date#locationreference number.
- Fixed a shipment's costs recently? Check Sync history for days that need resyncing.
Still stuck? Contact support — we can safely re-run the sync for any date range without creating duplicates.