Introduction
In this article, we’ll explain how to set up and use our QuickBooks Online integration.
As part of the first iteration, we’ll enable the generation and update of invoices in QuickBooks Online, both automatically and manually. We’ll send the most relevant reservation data, including:
- Guest details
- Price breakdown (the same as in Hostaway, corresponding to what the guest paid for the reservation; currently excluding commissions)
- Listing as a class
- Other data (messages on the invoice, use of dynamic fields, etc.)
If you are not already familiar with it, we strongly recommend familiarizing yourself with QuickBooks Online. It’s a very powerful and complex software, and understanding it will help you determine if this integration can benefit your operations.
Connection
The integration works only for QuickBooks Online. It has been designed and tested for the US & CA versions, but it should be compatible with any other regional version.
Please follow the next steps to connect to QuickBooks Online:
- To connect to QuickBooks Online, go to Financial Reporting > Quickbooks and click on Connect
- After confirming you’ll be redirected to QuickBooks where you’ll have to log in and select the company you want to use for this connection. At this time we only allow to connect to one account and company, but this may change in the future. Please use our Product features request board if you are interested in this option
- Once the company has been selected you will be back to Hostaway, where a list of steps will be presented
- After clicking on Start configuration, the initial configuration needs to be saved at least once to enable the synchronization. The most important steps there are to select (and optionally associate) listings and map financial fields to services
Settings
Set what data you want to automate and pass to QuickBooks when we generate invoices there.
General settings
- Synching options: Select what you want to automate or manage manually:
- Push new reservations automatically (creation): Every time we receive a new reservation will automatically create an invoice in QB to pass the most relevant data there
- If this is unselected, it will still be possible to manually manage the creation
- Repush upon reservation modification (update): When a reservation is updated and the data may be relevant for the QBO connection, we’ll automatically update the invoice if this option is selected
- If this is unselected, it will still be possible to manually manage the updates
- Cancellations will push values with a 0 for the time being (independently from the policy)
- Push new reservations automatically (creation): Every time we receive a new reservation will automatically create an invoice in QB to pass the most relevant data there
- General invoice settings
- Invoice date to & invoice due date to Mandatory fields to generate invoices in QuickBooks Online
- Message on invoice and message on statement: Optional fields. These are generally pre-offered by QuickBooks online. You can use dynamic fields to enter relevant information such as the check-in dates or specific conditions
- Invoice custom fields:
- Clicking on Sync invoice custom fields will retrieve the 3 first custom fields on QuickBooks online
- This is a limitation on QuickBooks side, so we recommend leaving those for the Hostaway integration. Names can be changed
- After the custom fields are retrieved, static or dynamic data can be pushed. This is useful to send data such as the Channel or dates
- Clicking on Sync invoice custom fields will retrieve the 3 first custom fields on QuickBooks online
Listings settings
Select the listings you want to include and optionally map those to QuickBooks classes.
- Select the listings you want to include
- Optionally, assign classes. Classes can help you obtain deeper insights into your sales, expenses, or profitability per specific listing, owner, or location
- Several listings can share a class
- Classes are only available for QuickBooks Online Plus and superior plans
- Classes apply to the whole transaction but not to specific items for now (this setting can be changed in QuickBooks account and settings -> Advanced -> Categories -> Assign classes)
- Learn to activate and manage classes by reading QuickBooks user guides
Financial Reporting settings
Map financial fields to services on QuickBooks. You can have a default item.
- Select a default service for the mapping of financial fields. Many property managers don’t need a specific service for every possible line item, so this is a good starting point
- Do it optionally on an individual level. Services can be associated with income and expense accounts as well as categories on QuickBooks Online which can be very helpful in understanding in more detail your sources of income
Synchronization
Have visibility and control over what we are pushing to QuickBooks.
After saving the initial configuration, the section Manage sync & update will start showing reservations.
Each reservation will have a status that corresponds to the invoice generation in QuickBooks Online. The types are:
-
Not created. The reservation has not produced an Invoice in this QuickBooks account and the company yet
- It allows the creation of an invoice
- There may be some limitations: reservations from before 2022, or belonging to listings not connected
- It allows the creation of an invoice
- Updated. The reservation generated an invoice and it corresponds to the last version of that reservation
-
Outdated. The reservation generated an invoice but afterward, the reservation changed a relevant value and made the invoice outdated.
- It allows to update an invoice
- Changes that could make the reservation as updated:
- Status modification to cancellation
- In this case, we’ll push values to 0 for now
- Guest name
- Check-in
- Check-out
- Financial fields included in the price breakdown include:
- Financial fields added
- Removed
- Modified
- Anything that may change the total price
- Status modification to cancellation
- Validating. Temporary status. When a reservation is modified, before syncing we need to validate if this will outdated the reservation or not
- Syncing. Temporary status. We are generating the invoice in QuickBooks
We have a master switcher that will select all the reservations on that page to make the sync faster. But the sync will not start until Save has not been clicked.
If there was a failed sync attempt, we’ll show also an indicator with the message we got from QBO explaining the reason.
Invoices in QuickBooks Online
The result of this process will be an invoice in QuickBooks Online that will contain:
- Customer:
- Name
- Phone
- Bill to (same as name)
- Invoice date & due date
- An optional listing associated (via class)
- Line items:
- Each financial field will be mapped to a Service in QBO, including taxes. These services can be pointing to different charts of accounts in QBO
- Each service will show a description corresponding to the Alias of that financial field
- Quantity, rate, and amount will match the ones we have at Hostaway
- We don’t use the Sales tax default functionality
- Note to customer and memo on statement will also be pushed, and can use dynamic data:
User management permissions for QuickBooks access
When using the Quick Books integration there will be users who do not have admin permissions that need to manage the QuickBooks accounting tool.
For that reason, you can give access to the users you want to manage the tool. To do that you should follow the next steps:
- Go to your Hostaway Dashboard > User Management > Users
- Select the user you want to give access to Quick Books
- Go to Access Permission > Check the box Modify near QuickBooks Online
- Save
This permission has been added to Group permissions and the Finance Permission template. By default, it is set off.