Connect QuickBooks Online
Owners and admins connect once; then estimators can send estimates and create invoices.
Connect
- Go to Settings → QuickBooks Online → Connect QuickBooks Online — in the app, or on the office web page (Settings → Connections → QuickBooks Online).
- Sign in to Intuit, pick your QuickBooks company, and approve.
- From the app, come back to the app; from the web page, Intuit sends you back to it. It shows Connected to your company.
Your QuickBooks password and keys are never stored by Preflight. The switches below are on the same page, in the app and on the web.
Reconnecting
Sometimes QuickBooks stops accepting the connection — someone turned off Preflight in QuickBooks (Apps → Connected apps), the QuickBooks user who connected it left or changed, or it went unused for a long time. When that happens:
- The owner and admins get one email: QuickBooks needs to be reconnected.
- The office web page shows a red QuickBooks needs to be reconnected bar at the top, and Settings → QuickBooks Online says so in the app and on the web.
- Nothing is sent to QuickBooks until it's reconnected; QuickBooks buttons say QuickBooks needs to be reconnected. An admin can reconnect it in Settings → QuickBooks. Estimates, proposals and accepts keep working in Preflight.
To fix it, an owner or admin opens Settings → QuickBooks Online → Reconnect QuickBooks, signs in to Intuit, picks the same QuickBooks company and approves. The warning goes away as soon as it's connected. Invoices that didn't go through while it was disconnected can be made from each estimate with Create QuickBooks Invoice.
Preflight also checks in with QuickBooks once a week, so a company that goes quiet for a while stays connected. A brief QuickBooks outage doesn't count — it only asks you to reconnect when Intuit refuses the connection.
What it does
- Send Estimate to QuickBooks (on an estimate) creates or updates a QuickBooks estimate with the same lines and total as the proposal.
- Create QuickBooks Invoice creates an invoice linked to that estimate.
- Create the invoice when a customer accepts — turn on to make invoices automatically when a customer accepts online.
Customers are matched by name and created in QuickBooks if they're new. Each service (Hot Water Extraction, Tile & Grout, Travel…) becomes a QuickBooks product the first time it's used. Taxes, payments and reminders stay in QuickBooks.
Service plans and online payments
- Set up plan billing when a customer accepts the plan — monthly and annual plans become a QuickBooks recurring invoice (set to remind you before each one is sent). Per-visit plans are invoiced from the estimate after each visit.
- Let customers pay online (QuickBooks Payments) — invoices allow card and bank-transfer payment, deposits are invoiced right when the customer accepts, and the accept page shows Pay now.
Online payments need a QuickBooks Payments account turned on in QuickBooks, and the customer's billing contact needs an email. Card fees follow your QuickBooks Payments settings; if you add a surcharge in Preflight, check that it matches. See Payment terms and card fees.