Understand the QuickBooks Integration

QuickBooks and Maxio work together to provide invoicing, revenue, and subscription management. QuickBooks and Maxio share responsibility for managing Customers and Invoices, so the actions you take and the settings you manage in QuickBooks can significantly affect the information stored in Maxio.

How Maxio and QuickBooks divide responsibility

When working only with QuickBooks, the Invoice is the focal point of financial records management: you create Invoices and manage payments against them.

As a total subscription management system, the focal point in Maxio is the Transaction, not the Invoice. You create and manage Transactions, and Invoices are generated as a by-product of that process. Because of this, the Invoice Line Items that make up a complete Invoice can be created at different times or for different Transactions.

Once an Invoice syncs to QuickBooks and receives a unique QuickBooks ID, you can no longer edit it in Maxio. Edits made in QuickBooks sync back to Maxio. You can distribute Invoices to Customers from either system, accept payment in either system, and manage AR in either system.

How the Maxio data model compares to QuickBooks

In QuickBooks, Customers have Invoices, and Invoices contain Invoice Line Items that reference an Item/Product. Maxio adds a layer QuickBooks doesn't have: Customers have Contracts, and QuickBooks has no equivalent Contract object. A Contract is a container that holds Transactions, Revenues, Invoices, and Invoice Line Items. See Understanding Contracts for the full data model.

Maxio alone manages Contracts, Transactions, and Revenues, none of which QuickBooks knows about. When multi-currency is enabled, Maxio also manages FX rates and the generation of local and home financial records.

What Maxio gets from QuickBooks

• Chart of Accounts - Syncs from QuickBooks to Maxio and is typically managed only in QuickBooks.
• Items - Maxio gets Items/Products from QuickBooks. Before an Item can be used on a Transaction or Invoice Line Item, it needs a Maxio Profile, which determines whether Invoice Line Items using that Item sync, and defines the default revenue recognition and billing method for Transactions that use it.

How Invoices and Credit Memos relate to QuickBooks

• Invoices - Once an Invoice syncs to QuickBooks, editing options in Maxio become limited. Invoices and Invoice Line Items that have synced appear in green with the QuickBooks logo.
• Credit Memos - Created in Maxio by adding Invoice Line Items with negative values, typically from a Transaction with a negative amount. If the total of the line items is negative, Maxio syncs a Credit Memo instead of an Invoice. Credit Memos otherwise follow the same sync behavior as Invoices.

QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop

Maxio integrates with two QuickBooks products, and they connect and sync differently:

• QuickBooks Online connects using an authenticated, direct connection. You start each sync manually from your Maxio account. See Setup QuickBooks Online.
• QuickBooks Desktop connects using the Intuit Web Connector, a separate application that runs on the PC or server where QuickBooks Desktop is installed. See Setup QuickBooks Desktop.

Most of the concepts on this page apply to both products. Where a capability, limitation, or sync rule differs between QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop, this page and Sync QuickBooks Data call that out directly.

What syncs between Maxio and QuickBooks

The following rules apply universally to the flow of information between Maxio and QuickBooks:

• Customers created or edited in either system sync to the other system.
• Invoices and Credit Memos created in either system sync to the other system.
• For Invoices and Credit Memos created in Maxio, only Invoice Line Items that use an Item originally created in QuickBooks sync. You build your product catalog of Items in QuickBooks, sync those Items to Maxio, and configure them there.
• An Invoice syncs from Maxio to QuickBooks once it hasn't yet synced and its Invoice Date is on or before the date you run the sync.

See Sync QuickBooks Data for the full set of sync conditions and field-level behavior, broken out by Customers, Invoices, Credit Memos, and Payments/Deposits.

Key capabilities and limitations

• Multi-currency - If multi-currency is on in Maxio, the currency and FX rate are sent with the Invoice. See Sync QuickBooks Multi-currency.
• Sales tax - If sales tax is enabled in QuickBooks, QuickBooks itself calculates and generates sales tax information at both the line item and invoice total level during the sync, using the Customer's Sales Tax Code and Sales Tax Item settings stored in QuickBooks.
• Discounts - The QuickBooks Online Discount function applies a discount to the total Invoice rather than to an individual Product, which creates revenue reporting issues, so Maxio doesn't support it. Set up Discount Products in QuickBooks Online instead. QuickBooks Desktop Discount Items are supported, but only when combined with other Invoice Line Items so the Invoice total is positive.
• Jobs - An optional feature, enabled by Maxio Support, that changes how QuickBooks sub-customers are represented in Maxio: as independent Customers by default, or as Contracts under a parent Customer when Jobs support is enabled.

Important: Enabling or disabling Jobs after your first sync can significantly change your existing data. Contact support@maxio.com before changing this setting on an account that has already synced.

Closing dates and locks

Maxio supports three closing functions that prevent changes to Transaction, Revenue, and Invoice records: the Maxio Closing Date, the QuickBooks Closing Date, and the Transaction Lock. See Manage Closing and Transaction Lock Dates.

Record alerts raised during a sync

When a sync runs, Maxio raises an alert on its QuickBooks page for each record it can't move cleanly between the two systems. These apply to both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop.

For errors that stop a QuickBooks Online sync outright rather than flagging one record, see QuickBooks Online General Sync Issues. For the QuickBooks Desktop equivalent, see QuickBooks Desktop Sync Issues.

Related information

For the settings that control how this data flows, see Configure QuickBooks Integration Settings.

For a one-page summary of which records sync in which direction, see QuickBooks Integration Cheat Sheet.

For how to choose which system takes the lead in your day-to-day workflow, see Understand QuickBooks Integration Workflow Options.