Connecting & Setting Up QuickBooks Online
Before you can sync transactions, connect your QuickBooks Online account to Orchard Stack and complete a short setup wizard. Setup maps your Orchard Stack clients, products, and payment types to their QuickBooks equivalents and chooses the ledger accounts each transaction should post to.
Connecting QuickBooks Online requires administrator access. If you don't see the QuickBooks Online option, contact support to have the integration enabled for your organization.
Open the QuickBooks Online page
Navigate to the Administration page.
In the Accounting section, click QuickBooks Online .
The QuickBooks Online page is your hub for the integration. It shows a Connection card with your current status and, once connected, cards for Settings, Customers, Items, Payment Methods, and Sync Log.
Connect your QuickBooks Online account
On the QuickBooks Online page, click Connect .
A QuickBooks authorization window opens. Sign in to QuickBooks and authorize Orchard Stack to access the company you want to connect.
When authorization completes, Orchard Stack takes you straight into the setup wizard.
Allow pop-ups for Orchard Stack in your browser — the QuickBooks authorization window opens as a pop-up. There are no credentials or connection IDs to copy; the connection is handled for you.
Complete the setup wizard
The setup wizard walks you through each step in order, with a progress bar at the top: Settings → Customers → Items → Payment Methods → Finish. You can leave at any time with Exit setup and resume later.
Step 1: Settings
Choose the QuickBooks ledger accounts and set your automation preferences, then click Continue.
Ledger Accounts
- Income Account — the QuickBooks income account used for any new sales items Orchard Stack creates.
- Deposit Account — the account where client payments are recorded. This is usually your Undeposited Funds account.
- Liability Account — used only if you prebill services as deferred revenue. Select the liability account that holds prebilled amounts until the services are delivered and invoiced. (Optional.)
Sync & Automation
- Automatically create customers? — create a QuickBooks customer during sync when no match exists.
- QuickBooks customer display name format — choose how new customer names are formatted (for example, First Last or Last, First ).
- Automatically create products? — create a QuickBooks item during sync when no match exists.
- Automatically sync new invoices? — sync invoices to QuickBooks automatically when they are committed in Orchard Stack.
- Automatically sync new payments? — sync payments automatically when they are recorded.
- Automatically apply payments to unpaid invoices? — apply synced payments to open invoices in QuickBooks. (Can be enabled even if payments aren't synced automatically.)
- Automatically sync new credit adjustments as credit notes? — sync credit adjustments automatically as QuickBooks credit notes.
- Automatically apply credits to unpaid invoices? — apply synced credits to open invoices in QuickBooks.
The account choices are pulled live from QuickBooks. If a list is empty, confirm the account exists in QuickBooks with the expected type (income, bank/asset, or liability).
Step 2: Customers
Map your Orchard Stack clients to QuickBooks customers. Each client shows a Mapped or Not Mapped status.
- Automatically map customers — matches clients to existing QuickBooks customers by name. In the dialog you can also choose to create new customers for any client without a match. Allow a couple of minutes for the first run.
- Assign (per client) — pick a specific QuickBooks customer to link.
- Create new QuickBooks customer (per client) — create the customer in QuickBooks and link it.
- Refresh QuickBooks customers — re-pull the customer list from QuickBooks if you've made changes there.
Click Continue when your clients are mapped.
Step 3: Items
Map your Orchard Stack products to QuickBooks items using the same Automatically map, Assign, Create new, and Refresh actions. Click Continue when finished.
If your organization operates in a healthcare context, product names for therapeutic diets may contain PHI. Review product names before mapping, and map them to generically named QuickBooks items where appropriate. Multiple Orchard Stack products can be mapped to the same QuickBooks item.
Step 4: Payment Methods
Map your Orchard Stack payment types to QuickBooks payment methods, again using Automatically map, Assign, Create new, and Refresh. Click Continue.
Step 5: Finish
Review the confirmation and click Finish to return to the QuickBooks Online page. You can revisit any section later from the configuration cards.
Resume an incomplete setup
If you leave the wizard before finishing, the QuickBooks Online page shows a Setup incomplete banner. Click Resume setup to pick up where you left off, or Dismiss to hide the banner.
Set your invoice numbering
Invoice numbers must be unique in QuickBooks Online. If you already create invoices in QuickBooks, adjust Orchard Stack's numbering so the two don't collide:
Navigate to the Administration page and open Billing Settings in the Accounting section.
Update the Invoice Number Prefix and/or Next Invoice Number . Using a distinct prefix (for example,
HDM- ) is an easy way to keep Orchard Stack invoice numbers unique.Reconnecting to a different company
QuickBooks does not allow an existing connection to switch companies. To connect a different QuickBooks company, first disconnect (below), then connect again. When the new company differs from the previous one, the wizard starts with a Clean Up step:
- Continue keeps your existing mappings.
- Remove mappings clears all client, product, and payment-method mappings and resets your QuickBooks settings so you can start fresh. This can't be undone.
Disconnect QuickBooks Online
On the QuickBooks Online page, click Disconnect .
Confirm by clicking Yes, disconnect .
You can reconnect to the same QuickBooks company at any time by clicking Connect again. To connect a different company, disconnect first (see above) or contact support.