Run the QuickBooks sync

The QuickBooks sync posts the church's giving to QuickBooks Online as summarized, fund-coded entries. You always see what it will post before it posts, and it refuses to post anything that doesn't pass its checks.

When to use this

After Sunday's cash and check batch is marked deposited, or any time you want QuickBooks brought up to date. In the live system it also runs each night on its own.

The connection and realm

The strip at the top shows which QuickBooks company the sync posts to. QuickBooks calls a company a realm, and each realm has an ID.

Every environment has a short allowlist of realms it may post to, and the sync checks the realm against it before every run. The practice sandbox may only ever post to a pretend sandbox company, so it can never touch the church's real books, and the live system can only post to the church's own company.

Review the journal preview

Journal preview lists every entry the next run would post:

• one entry per Stripe payout and gift date, for online gifts;
• one deposit entry per cash and check batch that's been marked deposited.

Open any entry to see its lines: income by fund (each with its QuickBooks Class), fees, and the account it posts to. Entries already posted are left out, so running twice never posts twice.

Pre-flight checks

Before posting, the sync checks that:

• the realm is on this environment's allowlist;
• every fund has a complete mapping to a Class and an income account;
• every entry balances, with debits equal to credits;
• every income line has a Class;
• no line names a donor (summaries only, never a QuickBooks customer per donor).

A green tick means the check passed. If any check fails, Run QuickBooks sync is disabled and nothing posts until it's fixed.

Run the sync

1. Check the total under Ready to post, and the split by Class.
2. Make sure every pre-flight check is green.
3. Type your name or role under Run by. It's recorded in the sync history, so the bookkeeper knows who posted what.
4. Select Run QuickBooks sync.

The result appears straight away, and the run is added to Sync history with every entry it posted. Open a run to see its entries again.

Good to know

• The sync posts only summaries. It never creates customers, Classes or accounts in QuickBooks.
• Card and bank gifts from the give page post with their Stripe payout, once it's paid, not on the day they're given.
• In the sandbox, "posting" writes to your browser's sync history only.

Top tips

• Read the Net to income, by Class split before posting: if a fund looks wrong, a mapping or a batch line is usually the cause, and it's quicker to fix before it's in QuickBooks.
• Use a role ("Bookkeeper", "Finance lead") in Run by if several people share the job; the history stays readable.
• If the preview says Nothing left to post, you're up to date: no need to run it.

Troubleshooting

Run QuickBooks sync is greyed out. A pre-flight check failed. The most common cause is an incomplete fund mapping; fix it on Fund mapping and come back.

A deposit I expected isn't in the preview. Its batch hasn't been marked deposited yet, or it was already posted in an earlier run (check Sync history).

"Blocked: nothing posted." Open the run in Sync history to see which checks failed and why.