What syncs between Cleo Pay and QuickBooks Online?

For businesses using Cleo PayUpdated

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Your vendors, chart of accounts, classes and departments come from QuickBooks Online into Cleo Pay. Bills go the other way: Cleo Pay creates a bill in QuickBooks once it's approved and ready to pay, with its line items and attachments. The bill payment is recorded in QuickBooks when the bill is marked paid or synced as paid.

If you haven't connected yet, start with How to connect QuickBooks Online to Cleo Pay.

What comes in from QuickBooks

From QuickBooksWhat you see in Cleo Pay
VendorsListed on the Accounting page, where you match them to your Cleo Pay vendors
AccountsYour categories, on the Categories page
ClassesListed on the Accounting page
DepartmentsOnly if department tracking is turned on in QuickBooks

When you create or change one of these in QuickBooks, QuickBooks tells Cleo Pay and the change comes in on its own. If something looks out of date, click Sync now on the Accounting page.

Bills, bill payments and customers don't come in from QuickBooks.

Bills

Cleo Pay creates the bill in QuickBooks when the bill reaches Awaiting Payment. That happens right away for a bill that doesn't need approval, or after the last approval for one that does. Paying a bill also sends it if it isn't in QuickBooks yet. Drafts and bills still in Awaiting Approval aren't sent.

Two things have to be true first:

  • The Auto-create bills setting is on. It's on unless you turned it off.
  • The bill's vendor is matched to a QuickBooks vendor. If it isn't, the bill isn't sent. Match the vendor, then send the bill by hand (see below).

The QuickBooks bill gets the vendor, bill date, due date, invoice number and each line item with its category. Attachments are added after the bill is created. A line with no category gets one picked by AI. If QuickBooks already has a bill with the same invoice number, the bill is created without a number and QuickBooks assigns one. Invoice numbers longer than 21 characters are cut to their last 21.

After that, changing the bill's details, line items or categories in Cleo Pay updates it in QuickBooks. Cancelling the bill in Cleo Pay deletes it from QuickBooks.

Bill payments

With Auto-create bill payments on (it's on unless you turned it off), Cleo Pay records the payment against the bill when you mark a bill paid with Mark as Paid Manually. You can also record it for any paid bill with Sync to QuickBooks (see below).

A bill payment needs the bank account it was paid from to be matched to a QuickBooks account. Do that once in Bank Account Reconciliation on the Accounting page.

For a bill you paid through Cleo Pay, open the bill and look at its QuickBooks card. If Bill Payment isn't marked as synced, click Sync to QuickBooks.

Vendors and categories

Auto-create vendors is off until you turn it on. When it's on, adding a vendor in Cleo Pay creates the vendor in QuickBooks. If QuickBooks already has an active vendor with that name, Cleo Pay links to it instead. If a QuickBooks customer or employee has that name, the vendor is created as "[name] (Vendor)", because QuickBooks doesn't allow the same name twice.

When you add a category on the Categories page with Create in QuickBooks turned on, the matching account is created in QuickBooks.

What never goes to QuickBooks

Send a bill by hand

  1. Open the bill. On the Details tab, find the QuickBooks card.
  2. Click Sync to QuickBooks.
  3. Click Sync to QuickBooks again to confirm. If the bill is paid, the bill payment is created too.

To send several at once, go to the Accounting page, find Invoice Sync and click Review. Pick the bills (the app calls them invoices here) and click Sync [number] Selected Invoices at the bottom. Bills that still need a vendor or bank account match can't be picked until you fix that.

If a bill shows Sync failed, see How to fix QuickBooks sync errors. For anything else, email support@cleo-pay.com with the bill's invoice number and vendor name.

Learn more: Cleo Pay and QuickBooks Online

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