How does the integration with QuickBooks Online work?

Abacus has seamless integration with QuickBooks Online for both reimbursable expenses and corporate card expenses. 

How does the sync work for reimbursable expenses (Cash Mode)? 

• Abacus processes reimbursements via batched ACH transfers on a nightly basis
• When the ACH transfer is initiated via expense approval, we push a Bill & Bill Payment into QuickBooks for the same transfer amount, making reconciliation easy

To give you a better idea of what this will look like, these screenshots show you a Bill and Bill Payment in QuickBooks Online:

Bill:

Bill Payment: 

How does the sync work for reimbursable expenses (Accrual Mode)? 

This is a feature that is available through our Professional Plan. 

With the accrual sync, we will create a new purchase transaction for each expense against a Spend Clearing account (type = Bank account), and each transaction is dated based on the date of the expense. We will also create a bank transfer in the amount of the associated debit from your bank register to the Clearing account.   

Each time we debit the company bank account, we will also create a bank transfer from the Spend Clearing account to your Operating Bank Register (where debits come from). You will need to reconcile the bank transfer with the debit in your Bank Register. 

Reconciled vs. Unreconciled status in the Clearing Account

The purchase transactions (i.e. expenses) will come into the clearing account as 'reconciled.' The bank transfers will be 'unreconciled.' 

Reconciling the bank transfers is a one-step process: 

1) In your Operating Bank Register, match the bank transfer to the corresponding bank debit. This will automatically change the status of the transaction to 'reconciled' in the Clearing account.

To enable this feature, toggle Accrual accounting to "on" on your Accounting Sync page in your settings. The first time you approve a batch of expenses, the Clearing Account will be automatically created. 

How does the sync work for corporate card expenses? 

• When an admin approves corporate card expenses, Corporate Card transactions are synced into QB as an Expense to the designated Corporate Card register.  
• The date the transaction was made is synced to the Payment Date, to ensure it is synced to the appropriate QB period. 
• We recommend you also connect your Credit Card program to QB, so as to benefit from QB's 'matching' functionality, where the expenses synced into QB to the corporate card register can be 'matched' to the card transactions being imported by QB, ensuring a streamlined reconciliation process each month.

The record we create in QB will include the account, and the description field will include the cardholder, note, and a link back to the expense where you can view the receipt:

Here's what it will look like when corporate card transactions have matched with the corresponding transaction from your bank statement:

To reconcile, click the "match" button:

How does the sync work for billable expenses? 

Abacus is able to indicate when expenses are billable back to the customer. Learn how to indicate if an expense is billable. 

To sync billable expenses to your QuickBooks, you must create an Expense Field and map it to your customer list. Please review the instructions on creating an Expense Field. 

Once these features are set up, here's how it will work in QuickBooks: 

For reimbursable expenses, the billable expense will show a checkmark in the "Billable" field: 

Since the expense is associated with a customer from your customer list in QuickBooks, the expense will also be listed under the customer as a 'billable expense charge.' The status will be 'open' and you'll see the option to start an invoice:

Supported Account Types