How do I integrate my Point of Sale with QuickBooks?
QuickBooks is a cloud accounting software that makes it easy to manage your books on multiple devices.
How does the integration work?
Once you've connected your QuickBooks account, Point of Sale automatically imports your data into the bookkeeping accounts of your choice.
We suggest that you create separate bookkeeping accounts for each set of data, making it easier to get a clear overview of payments going in and out of your Point of Sale and your bank account.
The guide below is a suggestion on how to set up your connection with QuickBooks in the most straightforward way.
To avoid duplicated bookkeeping, it’s important that you only choose one source to integrate with accountancy platforms.
If your business accepts most payments in-store through Point of Sale, consider integrating from your Point of Sale online.
If your business tends to use more products offered by PayPal, such as the PayPal Business Mastercard or takes mostly online transactions with few payments accepted in-store through Point of Sale, consider integrating from PayPal.com.
We’d always recommend chatting with your accountant if you’re unsure how to proceed.
Unsupported plans
Certain QuickBooks plans are not supported on Point of Sale because of their limited functionalities. Check if you need to change your plan before connecting to Point of Sale.
Not supported on Point of Sale:
- QuickBooks Self-Employed for sole traders
- QuickBooks Simple Start for sole traders
- QuickBooks Simple Start for limited companies
QuickBooks Essentials and QuickBooks Plus are supported.
Here's how to connect your Point of Sale with QuickBooks:
- Log in to your Point of Sale online.
- Go to your Integrations page and find the Quickbooks integration.
- Click Connect and read the information regarding customers and suppliers.
- Enter your Quickbooks login details, then select which QuickBooks organization Point of Sale can access and click Authorize (you can only connect one Point of Sale to one QuickBooks organization).
- Map the Point of Sale Accounts to your QuickBooks Accounts.
- Choose a start date for when you want to retroactively export data.
- Click Save.
If everything is set up correctly, you'll see your Point of Sale data in QuickBooks the following day.
QuickBooks account type mapping
To import the data, specify which Point of Sale data goes into which QuickBooks account. Each transaction type can have a dedicated account in QuickBooks.
When does the import happen?
Select up to one year in the past to start the import.
Point of Sale automatically imports data to QuickBooks once every night. Once you set up the integration, the first Point of Sale data will appear in QuickBooks the next day.
Can I change the start date after setting up the integration?
No, as it would result in duplicated data for overlapping days.
What data is shared between Point of Sale and QuickBooks?
When you authorize the connection between Point of Sale and QuickBooks, you give permission to QuickBooks to read your Point of Sale sales and financial data. You also give permission to Point of Sale to read your QuickBooks company, accounts, tax rates, customers, suppliers, invoices, bills, payments, balance sheets, and bank statements.
How can I avoid double-counting purchases if I am using a POS other than Point of Sale and have already integrated with QuickBooks?
Switch off the “‘Synchronize sales data” option in order to avoid double-counting. In this case, you only need to sync Point of Sale fee data to QuickBooks. You can do this by selecting an account for “Zettle fees” to record fees as an expense (bill), and you should also select an account for “Zettle Card Payments” to record payments for the expense. The Point of Sale fees are subtracted from card payments upon payout from Point of Sale to your bank account.
The data sync has stopped and I’m missing Point of Sale data in QuickBooks. What can I do?
Log in to your Point of Sale online and go to Integrations. Verify that your connection to QuickBooks is still active, if not, your connection to QuickBooks has been deauthorized – usually due to password or permission change – and you need to connect again.
If your connection is active, go to the QuickBooks settings page and verify that you have a valid account selected for each required field. If an account is missing or has become archived in QuickBooks, you'll see an error message on the field. Make sure to select a new account and save the new settings. The integration will automatically backfill data for the missing period with the new settings from the next day.
If all settings look good on the QuickBooks page in Point of Sale, please check your QuickBooks account and make sure your subscription is active.
How does the data mapping work?
Point of Sale sales
Account mapping
Switch to sync Point of Sale sales data in QuickBooks if you're using the PayPal Point of Sale App as your point of sale. Switch off if you're using another point-of-sale system (e.g. Lightspeed, The Good Till, Revel) that already syncs sales data in QuickBooks to prevent double counting. With the daily sales recording switched off, the Point of Sale integration needs to only record the fees and fee refunds (see below).
Sales are booked on a nominal account in the “Revenue” category. You can select an existing account from the dropdown. If you don’t have an account available, you need to create an account in QuickBooks for this purpose.
How does this data appear in QuickBooks?
Point of Sale pushes a single sales invoice to QuickBooks Online each day. This invoice represents all sales made over the course of that day. The invoice will contain one line item for each tax rate the merchant trades in, with this line item representing the total of all sales at that tax rate. If no sales have been made for a given tax rate on that day, the corresponding line item will be omitted.
Rounding
Discounts in Point of Sale are applied to the total of the purchase once all the items have been summed up rather than at an item level. As we're splitting out items into VAT Percentage across all sales for the day, discounts need to be applied at the item level which may lead to slight rounding discrepancies compared to applying the discount at the summed level. As per the advice of most accounting packages, we add an invoice line which will be ± 0.01 to bring the total in line with the correct total.
Point of Sale refunds
Account mapping
Refunds are also booked on a nominal account of type “Revenue”. It's typical to select the same account as for the Point of Sale sales account (see “Sales” above). However, a different account could be used if you want to report refunds separately within QuickBooks.
How this data appears in QuickBooks
Point of Sale pushes a single refund receipt to QuickBooks each day. This invoice represents all refunds made over the course of that day. The refund receipt contains one line item for each tax rate the merchant trades in, with this line item representing the total of all refunds at that tax rate. If no refunds have been made for a given tax rate on that day, the corresponding line item is omitted.
Point of Sale tipping
Account mapping
Point of Sale supports current and bank accounts for all payment accounts. You can select an existing account from the dropdown. If you don’t have an account available, you need to create an account in QuickBooks for this purpose.
How this data appears in QuickBooks
Gratuity is pushed to QuickBooks as part of the daily sales invoice as a separate line item.
Point of Sale fees
PayPal Point of Sale takes a percentage commission on every card transaction processed by the Card Reader.
The fees affect the amount deposited in your bank account, as they're subtracted from the card payment amounts upon payout. As a result, the current account (Point of Sale payments) aren't zero after completing reconciliation against the bank feed. The integration, therefore, creates a purchase invoice in QuickBooks to account for Point of Sale fees. The payment for Point of Sale fees is applied to the account used for Point of Sale card payments.
Account mapping
Fees are booked on a nominal account of type “Expenses” and appear in the Expense section of a profit and loss report. You can select an existing account from the dropdown. If you don’t have an account available, you need to create an account in QuickBooks for this purpose.
How this data appears in QuickBooks
Point of Sale pushes a single Bill to QuickBooks Online each day. This bill represents all fees taken by Point of Sale over the course of that day. The bill can have more than one line if there are different types of transactions that occur throughout the day.
Fee refunds
How this data appears in QuickBooks
A single bank deposit is pushed each day representing all fee refunds processed that day.
Point of Sale deposits
Deposits are the revenue from your sales after deducting any fees owed to PayPal Point of Sale.
When your money is paid out, your bank processes and deposits it in your bank account. You should reconcile the Point of Sale deposit transaction against the deposit amount from your bank statement on QuickBooks.
Account mapping
Deposits are booked on a nominal account that represents the bank account you’ve connected to Point of Sale.
How this data appears on QuickBooks
It shows as a transfer from Point of Sale's liquid account to your business's bank account.
Point of Sale payments by card, Alipay and PayPal QR codes
Account mapping
Assign your liquid account to either a QuickBooks current or a QuickBooks bank account. If you don’t have an account available, you need to create an account in QuickBooks for this purpose.
The account configured for Point of Sale card payments represents the Point of Sale liquid account.
How this data appears in QuickBooks
Point of Sale pushes a single payment to QuickBooks per day, per payment type that has been used that day. So if you process 10 card payments and 20 cash payments in one day, 2 payments are pushed. These payments are recorded against the daily sales invoice.
Point of Sale invoice
Account mapping
- Invoice payments account – This is a current or a bank account where payments against Point of Sale invoices are received. As invoice payments are handled by Point of Sale, this account should represent the Point of Sale liquid account, and therefore be the same as the card payment account.
- Invoice fees account – This is a nominal account of type "Expenses", and it appears on the expenses section of a profit and loss report. Payment fee transactions are reconciled against this account.
How this data appears in QuickBooks
An invoice is pushed to QuickBooks as normal when an invoice purchase is made, however, a payment isn't immediately pushed against the invoice, so the invoice is displayed with an outstanding balance.
When the customer has made a payment against the invoice, a payment is pushed against the original invoice. This payment is booked against the Invoice payments account, which should match the Point of Sale liquid account. This is where invoice payments are paid into. If the payment pays the invoice in full, the invoice is marked as paid in QuickBooks.
Invoice fees are pushed in a similar way to standard Point of Sale card fees (see "Fees" above). A bill is pushed with a single line item with the expense account set to the Invoice fees account. A single payment is simultaneously pushed for the full payment of the bill, representing the transfer of money out of the liquid account to pay the fees. This payment is taken from the Invoice payments account.
Point of Sale gift cards
Account mapping
- Gift card sales: a nominal account of type “Liability”. The value of this account represents the number of outstanding gift cards.
- Gift card payment: Once a gift card is spent the money goes into sales and the gift card payments account, and out of the liability account.