How to Do set up a QuickBooks Integration

This video will talk you through how to set up your integration with QuickBooks. To use Expend with QuickBooks you need to connect your company's Expend and QuickBooks accounts and configure some syncing options. This only needs to be done once, but you can make changes in the future if necessary.


To setup your QuickBooks integration, in the dashboard menu click 'Settings', click 'Integrations' and then click 'QuickBooks'. Follow the steps to connect QuickBooks and configure your syncing. All setup and configuration for syncing Expend with QuickBooks will always be done on this page. Before you start, ensure that you have setup VAT in your QuickBooks account. In QuickBooks, click 'Taxes' and then click 'Set up VAT' if necessary. When you set up the integration, Expend automatically creates an account named 'Expend Account' within your Chart of Accounts.


Please do not add an account in QuickBooks with this name as we will do this for you. The QuickBooks syncing box shows whether explained is currently
connected to QuickBooks. Click the 'Connect' button to connect your QuickBooks account and your Expend account. You'll be redirected to QuickBooks. Sign in to your QuickBooks account and click 'Connect' to authorise your data to be shared securely with Expend. You'll be returned to the Expend dashboard to continue the setup. If you need to disconnect and stop syncing at any time, simply click the 'Disconnect' button. In regards to your control accounts, Expend will need a number of new accounts within your QuickBooks Chart of Accounts.


These are used to record transactions made with Expend cards, to record expense claims created within Expend, and to keep track of money loaded into your float account. Note, this step only needs to be completed the first time you set up any syncing.

The following Control Accounts are required: The Fund Control Account is for transactions loading money to your float account, Uncategorised Expenses is for Expend card transactions that have not yet been assigned a category or for which the category isn't mapped to a QuickBooks account, and Rejected Expenses is for transaction submitted as expenses but rejected during expense reviewal. You can create these accounts directly in your QuickBooks Chart of Accounts. We recommend creating new accounts instead of using existing accounts. Note the required account type for each.


The Fund Control Account should be set up as a 'current asset' account in QuickBooks. The Uncategorised Expenses Account should be set as an 'expense account' in QuickBooks and the Rejected Expenses account should be set as a 'current asset' account in Quickbooks. More help with this can be found within our help guides online.


To set the Control Accounts, you must first create the accounts in QuickBooks as described. On the Expend dashboard, go back to the QuickBooks page, refresh the page so that the new accounts can be retrieved from QuickBooks. Go to the 'set control accounts' box. For each Control Account select the appropriate QuickBooks account from the drop-down list and click 'Save'. To set tax mapping, within the 'Set Tax Mappings' box select which of the tax codes in QuickBooks should be the default option for the VAT. Click 'Save'. Account mappings. When you submit an expense report for a transaction in Expend, you can select a category for that expense such as travel, entertainment, office supplies and so on. Using the category you selected, Expend files it to the appropriate account in your QuickBooks Chart of Accounts.


In this section you can set up which Expend category maps to which QuickBooks account. Advanced settings. You may want to review and approve expense reports from your organisation's Expend card users before letting them sync to QuickBooks. If so, set the slider for 'require expense reports to be reviewed before syncing' to the ON position.


Transactions will still sync but expense details will only sync once an expense has been approved. If an expense has been rejected the transaction will be moved to the Rejected Expenses Control Account so that it can be reclaimed from the cardholder. If you decide to change the setting in the future without making other changes to your configuration, please make sure you still click 'Save' to apply the change.


In this section, 'sync expenses from specific start date', enter the date from which expenses created in Expend should be synced. Expenses before this date won't be synced to QuickBooks, but if you don't specify a date then all expenses will be synced. Again this will only apply the first time when you setup your configuration. Finally, click 'Save' to finish and save your configuration. If you make any changes in the future, your updated settings will apply to all new transactions and expenses.