Sending an Invoice to QuickBooks Online¶
Purpose¶
It creates the invoice in QuickBooks Online and records the link back to our transaction.
Who does this¶
Office and billing staff who need to get an invoice into QuickBooks Online, or who need to check whether it arrived.
Before you start¶
- You have the right account (see Permissions and Access).
- The record and date you are working on are correct.
- Words you do not know are in the Glossary.
Access¶
Accounting > AR Billing
Reading the status¶
The status on a row tells you what happened. Read it before you act.
| Status | What it means | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Ready | The invoice exists here. QuickBooks has not received it. | Check the send result. |
| Sending | A send is in progress right now. | Do not send again. Wait. If it never finishes, escalate. |
| Sent | QuickBooks accepted it. | Check the number matches. Do not send again. |
| Skipped | Usually it was already sent. | Open the referenced QuickBooks invoice to confirm. |
| Error | The send failed. | See below. This does not mean QuickBooks has nothing. |
Before you send¶
- Check the customer is right.
- Check the invoice number is right.
- Check the amount is right.
- Check the items map to the right QuickBooks accounts.
You can send up to ten invoice groups in one action. Each group is handled on its own, so one request can end with some sent, some skipped and some failed.
When the status is Error, or the result is unclear¶
Search QuickBooks Online before you send again. Look for the customer, the invoice number and the amount.
- If the invoice is there, do not send again. Make sure our record matches it.
- Only send again after you have confirmed QuickBooks does not have it.
- If one group in a batch went through and another did not, keep the ones that worked. Sending the whole batch again can duplicate the invoices that already arrived.
Sending again by hand¶
Use Send to QuickBooks on a row that is already done. This is the retry action — not Complete.
Complete creates a new invoice, so using it twice can produce two invoices.
If something goes wrong¶
| Situation | What you do |
|---|---|
| The status stays on Sending | Do not retry. It is being claimed. Escalate. |
| Error, and QuickBooks may already have the invoice | Search QuickBooks first. Then reconcile, do not resend. |
| The invoice is in QuickBooks with the wrong amount | Do not delete or resend from here. Report it; the accounting owner decides. |
| The customer is wrong on the invoice | Stop. Do not send. Correct the customer mapping first. |
| Nothing happened after pressing send | Refresh the row and read the status again. Do not press send twice in a row. |
| Only part of a batch arrived | Keep the evidence for the groups that worked. Ask before resending the rest. |
Who owns the next step¶
Billing owns the send and the reconciliation. Once QuickBooks has the invoice, payment and document handling continue separately.
The full step-by-step¶
This page is the short version. The screen-by-screen procedure with every field and recovery step is here: