Caravan

Caravan and QuickBooks Online

Purchase orders you send and supplier invoices you approve in Caravan go to QuickBooks Online as purchase orders and bills, so your books match what you ordered and what you agreed to pay, without entering anything twice.

What goes where

Read from QuickBooks

  • Vendors, to link each of your suppliers to its QuickBooks vendor by email or name.
  • Items, to link your products to QuickBooks items by SKU, and to fill in a product's cost when you haven't set one.
  • Your chart of accounts, so you can choose the expense, cost of goods sold or inventory account for lines that don't name an item.
  • Your company's name and home currency.

Created in QuickBooks

  • A purchase order when you send one to a supplier, and a close of it if you cancel the order later.
  • A bill when you approve a supplier invoice (after it's matched to the order and what arrived), linked to its purchase order.
  • A vendor, only when an order or bill is for a supplier QuickBooks doesn't have yet. Existing vendors are found first, never duplicated.

Never

  • Payments: nothing is ever paid from Caravan. You pay bills in QuickBooks as you do now.
  • Changing or deleting anything already in QuickBooks, apart from closing a purchase order it created.
  • Reading customers, sales, banking or payroll.

QuickBooks is read when you connect, when you choose Sync now, and when QuickBooks reports that a vendor, item or account changed; there is no constant polling.

Setting it up

  1. Sign in as an admin and open Settings, Integrations.
  2. Choose Connect to QuickBooks, sign in to Intuit, pick your company and approve access.
  3. Your vendors, items and accounts are read once: suppliers and products are linked to the ones they match. Check the counts on the card.
  4. Choose the account for lines without a QuickBooks item (freight, tax, unlinked products).
  5. Work as usual. Orders you send and invoices you approve appear in QuickBooks within half an hour; anything QuickBooks refuses is listed on the card with its reason, to send again or dismiss.

Good to know

  • For QuickBooks Online companies in the United States. Orders and bills go only in your company’s home currency; one in another currency is held back with the reason, for you to enter by hand. Tax on a supplier invoice goes on its bill as an ordinary line to the account you choose; QuickBooks sales tax codes aren’t used.
  • Included on every plan: Free, Starter, Growth and Enterprise, and during the free trial.
  • Disconnect any time from Settings, Integrations, or from Apps in QuickBooks. What Caravan read from QuickBooks is deleted 30 days after a disconnect, or at once if you choose Disconnect and delete QuickBooks data. See the privacy policy and terms.

Support

Questions, or something didn’t reach QuickBooks? Email support@ecaravan.org. Already a customer? Sign in; new to Caravan? Start a free trial.

Intuit and QuickBooks are registered trademarks of Intuit Inc. Used with permission.