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QuickBooks Online integration – Setup guide with Planday
QuickBooks Online integration – Setup guide with Planday
Anton E avatar
Written by Anton E
Updated over a week ago

If your business uses Intuit QuickBooks Online to manage payroll, you can connect it to Planday to quickly synchronise your employees across both systems and send worked hours from Planday to QuickBooks Online.

Please note:

This integration is for QuickBooks Essential & Plus packages with support for QuickBooks Online Payroll only. QuickBooks PaySuite is no longer supported.


Activate the integration to QuickBooks Online

Log into Planday and go to the integrations page via Settings > Integrations > Overview. Find QuickBooks Online and select Add to set it up.

Connect to your QuickBooks Online account

Start setting up the integration by selecting Connect to QuickBooks. This will redirect you to QuickBooks Online, where you will need to authorise the integration. If you are already logged into QuickBooks Online, you can go ahead and authorise the integration to Planday. If you are not logged in, you must first log in to QuickBooks to authorise access to Planday. Once you have authorised access, you will be redirected back to the Planday integration page.

Select the Add button on the QuickBooks Online tile to verify the systems are successfully connected. From there, toggle on the features which should be available for the integration (Employee details and/or Worked hours).

Select Activate to launch the integration of QuickBooks Online and Planday.


Synchronise existing employees

Once the integration is activated using the above steps, you can synchronise your existing employees between Planday and QuickBooks Online.

Prepare the employee synchronisation

An important step is to revise one of QuickBooks Online's settings to prevent all inactive employees in QuickBooks Online from being exported to Planday. To do this, log in to QuickBooks Online and edit an inactive employee, then deselect the option Show in non-payroll list in the Employment section. This step should be carried out for each inactive employee.

Next, enter employee address information in Planday. When QuickBooks Payroll is enabled on your QuickBooks Online account, ensure that the fields City, Postal Code, and State are entered for every employee. If this information is not entered, the employee will not be exported to QuickBooks Online when you activate the integration.

Synchronise existing employees

  • On the QuickBooks Online integration tile in Planday, select Manage, then select Show details under the Employee details section.

  • Select which department employees imported from QuickBooks Online should be assigned to. When a new employee is created in Planday, you can edit the employee and modify which Departments they are in.

  • Before synchronising your employees, ensure their names and emails are identical in both systems to avoid creating duplicates.

  • Lastly, select Sync Employees Now. The integration will now update and link employees across QuickBooks Online and Planday.


Create new employees

With the integration setup, you can create new users or employees in either system and they will automatically be synchronised to the other.

Create new employees in Planday

When you create new employees in Planday they will automatically be created in QuickBooks Online with the following details:

  • Given name

  • Family name

  • E-mail

  • Mobile / Primary phone

  • Address (city, postal code and state is required when QuickBooks Payroll is enabled)

  • Birthdate

  • Gender

  • Hired date

Please note: Contact info public needs to be ticked in Planday for employees to be automatically created in QuickBooks Online. See the article on Employee information: visibility and access settings.

Create new employees in QuickBooks Online

You can also create new employees in QuickBooks Online and they will automatically be created in Planday. They will be created in Planday with the same details as above.

Creating employees from QuickBooks Online requires that you have selected a default Planday department that new employees will be assigned to. To do so go to Settings > Integrations > Overview > QuickBooks Online > Employee details > Show details > Select department.

When creating employees from QuickBooks Online please be aware that there is a 5 min processing time, before the employee will be exported from QuickBooks Online.

Send Welcome notification

When employees are created from QuickBooks Online you can have Planday send them a welcome notification that contains the relevant Planday info. To do so, go to People > Employees > Select employee > Click on the Invite employee icon.


Export worked hours

Prepare the automatic export of worked hours

To automatically export worked hours from Planday to QuickBooks, toggle on Export Worked Hours in the QuickBooks Online integration configuration via Settings > Integrations > Overview > QuickBooks Online > Worked Hours > Export Worked Hours.

The integration will send all worked hours from normal shifts by default. If you also want hours from a specific Shift type to be exported to QuickBooks Online, you can select the relevant Shift types in the QuickBooks Online integration configuration. To do so, go to Settings > Integrations > Overview > QuickBooks Online > Worked Hours > Show details > Add shift types.

Export worked hours

When a shift in Planday is approved, the worked hours will automatically be exported to QuickBooks Online as a time activity.

The integration supports Break rules in Planday, and only the worked hours will be exported (break times will not be exported).

Unapprove or delete shifts

If a shift is already approved and the worked hours have been exported to QuickBooks Online, you can remove the worked hours from QuickBooks Online by marking the shift as Not approved in Planday, or by deleting the shift in Planday. After doing this, the integration will automatically remove the time activity from the weekly timesheet in QuickBooks Online.

Syncing leave data with QuickBooks

Planday integration with QuickBooks does not directly support synchronising of leave as a feature. You can get around this by transferring leave data by utilising Shift types on your schedule. For guidance, please see this article on How to use absence with payroll integration.


See related articles:

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