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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 2 weeks ago

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⏱️ Reading time: 4 min.

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

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 Set up.

  • Click Connect. 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.

  • Toggle on the features which should be available for the integration.

    • Employee details.

    • 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.

Steps to prepare employee synchronisation with QuickBooks Online

  1. Revise QuickBooks Online settings for Inactive Employees: To ensure that inactive employees in QuickBooks Online are not exported to Planday, follow these steps:

    • Log in to QuickBooks Online.

    • Edit each inactive employee.

    • In the Employment section, deselect the option "Show in non-payroll list." Repeat this process for all inactive employees.

  2. Enter Employee Address Information in Planday: When QuickBooks Payroll is enabled on your QuickBooks Online account, make sure to enter the following address information for each employee in Planday:

    • City

    • Postal Code

    • State

    If any of these fields are missing, the employee will not be exported to QuickBooks Online when the integration is activated.

Synchronise existing employees

In Planday, under Settings > Integrations > Overview > QuickBooks Online, click Set up, then select Show details under the 'Employee details' section.

  • Select which default 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.


Create new employees

Once the integration is set up, you can create new users or employees in either system, and they will automatically synchronize with 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

  • Hire date

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 with the same details as above.

Creating employees from QuickBooks Online requires you to select a default Planday department to which new employees will be assigned. To do this in Planday, go to Settings > Integrations > Overview > QuickBooks Online > Employee details > Show details > Select department.

When creating employees from QuickBooks Online, there is a 5 min processing time before the employee is exported to Planday.

Send Welcome notification

When employees are created from QuickBooks Online, you can have Planday send them a welcome notification that contains relevant Planday information. To do this, 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.

By default, the integration will send all worked hours from normal shifts. If you'd like to include hours from specific Shift types, you can select the relevant shift types in the QuickBooks Online integration configuration. To do this, 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 unapproving or 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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