What is the most efficient method of using recurring transactions to get paid in quickbooks online?

Recurly for QuickBooks Online integrates Recurly billing data with QuickBooks Online. This integration enables the automatic transfer of information from customer accounts and items, along with data from invoices, payments, and refunds to QuickBooks Online, improving data accuracy and streamlining your revenue accounting process.

You’ll also be able to reconcile in real-time data from customer accounts, payments, and receivables. By consolidating this data in a single solution, you’ll have a more complete view of your recurring revenue and transactions.

This documentation is intended to provide best practice guidelines. Recurly is not an accounting firm, and the foregoing should not be construed as accounting advice. You should consult with an accountant before setting up any accounting policies or procedures.

We recommend connecting your QuickBooks Online trial account to a Recurly sandbox for testing prior to connecting your QuickBooks Online production account to your Recurly Production site.

You should always start with a fresh instance of QuickBooks when launching with Recurly or when adding QuickBooks to an existing Recurly production site. Connecting Recurly to an instance of QuickBooks that contains historical data introduces the risk of duplication errors since objects like accounts, items, plans, and add-ons can never be reused.

Contact our Technical Support team right away in the case of an accidental plan or add-on deletion and do not attempt to recreate using the same plan or add-on code as this will generate duplicate object errors.

You can see instructions on setting up the QuickBooks Online integration here:

Please read this list of considerations before setting up the integration as it contains valuable information about how the sync process works between Recurly and QuickBooks Online.

• The integration only functions with QuickBooks Online, not QuickBooks Desktop.
• The integration currently works only with the United States version of QuickBooks Online.
• The integration will support Recurly sites in sandbox mode or production mode.
• The integration will support QuickBooks Online sites in production mode. If you would like to test with a non-production QuickBooks Online account, we recommend you sign up for a separate trial QuickBooks account.
• The integration is available in the Professional and Elite Recurly plans.
• The integration does not function well with multicurrency sites as QuickBooks Online and Recurly have different definitions of customers. A customer in QuickBooks Online can only have one currency, whereas a customer in Recurly can have multiple currencies.
• You can sync multiple Recurly sites to one QuickBooks site
• You can only connect a Recurly site with one QuickBooks instance.
• We recommend that you disable the "Custom Transaction Numbers" function within QuickBooks as this can cause errors with invoices syncing to QuickBooks.
• We recommend that you do not delete open credit balances on customer accounts within Recurly. This will cause orphaned credit memos in QuickBooks that can never be resolved.
• Gift Card accounting information is not fully passed between Recurly and Xero. If you use gift cards, it will look like a normal payment from Recurly.

The integration is a one-way sync between Recurly to QuickBooks with six points of integration. Records are synced in the following sequence:

1. Recurly Items, Plans, Setup Fees, and Fixed Priced Add-Ons with QuickBooks Items
2. Recurly Accounts with QuickBooks Customers
3. Recurly Invoices with QuickBooks Invoices
4. Recurly Payments with QuickBooks Payments and Refunds
5. Recurly Credits with QuickBooks Credit Memos

When you set up the integration, you will specify a start date. Records created or updated on or after this date will be synced with QuickBooks Online.

The Recurly-QuickBooks integration will run once per hour. Each time the sync process runs, it will attempt to sync all records which have been created or updated since the last time the sync process ran.

This integration is only a one-way sync. Records created or updated in Recurly will be synced to QuickBooks. Once they are in QuickBooks, records updated within QuickBooks will not have changes synced back to Recurly.

Items, plans, fixed priced add-ons, and setup fees in Recurly are all synced as Items in QuickBooks Online. By default, these objects are created as Service Items in QuickBooks Online. Once they are stored in QuickBooks Online, you can edit their type. The plan sync works with both item hierarchy and item categories. Items in QuickBooks must have a unique Item Name.

🚧Only certain Recurly Add-Ons can be synced to QuickBook Items

The Recurly-QuickBook integration only supports syncing of Recurly Fixed-Price Add-Ons to QuickBook Items. The integration does not support syncing of Recurly Tiered, Volume, or Stairstep Add-Ons to QuickBook Items

All items, plans, fixed priced add-ons, and setup fees will be synced with QuickBooks Online, regardless of the sync start date that you select in setup.

When an invoice has a usage-based add-on, the usage will be tied to the Item in QuickBooks Online reporting.

For your sync to work properly, Recurly plan names, item names, and add-on names MUST BE UNIQUE AND DISTINCT. This is because Recurly plan names, item names, and add-on names all sync to QuickBooks Online as Item names, and QuickBooks Online Item names are unique identifiers. This must be true not only within a category (i.e., DO NOT make an add-on name for two different plans with the name 'add_on_1'), but also across categories (i.e., DO NOT make an item with the name 'attachment_1' and an add-on with the name 'attachment_1').

Additionally, QuickBooks Online Item names have a maximum length of 100 characters. Any Recurly object names that are longer than 100 characters will be truncated (i.e., two names ending in '100_char_name_1' and '100_char_name_2' may both be truncated to end in '100_char_name'), which can lead to uniqueness errors.

As part of the setup process, you can define an account to populate on the item records within QuickBooks. This can be either an Income account or a Liability account. We recommend you choose a Liability account (e.g. Deferred Revenue).

When items are synced with QuickBooks, they will include the default sales account that you set. Once the item is in QuickBooks, you can edit the income account. This income account will be populated on any invoice line items which reference a given item.

One way that this can work well is that if you use a deferred revenue account as the default revenue account, you can use Recurly's revenue recognition solution or a spreadsheet to calculate your recognized revenue each month.

You also have the option to attribute different products to different revenue accounts, so that when invoices are integrated your accounting will hit different accounts as you like. When the items and plans are imported from Recurly into QuickBooks, we need to specify one account by default. After the integration runs for the first time, you are able to specify which account you would like to be applied to which Item in QuickBooks. You can navigate to Setup > Lists > Products & Services and then choose the service item for which you would like to set the revenue account. When invoices are synced with these items, they will be booked to the account specified in this Items & Services list.

The most common error in Recurly for QuickBooks is duplicate customer records. If you receive an error for a duplicate product, you can click the "Resolve Error" button which will present you with a list of matching items or plans in QuickBooks.

When you select "Link to Plan" the error will be resolved and all invoices which utilize this plan will use the corresponding item in QuickBooks.

Customers will be synced from the account record type in Recurly to the customer record type in QuickBooks.

The following fields from Recurly are synced with the customer record in QuickBooks:

• Display Name (see explanation on naming below)

• First and Last Name

• Company Name

• Phone Number

• Email

• Billing Address

• Notes

• All Recurly accounts will be synced regardless of the Start Date that you select.

• If an account is marked as inactive in Recurly before the first sync to QuickBooks occurs, that account will not be synced to QuickBooks.

• If an account is marked as inactive in Recurly after it has been synced to QuickBooks, we will not apply the inactive tag in QuickBooks as this will limit the ability to sync data for that customer in QuickBooks in the future.

• Because Recurly syncs the email address for customers with QuickBooks, you will have the ability to send emails to them from within QuickBooks. We recommend that you do not use both Recurly and QuickBooks to send automated email communications to your customers.

• Billing address will be synced

• Multiple shipping addresses will not be synced

• Account Address will not sync (only billing address associated with Payment Information)

• As a reminder, the integration does not function well with multicurrency sites as QuickBooks Online and Recurly have different definitions of customers. A customer in QuickBooks Online can only have one currency, whereas a customer in Recurly can have multiple currencies. To handle this, we will sync all transactions from Recurly to QuickBooks which are of the same currency as your base currency in Recurly (e.g. if your base currency is USD, we will sync all USD transactions).

QuickBooks enforces uniqueness on the "Display Name" field. In Recurly's QuickBooks setup, we give you the option to select between the following fields to use as your Display Name in QuickBooks:

• First Name + Last Name (i.e. Jeffrey Smith)
• Account Code (unique ID in Recurly)
• Company Name
• Email address

When you choose one of these options on setup, we will send it to the Display Name field on the QuickBooks customer record.

We recommend that B2C companies use Account Code or First + Last Name, and B2B companies use Company Name for this feature.

🚧

On an account in Recurly only Account Code is required. If you choose a non-required field and create an account in Recurly in which that field is not populated, the account will not be able to sync to QuickBooks and we will display an error.

For example, if you choose Email Address as your display name in QuickBooks and create an account in Recurly without an Email Address, that account will fail to create a Customer record in QuickBooks.

The most common error in Recurly for QuickBooks is duplicate customer records. This error message normally appears as such:

📘Duplicate Name Exists Error

The name supplied already exists. : Another customer, vendor or employee is already using this name. Please use a different name.

QuickBooks Error code: 6240

This error is caused by a collision with the Display Name in QuickBooks. For example, if you match customers based on First + Last Name and there is already a customer with the First + Last Name of a new customer in Recurly, that customer will fail to sync.

To make this a real life scenario, say you have a customer named Jane Doe that has already been synced from Recurly to QuickBooks. Jane then signs up for another account with your company and a new Jane Doe account record is created in Recurly. You would see the following error:

To resolve it, click the Resolve Error button in the upper right hand corner. The next screen will show you all similar customers in QuickBooks.

Once you select a customer to utilize in QuickBooks, your customer account in Recurly will be linked and all related transactions will be sent to QuickBooks using this customer record.

To control for duplicate customer accounts, QuickBooks gives you the ability to merge accounts within its tool. This is a useful tool for ensuring good data integration.

We recommend that BEFORE integrating Recurly with QuickBooks that you conduct an audit of your customers in QuickBooks to ensure that there are no duplicate customer accounts. If you need to merge accounts, you can follow instructions here.

After you have integrated customer accounts from Recurly to QuickBooks, you can still use the merge function. Here are a few guidelines to follow:

• If you have a new account that was created as part of the Recurly sync and you want to merge it with an account in QuickBooks that was manually created, we highly recommend that you merge the manually created customer INTO the automatically created customer. This will ensure that Recurly will keep the association between Recurly customer and QuickBooks account. This means that you should edit the account NOT created by Recurly to match the account that was created by Recurly.
• If you have a significant amount of duplicate accounts in your QuickBooks instance before integrating with Recurly, please contact our support team and we can assist you in preparing to integrate.

Invoices within QuickBooks will reference customer accounts and items/plans. Each invoice line item from Recurly will be synced to QuickBooks.

The individual line items will carry the revenue treatment that is applied to the plan, add-on, or setup fee for that line. For example, if an invoice contains line items for a plan, setup fee, and add-on, each will get its own attribution to revenue based on the revenue account on its Item.

And the journal entry for this invoice will appear as below:

❗️Two Settings for Proper Invoice Functionality

We recommend that you disable the setting "Automatically apply credits." You can do this by following this path: Gear icon > Account and Settings > Advanced > Automation > Automatically Apply Credits > Disable Setting

We recommend that you disable the "Custom Transaction Numbers" function within QuickBooks as this can cause errors with invoices syncing to QuickBooks.

The following fields from the invoice in Recurly are synced with the invoice record in QuickBooks:

• Customer reference (the customer to which this invoices applies)
• Invoice Number
• Billing Address
• Terms
• Invoice Date
• Due Date
• All line item data (product, description, quantity, rate, and amount)
• Coupon information
• Tax information (see below)
• Invoice total
• Whether or not the invoice has been paid (if it has been paid, we will link the payment transaction)

We support the taxation of customers within Recurly, but not the taxation of Recurly customers using QuickBooks functionality. The integration will send invoices and credit memos with tax information from Recurly to QuickBooks.

• On the initial sync, we will create an account in your chart of accounts called "Recurly Sales Tax Payable" and an item call "Recurly Sales Tax."
• When you have an invoice with tax synced to Quickboks, Tax will be synced as a separate line item with the item of "Recurly Sales Tax" along with the description of the line from Recurly.

An invoice with tax will appear as below in Recurly and QuickBooks:

An invoice with coupons will appear as below in Recurly and QuickBooks:

• Coupon discounts will be synced with the "Discount Value" section on the invoice in QuickBooks.
• Recurly Invoice Line Items will be synced with invoice line items in QuickBooks without discount values included.
• Fixed-amount coupons will transfer the amount to QuickBooks.
• Percentage-based coupons will calculate the coupon amount and transfer the amount to the Discount Value section on the invoice in QuickBooks.
• Multiple Coupons on one invoice will be summed and reflected as one total on the invoice in QuickBooks.
• A list of coupon redemption records will not be synced with QuickBooks.
• For more information on coupons, please visit our Recurly Coupons documentation page.

Recurly gives you the ability to create charges and credits that are not part of a subscription. Until they are invoiced, these charges or credits will not be synced to QuickBooks Online. Once they are invoiced, they will sync as invoice line items.

Once you have invoiced one-time charges and credits, they will be mapped to the same default account that you set up in Recurly (e.g. Deferred Revenue). There is currently no method to route one-time charges or credits to different accounts within QuickBooks. We recommend that if you need to map charges or credits to different accounts, that you use a Plan for them.

When an invoice is marked as failed in Recurly, there will be no change made to the invoice in QuickBooks. There is not an equivalent accounting concept to failing an invoice. We recommend if these invoices will never be collected, that your team implement a process at the end of an accounting period to write them off in QuickBooks.

Transactions from Recurly will be mapped with the payment or refund receipt object within QuickBooks. If the transaction is a payment (positive amount) it will map to the payment object, which will be associated with the invoice that the payment pays. If the transaction in Recurly is negative, it will create a refund receipt within QuickBooks. Refund receipts do not reference any other records and will be associated with the customer record to which it applies within QuickBooks.

• Payments will be applied to the Undeposited Funds account, rather than directly to a bank account.
• Payments within QuickBooks will reference the invoice which the transaction pays.
• Auth and Void transactions will not be synced with QuickBooks as these do not have financial impact.
• Refunds will be synced with the refund object in QuickBooks.
• Refunds will be applied to the Undeposited Funds account, rather than directly to a bank account.
• Transaction number will be written to the Customer Memo field on the transaction record.

The following fields from Recurly are synced with the payment record in QuickBooks:

• Invoice to which the payment applies
• Amount
• Payment Date
• Gateway Reference code (in the Memo field)
• Payment account (chosen in the configuration of the integration)

Credits in Recurly are synced with the Credit Memo object in QuickBooks.

• Account-level credits are not synced until they are invoiced
  *When you have an invoice with a credit line item, it will create an invoice record, CM record, and payment record to associate them in QuickBooks Online.
• Credits which have taxes credited will be included and will subtract from your Recurly Sales Tax Payable Register.

The following fields from the invoice in Recurly are synced with the invoice record in QuickBooks:

• Customer reference (the customer to which this invoices applies)
• Invoice Number
• Billing Address
• Terms
• Invoice Date
• Due Date
• All line item data (product, description, quantity, rate, and amount)
• Coupon information
• Tax information (see below)
• Invoice total
• Whether or not the invoice has been paid (if it has been paid, we will link the payment transaction)

🚧Carryforward Credits

If you have a carryforward credit (e.g. a credit from a downgrade) that is uninvoiced in Recurly, it will sync to QuickBooks. It is possible to delete this credit in Recurly. If you do so, the deletion will not carry over to QuickBooks. You will need to also delete this record manually within QuickBooks.

As QuickBooks does not support revenue recognition functionality, we recommend that customers using QuickBooks Online should take advantage of Recurly Revenue Recognition.

For users that use accrual-based accounting, we recommend that you set up Recurly products to sync to QuickBooks using a deferred revenue account. At the end of each month, we recommend making a journal entry to recognize revenue.

Recurly provides the ability to see sync errors between Recurly and Quickbooks Online. These are meant to give merchants the peace of mind that all objects are synced between systems.

However, it is not always realistic to expect that all objects will always be integrated between the two systems. There are a number of issues that can cause data to fail to sync.

Because of this, we allow merchants to ignore sync errors on the Invoice and Transaction objects. We recommend that if there is an error that is not easily resolved on Invoices or Transactions, you manually re-create the invoice or transaction in QuickBooks and Ignore the error in Recurly.

Using the Clear Test Data button, available in Site Settings while in a Recurly sandbox, will remove your QuickBooks configuration.

You should always connect to a fresh instance of QuickBooks when moving from sandbox to production in Recurly. We will automatically remove QuickBooks from your integrations when you move to production.

The following are answers to common questions about the QuickBooks Online integration:

1. Do you send subscription information to QuickBooks?

No, we only send Invoices, Credit Memos, Payments, and Refunds.

2. What are the accounting entries made by the integration?

By default:

• Invoices debit accounts receivable and credit an account that you select under "Income Account" in the integration setup.
• Payments debit Undeposited Funds and credit accounts receivable.
• Credit Memos (negative invoices) debit an account that you select under "Income Account" in the integration setup and credit Accounts Receivable.
• Refunds debit Accounts Receivable and Credit Undeposited Funds.

3. How do I manage my revenue with this integration?

While we are not accountants and cannot advise you on exactly how to handle your accounting to become compliant with GAAP or IFRS, we can suggest a process to handle revenue. We recommend that you set up the integration with a deferred revenue account. When invoices are posted to Recurly, they will transfer to QuickBooks using this deferred revenue account. You can then use Recurly Revenue Recognition (see above) or another process to calculate the amount of deferred revenue which should be recognized each month, and prepare a journal entry. This is how most of our merchants handle rev rec in QuickBooks. Again, this is not a hard and fast accounting rule, but a suggestion on process.

4. Why are payments applied to Undeposited Funds instead of a cash account?

This is done because most of our merchants have expressed that they do not want each and every payment to affect their cash account. We recommend that merchants use the "Make Deposits" functionality within QuickBooks to transfer one journal entry of payments from Undeposited Funds to Cash at the end of each month.

5. Am I able to alter the Income accounts on a product-by-product basis?

Yes! All items, plans, fixed priced add-ons, and setup fees are transferred to QuickBooks as non-inventory items, and by default are applied the Income account you set up in the integration setup. However, you can change these accounts on an item-by-item basis.

6. Am I able to trigger an on-demand sync?

Yes! Use the Queue sync button on the QuickBooks Online Integration screen to trigger a sync process automatically. Otherwise, the sync will run once every hour.

7. I use Stripe as my gateway, and I see transactions marked with a pi_ value, why is that?

Stripe's newest API version uses Payment Intents, which Recurly migrated all merchants over to March 25th, 2021 or earlier. The new PI integration updated the transaction value that maps back to a Stripe transaction using a pi value. The old charges endpoint is not their supported API version, and may be deprecated at some point. Previous transactions will still be marked with the previous ch ID in Recurly, which would be reflected in Xero.

Updated about 1 year ago

• Table of Contents
• • Introduction
    • Recommendations
    • Setup Video
    • Key Integration Considerations
    • Integration Overview
    • General Sync Behavior
  • Plans and Items
    • Resolving Duplicate Plan Errors
  • Customers
    • Customer Naming
    • Resolving Duplicate Customer Errors
    • Merging Customers
  • Invoices
    • Taxes
    • Discounts & Coupons
    • One-Time Charges and Credits
    • Failed Invoices
  • Transactions
  • Credits
  • Using Revenue Recognition with QuickBooks Online
  • Ignoring Sync Errors
  • QuickBooks Online in Recurly Sandbox
    • Clear Test Data
    • Enabling Production
  • FAQ