How to set up Housecall Pro with QuickBooks Online the right way

Most Housecall Pro and QuickBooks messes start in the first week. Someone clicks Connect, imports everything, and leaves the defaults alone.

Those first choices in your Housecall Pro QuickBooks Online setup decide where customers live, when invoices hit QuickBooks, and whether deposits show up as income before the work is done. They get hard to undo once jobs have been syncing for a while.

If you're about to connect the two, or thinking about disconnecting and starting over, this is the order we'd go in. If you're already connected and fighting alerts, start with our post on Housecall Pro and QuickBooks Online sync problems.

Before you start the Housecall Pro QuickBooks Online setup

Check your plans

Housecall Pro's onboarding guide says you need their Essentials or MAX plan to connect QuickBooks Online. On the QuickBooks side, it lists Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, and Advanced.

Know which QuickBooks you're on

Housecall Pro has a separate QuickBooks Desktop integration with its own requirements, including U.S. versions only, Windows, and the QuickBooks Web Connector. This post is about QuickBooks Online.

Pick a source of truth

Housecall Pro describes the sync as one-way, from Housecall Pro into QuickBooks. So customers, invoices, and customer payments for field jobs should start in Housecall Pro. QuickBooks is where you reconcile, pay bills, run payroll, and read reports. Put that rule in writing for whoever works in the office.

Own more than one company? Map it first

Decide which QuickBooks file this Housecall Pro account belongs to before you connect. It sounds obvious. But a Reddit poster who ran several companies in QuickBooks, only one of them on Housecall Pro, was still trying to pull them apart after connecting. Their clients were property managers, and a customer with a single sub-customer level didn't fit. Sketch how property manager, property, and job map onto customers and sub-customers first.

Clean up QuickBooks first

Housecall Pro recommends cleaning your QuickBooks data before you import. Whatever is messy in QuickBooks gets copied into Housecall Pro, then synced back.

• Duplicate customers. Merge them in QuickBooks now, while it's one system.
• Customer levels. Housecall Pro imports parent customers and one level of sub-customers. Its guide says third-level sub-customers, and their invoices, won't import.
• Tax rates. Write down the exact names. Housecall Pro later needs them to match exactly.
• Your bank account. Know which QuickBooks bank account card deposits should land in.
• Products and services. Delete or deactivate the ones you don't use.

One Trustpilot reviewer wrote that many of their ongoing issues "all lead back to the way that my customer list was imported from quickbooks."

Decide what to import, and from when

After connecting, Housecall Pro offers to import customers, tax rates, invoices, products, services, income accounts, and classes from QuickBooks. You can import all history or start from a specific date. With more than 7 years of data, their guide recommends a start date.

Their settings article also recommends importing additional data no more than 2 times after the first import. Plan one good import instead of several patchy ones.

Pick a cutover date too. Housecall Pro says the integration only affects new jobs after setup. Jobs finished, sent, or paid beforehand have to be pushed by hand if you want them in QuickBooks. A QuickBooks App Store reviewer described old invoices coming over as active and time spent clearing duplicates. Decide which open invoices stay in QuickBooks, and don't push anything that's already there.

The settings that matter most

These live in Housecall Pro's QuickBooks settings as of this writing. Menus change, so check your own account.

When invoices sync

You can sync when the job is finished or when it's invoiced. Per Housecall Pro, edits to line items and prices after the first sync don't reach QuickBooks without a manual push. If techs finish jobs in the field and the office cleans up the invoice later, syncing at "invoiced" sends QuickBooks the cleaned-up version.

How deposits are recorded

Housecall Pro can record upfront deposits as income, which it describes as the current default, or treat them as a liability until the final invoice. The liability option creates an "Upfront Deposit" item and a "Customer Deposits (via Housecall Pro)" liability account in QuickBooks. If you take deposits on bigger jobs, like a roof or a system changeout, that keeps the deposit out of income until the work is billed. Two catches: it's rolling out gradually, and it isn't available with progressive invoicing. Ask your CPA which treatment fits how you file.

Which bank account

In the Banking settings, pick the QuickBooks account where card deposits land. Housecall Pro says it has to match the payout account in your Housecall Pro money settings, or card payments can post to the old account.

If your crew uses debit cards attached to a Housecall Pro account, give that balance its own account in QuickBooks too. A Reddit user asked how to record card rewards that landed in that Housecall Pro account and never hit the bank. The answer they accepted: a separate bank-type account in QuickBooks named for Housecall Pro, with transfers, card spending, and rewards recorded there. How to treat the rewards is a CPA question.

Price Book and income accounts

Build the Price Book before techs start inventing line items. Housecall Pro says items added on the fly go to QuickBooks as generic Sales. Give each service and material an income account. As of this writing, labor and materials aren't split when items sync, and new materials come over as non-inventory items. For margin by job, see our post on job costing in QuickBooks Online.

Tax rates, classes, and tips

Match tax rate names exactly. QuickBooks Automated Sales Tax can override the rate from Housecall Pro, and Housecall Pro's own Automated Sales Tax feature requires QuickBooks Automated Sales Tax to be on first.

If you use QuickBooks classes, Housecall Pro imports them as business units and sends them back as classes on invoices. The names must match exactly, or QuickBooks gets a new class with a similar name.

Card tips sync to an income account called "Housecall Pro Tips." If tips go to techs through payroll, talk to your CPA before your first payroll with tips on it.

Run a test job before you go live

Housecall Pro suggests creating a real or test job and clicking Finish, Invoice, or Pay to trigger a sync. Use a job with a taxable item, a non-taxable item, and a card payment. Wait a few minutes (they say 2 to 5), then check QuickBooks:

• The customer came over once, not twice.
• Each line hit the income account you expected.
• The tax matches to the penny.
• The payment sits in Undeposited Funds, applied to the right invoice.
• The class is right, if you use classes.

If anything is off, fix the setting and test again before real jobs sync.

Setup checklist

• Confirm both plans support the integration.
• Decide which QuickBooks file this account belongs to.
• Write down the rule: jobs, customers, and field payments start in Housecall Pro.
• Clean up QuickBooks: duplicates, sub-customer levels, unused items, tax rate names.
• Import once, from all history or a start date.
• Pick a cutover date and a plan for invoices open before it.
• Set the sync trigger and the deposit treatment.
• Match the Banking setting to your payout account, and give any Housecall Pro card balance its own account.
• Put an income account on every Price Book item.
• Match tax rate and class names exactly, and decide how tips get recorded.
• Run a test job and check it in QuickBooks.

Want a second set of eyes on it?

Getting this right the first time is a lot less work than cleaning it up after a year of jobs. KWK Books keeps the books for home-service businesses in Austin in QuickBooks Online, and Kipp Koeppel is a QuickBooks Online Certified ProAdvisor. See our services for what that includes.