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Syncing Purchase Orders to QuickBooks
Syncing Purchase Orders to QuickBooks

Details on how Thrive syncs Purchase Orders to various fields in QuickBooks Online.

Chris avatar
Written by Chris
Updated over a week ago

Syncing Purchase Orders to QuickBooks Online (QBO) can be useful for many reasons. Whether you're using custom or additional formatting options in QBO or have an employee who works primarily out of their platform, we've got you covered.

This is different from our automatic daily syncing, or syncing invoices to QBO.

QuickBooks Online syncing is included in Professional plans and above or on any other plan as a Billing Add-On for $30/mo or $300/yr ($25/mo)


Getting Started

To start syncing Purchase Orders to QBO, take these steps:

1. Connect QBO to Thrive on the Settings > Accounting page.

  • NOTE: Only one QBO should be connected to Thrive at a time. If you have additional QBOs connected that are no longer being used or were used for testing, please remove them now.

2. Turn on Location tracking in QBO (click here for a guide).

Syncing is done 1-by-1 and on-demand. This means we won’t sync items over automatically and you’ll need to tell us specifically which purchase order you want to sync over.


Syncing Purchase Orders

Once you've completed the steps above, start syncing Purchase Orders to QBO in an Open, Partially Received, Overdue, Completed, or Cancelled status.

The only status not eligible to sync over is the Draft status. In other words, to have the option to sync the PO to QBO, the PO cannot be in a Draft status.

Click on the purchase order you want to sync over. Next, click the gear wheel in the top right corner and “Sync to QuickBooks” as shown here:

  • NOTE: If the PO is a "draft," the option to sync it to QBO will not be visible!

Quantity Syncing

Our QuickBooks integration pushes quantities (the delta or change) related to the manually synced purchase order or invoice. We will not sync overall product quantities throughout the day (as we do with sales integrations). Read more here.


Where do I find my PO in QuickBooks Online?

If it synced properly, the PO would sync over in a few minutes to show up on QBO, though you might need to refresh the page.

It will appear in the “Get paid & pay” section under “Vendors.” From there, click the name of the Vendor the PO is being sent to, as shown here:

Here’s a direct link to the vendor page on QBO.


Mapping

Purchase Orders on Thrive and QuickBooks Online share many of the same fields, but there are also some differences between the two platforms.

Here are the fields that we sync to currently:

Thrive

QuickBooks Online

Status

Status

PO number

PO no.

Date

Purchase Order Date

Vendor

Vendor

Vendor address

Mailing address

Vendor contact

Sales rep

Ship to

Shipping address

Product/Variant

Products

Quantity

Qty

Cost

Rate

Discount

Line item discounts

Line item discounts

Line item discounts

PO discounts

PO discount

Tax

Tax

Fees

Fees

Freight

Freight

Total

Total

Message to vendor

Your message to vendor

  • NOTE: Fields in italics can be found in the Category Details section of QBO


Will POs automatically sync to QBO?

You must click the "Sync to QuickBooks" button for a PO to sync over.

If you create a PO in Thrive and do not click the "Sync to QuickBooks" button, it will not sync to QBO.

Syncing is done 1-by-1 and on-demand.


Why can't I see the “Sync to QuickBooks” button?

Make sure QBO is connected to Thrive on this page. Next, double-check that the PO you are trying to sync is above a Draft status. Drafted POs will not have the option to be synced to QBO.


Why isn't my sync working?

The first time you sync a purchase order to QBO, it will always take a little longer because we are trying to establish a new connection.

If you get an error, please try the steps below:

1. Take note of the error

If it's a generic, non-specific error, you may need to try syncing again in a few minutes. It should take less than 30 seconds for us to push a purchase order to QBO successfully, and it should be followed by a green success message.

2. Dig deeper

Depending on the error message, it could mean a few different things. The error message will say that we cannot create the (PO number, vendor, products, etc.) since QBO does not allow duplicates.

To fix that, the PO number, vendor, or product name will need to be altered (in Thrive), saved, and the PO manually pushed again to sync to QBO successfully.

  • For example, if the same PO number already exists in QBO (even if it's inactive) and isn't the one you are actively trying to sync, we cannot sync it over. Try changing the PO number and syncing again.

  • Another example is if a product on the PO is in an inactive (or "bad") state in QBO, that can also cause a syncing error.

3. Contact us

If the problem persists, the PO might be temporarily stuck. Please reach out to our Customer Care Team and we can take a closer look for you.


What if I make additional changes in Thrive after syncing to QBO?

If the PO number hasn’t changed, you can re-sync, and QBO will be updated accordingly.

Alternatively, a new PO will be created in QBO if you change the PO number.


Do you sync my payment status?

We do not sync your payment status to QBO at this time. Once you sync the PO to QBO, you can process the payment however you'd like.


How can I see which POs have synced?

Get an overhead view of what has synced, and when, on the Purchase Orders page.

The table has a QuickBooks column. We will display the most recent sync date if the invoice has synced.


For users syncing both invoices and POs to QBO:

QBO does not permit a customer (invoice) and vendor (PO) to have the same name. Both customers and vendors are seen as the same thing in QBO, so they do not allow these fields to be duplicated.

If you use our QBO integration and wish to sync Thrive invoices and purchase orders into QBO, we recommend all customers (for your invoices) and vendors (for your POs) have different names.

Learn more about syncing invoices from Thrive to QBO here.


Things to Note:

  • Only one QBO integration should be connected to Thrive at a time. We do not support syncing to multiple QBO accounts.

  • The sync setting on Thrive's Settings > Accounting page does not need to be enabled for us to sync POs.

  • Thrive has Products and variants. QBO only has products. Each variant will have its own product line in this format: Item Name (Variant Name)

  • If you’re using the “Website” field on Vendors, it must be a complete address including “https://” as opposed to just starting off with “www.example.com”

  • Products must currently belong to the Purchase Order location when syncing.

  • If the PO contains a product that doesn't exist in QBO, we will create the product in QBO.

  • Colons will not work for product/variant names in QBO. For example, colons in product names will be omitted when syncing to QBO. Read more here.

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