QuickBooks cleanup when you use Jobber or Housecall Pro

Common mess-ups when a field app syncs to QuickBooks

• Doubled income. The app sends the invoice and payment, then the bank deposit gets added again as new income instead of being matched.
• Payouts that don’t tie out. Card processors pay out in batches after taking fees, so one deposit covers several invoices and is smaller than their total.
• One income account for everything. Services and products in the app aren’t mapped, so all income lands in a single catch-all account.
• Duplicate customers and items. The same customer or service shows up twice with slightly different names after the sync.
• Two systems invoicing. Invoices get created in both the app and QuickBooks, so some jobs are billed twice on paper.
• Settings changed midstream. Someone changes the sync setup partway through the year and the books follow two different patterns.

What the cleanup involves

1. Write down your sync settings. Know what the app sends to QuickBooks (invoices, payments, customers, items) and decide which system owns invoicing.
2. Match, don’t add. In the bank feed, match each deposit to the synced payments it covers instead of adding it as new income. Find and remove income that was counted twice (ask your CPA before changing filed periods).
3. Record fees. Book the full sale and the processor fee as an expense, so the deposit ties out.
4. Map income. Point every product and service in the app at the right QuickBooks income account.
5. Merge duplicates and reconcile. Clean up doubled customers and items, then reconcile each account to its statement.

Example (made-up numbers): three card-paid invoices total $1,200. The processor keeps $36 in fees and deposits $1,164. Matching the deposit to the three payments and recording $36 as a fee makes it tie out, instead of adding $1,164 as new income.

DIY kit or bookkeeper?

A kit tends to fit when

• you run Jobber or Housecall Pro with QuickBooks Online
• the sync has been on for months, not years
• you can compare a few payouts to invoices yourself
• you want to set it up once and keep it clean

A bookkeeper is likely the better call when

• you’re more than a year behind, or a tax return is unfiled
• you have letters or notices about payroll tax, sales tax or 1099s
• you need clean books fast for a loan, a sale or a partner buyout
• nobody in the shop has a few hours a week to give it
• the app has synced for years with settings nobody remembers changing

See the kit vs. bookkeeper vs. doing nothing comparison.

The field app kit and its free video

Field App Fix works in Jobber or Housecall Pro and QuickBooks Online, step by step. The free first video (about 4 minutes) covers separating business and personal money, sync settings that stop double-counting, and mapping services to the right income accounts. Watch it free on the Field App Fix page.

Jobber, Housecall Pro and QuickBooks are trademarks of their respective owners. The Books Fix is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Jobber, Housecall Pro, or Intuit Inc.

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