Send your sales to QuickBooks or Xero

If you keep your books in QuickBooks Online or Xero, typing in every featured listing, membership and commission by hand takes time and invites mistakes. The accounting add-on does it for you: each payment your site takes for you becomes a paid sale in your accounts, with the customer, the amount and the site’s order number on it.

It works with your own QuickBooks or Xero company, through an app you create on their developer site. Nothing goes to your accounts until you switch it on.

What is sent, and what isn’t

Money	Sent?	How it arrives
What you sell on the site: featured, top and boosted listings, renewals, badges, banners, paid categories, memberships and other plans	Yes	A paid sale to the member who paid.
Your commission on a sale between members (Buy now, offers, auctions, the cart)	Yes	A paid sale to the seller, on the commissions item or account you choose. In effect a commission invoice, already settled, because it was taken from the sale.
Paid bookings	Yes, once the host has been paid	Your commission as a sale to the host (Booking commission), and the guest’s service fee, if you charge one, as a sale to the guest (Booking service fee). Amounts are after any refund.
Sales between members	No	That money belongs to the seller. Only your commission is sent.
Your own listings sold through the site	Only if you ask	Switch on Also send sales of my own listings for listings posted by your site’s admins, when you sell your own stock.
Wallet top-ups	No	That money is held for the member, it isn’t income yet. What they then buy with the wallet is sent like any other sale.
Free orders, and anything paid before the Send from date	No

A promotion paid for a listing that isn’t live yet waits until the listing goes live, because it is refunded if the listing never does.

Refunds are not sent. A sale refunded after it reached your accounts stays there as it was: record the refund in QuickBooks or Xero yourself.

In QuickBooks each sale is a sales receipt, deposited to the account you choose (or Undeposited Funds). In Xero it is an invoice, marked paid with a payment into the bank account you choose; without a bank account the invoice is left awaiting payment. Customers and contacts are found by their email address, or created.

Each sale carries the site’s own number, YC-123 for an order (YCB- and YCF- for booking commissions and booking fees). Before sending, the add-on looks for that number in your company, so the same sale is never sent twice, even if a run is cut short.

What you need

• A QuickBooks Online or Xero subscription. Your accountancy provider bills you for it; Yclas doesn’t charge anything for the add-on.
• A developer app with QuickBooks (Intuit) or Xero. It is what lets your site sign in to your company. Creating one for your own company is free; check the provider’s developer terms for the current limits.
• Admin access to your site, and permission to add apps in your QuickBooks or Xero company.

Step 1: create the developer app

Your site shows the exact redirect URI to give the provider:

1. In your admin panel, go to Add-ons, open the Payments tab and click Accounting (QuickBooks, Xero).
2. Scroll to Your app and copy the address shown there. It looks like https://yourdomain.com/oc-panel/integrations/accounting/callback.
3. Sign in at developer.intuit.com (QuickBooks) or developer.xero.com (Xero) and create a new app. For Xero, choose a Web app. For QuickBooks, choose the accounting scope.
4. Add the address you copied as the app’s redirect URI. It must match exactly, including https://.
5. Copy the app’s client ID and client secret.

QuickBooks gives development keys first, which only connect to a QuickBooks sandbox (test) company. To connect your real company you need the app’s production keys: Intuit asks a few questions about the app before it shows them.

If your site has its own domain, create the app with that domain’s address. If you change domains later, add the new redirect URI to the app too.

Step 2: connect your company

1. Back on Accounting (QuickBooks, Xero), under Your app, paste the QuickBooks Online client ID and QuickBooks Online client secret, or the Xero client ID and Xero client secret.
2. To try it on a QuickBooks sandbox company with development keys, switch on QuickBooks sandbox.
3. Click Save.
4. Under Connect, click Connect QuickBooks Online or Connect Xero. The button stays grey until the app’s details are saved.
5. Sign in at QuickBooks or Xero, choose the company or organisation and allow the connection. Your password is never seen by your site.
6. You come back to the page, which says Connected to and your company’s name.

Secrets are never shown again after you save them, only their last 4 characters (Saved (…1a2b)). Leave the box empty to keep the saved one.

Step 3: choose where the money goes

Once connected, the page loads your company’s lists, and you fill in Where it goes:

Setting	What it does
Organisation (Xero only)	Shown when you allowed more than one Xero organisation. Choosing another one turns sending off, starts its Send from at today and clears the choices below.
Product or service for site income (QuickBooks) / Account for site income (Xero)	Where your own sales go. In QuickBooks every sale line needs a product or service: pick the one whose income account should get your site’s income.
Product or service for commissions / Account for commissions	Where your commissions and booking fees go. It can be the same as site income.
Deposit to (QuickBooks) / Bank account the money is paid into (Xero)	QuickBooks: the account the receipts are deposited to, or Undeposited Funds (QuickBooks default). Xero: with a bank account each invoice is marked paid; with None: leave invoices awaiting payment it isn’t.
Tax	Whether your amounts include tax. You must choose one, there is no default (see below).
Tax code (QuickBooks) / Tax rate (Xero)	The tax code or rate to put on each line, or Default.
Send from	Only what is paid from this day is sent. It starts as the day you connected. An earlier day sends older sales too, a few at a time.
Also send sales of my own listings	Sales of listings posted by your site’s admins. Sales by other members are never sent, only your commission on them.
Send automatically	Every 15 minutes, a few at a time. Off: nothing is sent except when you click Sync now.

Added an item or an account in QuickBooks or Xero while the page was open? Click Reload the lists from QuickBooks Online (or Xero) to see it.

Click Save. You can’t switch on Send automatically until the income, commission and tax settings are chosen: the page says Choose where income and commissions go, and the tax setting, before switching sending on.

The tax setting

Your site sends each amount exactly as it was paid. When your site adds VAT to a price, the amount paid already includes it. So there are two choices:

• Amounts include tax (the site charges VAT): choose this only if your site charges VAT (see EU VAT), and pick the matching Tax code or Tax rate.
• No tax (out of scope): for everything else.

There is no “amounts exclude tax” choice on purpose: it would add tax on top of what the member paid and record money you never received.

A US QuickBooks company records sales tax line by line, so only No tax (out of scope) is offered there.

Whatever you choose, each sale must come out in your accounts at exactly the amount paid on your site. If it doesn’t, it is not counted as sent (see Troubleshooting).

Sending and the results

With Send automatically on, the site sends up to 10 sales every 15 minutes. Click Sync now to send the next 25 straight away; the message says how many were sent, failed and skipped. The line next to the buttons shows the last run.

Latest results lists the last sales with their date, what they were (Order, Booking commission or Booking service fee and its number), the amount and a status:

Status	What it means
Sent	It is in your accounts. Details shows the receipt or invoice number.
Waiting	QuickBooks or Xero didn’t answer, asked to slow down, or the connection was busy. It is sent once they answer, and it doesn’t count as a failed try.
Failed	QuickBooks or Xero refused it. Details says why. It is tried again every 30 minutes, up to 5 times.
Failed with gave up	Refused 5 times: it is no longer tried. Fix the cause, then click Retry failed.
Sending	A run has it in hand right now.
Not sent	It doesn’t belong in your accounts, for example a sale between members or a wallet top-up. Details says why.

Retry failed appears when something failed or gave up. It gives those sales their tries back, and they go on the next run or when you click Sync now.

Switching company or disconnecting

You connect one company at a time. Under Connect another company, connecting a different QuickBooks company or Xero organisation replaces the current one. Sending is switched off, and its Send from starts at today, so the new company doesn’t receive everything again. Choose where the money goes for it, then switch sending on.

The old company’s connection isn’t removed at QuickBooks or Xero: you can remove it from the connected apps list in your old company.

Disconnect stops sending. What was already sent stays in your accounts.

Troubleshooting

The connect buttons are grey. Save your app’s client ID and secret under Your app first.

“QuickBooks Online refused the saved sign-in (it was revoked or expired), so sending was switched off.” The connection was removed in QuickBooks or Xero, expired, or your subscription lapsed. Click Connect QuickBooks Online again (or Connect Xero again) on the card at the top, then switch Send automatically back on. Nothing is lost: what wasn’t sent yet goes once you do. The same happens when QuickBooks or Xero refuses access three runs in a row.

A sale failed with “QuickBooks made sales receipt YC-123 for …, but … was paid on the site”. The receipt or invoice was created, but its total doesn’t match what the member paid, usually because of the tax setting or the tax code. Check both, then in QuickBooks or Xero either correct that receipt or invoice (it is kept) or void it (a correct one is made), and click Retry failed. In Xero, an invoice with the wrong total is not marked paid.

The page says custom transaction numbers are off. Your QuickBooks company numbers sales receipts itself, so they get QuickBooks’ numbers instead of YC-123. They are still sent only once (the site’s number is kept in the private note). To see the site’s numbers, switch on Custom transaction numbers in QuickBooks: Settings › Account and settings › Sales › Sales form content.

“The lists could not be loaded from …”. The connection couldn’t fetch your items, accounts or tax codes. Wait a minute and click Reload the lists; if it keeps failing, connect again.

A sale in another currency failed. Each sale is sent in the currency it was paid in. If that isn’t your company’s home currency, QuickBooks or Xero may refuse it until multi-currency is set up in your company.

“The accounting sync is switched off for this site by Yclas support”. Nothing is sent until support switches it back on. Contact support.

Older sales aren’t arriving. Only sales paid from the Send from date are sent. Set an earlier date and click Save: they follow a few at a time.

Related guides

• Commission and service fees — the commissions this add-on sends.
• Manage orders — the orders behind each sale.
• Marketplace sales report — your sales and commissions on the site.
• EU VAT — when your amounts include tax.
• Paid bookings — booking commissions and service fees.