Connecting Albi to QuickBooks Online: An Overview
This article gives you the high-level picture of how Albi integrates with QuickBooks Online (QBO) — what syncs, in what direction, and how Albi organizes your data inside QBO.
What the Integration Does
When Albi is connected to QuickBooks Online, the two systems split responsibility cleanly: Albi is the source of truth for your projects and customers, and QBO is the source of truth for all financials. Albi pushes customer and project information to QBO, and QBO pushes every financial transaction — invoices, payments, deposits, credit memos, and expenses — back to Albi, where they appear on the project's Financials tab. This eliminates double-entry and keeps your books and your project records aligned.
Important — Financials originate in QuickBooks Online. When your company is connected to QBO, native financial creation in Albi is restricted in important ways — some record types are locked account-wide, and others depend on whether the project has synced yet. See When You Can and Can't Create Financials in Albi below for the full picture.
How Albi Organizes Your Data in QuickBooks Online
The single most important concept to understand is how Albi structures customers and projects in QBO:
- Each customer relationship in Albi becomes a Customer in QBO.
- Each project (job) under that customer becomes a Sub-Customer in QBO, nested under the parent Customer.
This Customer → Sub-Customer pattern is what allows financial data to flow back to the right project. When a payment posts in QBO against a Sub-Customer, Albi knows exactly which Albi project it belongs to.
Tip: Always create and edit customers and projects in Albi, not in QBO. Albi is the source of truth for these records. Editing them directly in QBO can break the sync or create duplicates.
What Syncs and In Which Direction
The integration moves data both ways. Here's what flows where:
| Data Type | Direction | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Customers and Sub-Customers (projects) | Albi → QBO | Created automatically based on your sync trigger setting |
| Invoices | QBO → Albi | Created in QBO against the project's Sub-Customer; pulled into the project's Financials tab |
| Payments | QBO → Albi | Recorded against the matching project |
| Sales Receipts | QBO → Albi | See the Sales Receipts article for details |
| Credit Memos | QBO → Albi | See the Credit Memos article for details |
| Bank Deposits | QBO → Albi | Displayed in Project Financials and update project KPIs |
| Expenses | QBO → Albi | Field mapping is configurable in your integration settings |
Sync Triggers — When Projects Push to QBO
You control when a new Albi project syncs to QBO using the Customer Condition setting in your QuickBooks integration. Three options are available:
- Everytime Project Created. Every Albi project pushes to QBO the moment it's created. Best for teams that bill quickly and want the QBO record ready to invoice from day one.
- Certain Statuses. Projects push to QBO only when they reach one of the statuses you choose. You can select multiple statuses — any project that reaches any of the selected statuses will trigger the sync. Best for teams that want to keep early-stage leads, drafts, or canceled jobs out of QBO entirely, but want flexibility on which workflow milestones trigger sync (for example, both "Sales" and "In Production").
- Certain Dates. Projects push to QBO when a specific project date field has a value entered. You choose which project date field acts as the trigger, and Albi watches for it to be filled in. Because project date fields are customizable in project settings, teams can tie the sync to whatever operational milestone makes sense for their workflow — for example, a custom "Receivables" date that gets filled in when a project is ready for invoicing. Best for teams whose ready-to-invoice signal lives in a project date rather than a status change.
You can change this setting at any time under Settings → Integrations → QuickBooks → Configure, in the Customer Condition dropdown.
When You Can and Can't Create Financials in Albi
Connecting your company to QBO restricts native financial creation in Albi in two ways — one that applies account-wide, and one that depends on whether a specific project has synced.
Account-Level: Some Record Types Are QBO-Only
Once your company is connected to QBO, the following financial record types can only originate in QBO. Albi will pull them in automatically once they exist in QBO, but you will not see a native creation option for them inside Albi:
- Expenses
- Bank Deposits
- Sales Receipts
- Credit Memos
Project-Level: Invoices and Payments Depend on Sync Status
The behavior for invoices and payments changes based on whether the project has synced to QBO yet:
- Before a project is synced to QBO, you can create invoices and payments natively inside Albi. This is useful when you're using the Certain Statuses or Certain Dates Customer Condition and need to record financials on a project that hasn't reached the sync threshold yet.
- Once the project syncs to QBO, the native invoice and payment creation options disappear from that project. From that point on, invoices and payments must be created in QBO, where they will pull back into Albi automatically.
Heads up — pre-sync records do not back-fill into QBO. Any invoices or payments you create natively in Albi before a project syncs will not push to QBO once the project does sync. They remain in Albi only. If you need a financial record to appear in both systems, create it in QBO after the project has synced. If you've already created native records in Albi that need to appear in QBO, you will need to re-enter them in QBO manually.
Auto-Reopen for Closed Projects
If you've closed a project in Albi and a related financial transaction later posts in QBO — for example, a late payment — the Albi project will reopen automatically so the new transaction is captured. You don't need to manually reopen the project before recording it.
Prerequisites
Before connecting, you'll need:
- An active QuickBooks Online subscription
- An Albi user with permissions to manage integrations (typically an admin)
- The QBO login credentials for the user who will authorize the connection
What's Next
- Setting up for the first time? Read How to Connect, Configure, and Sync QuickBooks Online.
- Already connected and running into an issue? Read QuickBooks Online: Troubleshooting & FAQ.