Syncing Expenses to QuickBooks from Bolster

Overview

The Bolster × QuickBooks integration lets you record an expense or bill in Bolster and have it flow straight into your QuickBooks account, keeping your books up to date without re-keying anything. Receipts sync as paid bills; non-receipt expenses sync as unpaid bills. You can also push or update records manually from the Data Sync screen at any time.

Before you start

• A QuickBooks account connected to Bolster (see Step 1).
• A project in Bolster with line items, so expenses can be mapped to the estimate.
• A vendor created in Bolster to attach the expense to.

Step 1 — Connect QuickBooks

1. Go to Integrations and open QuickBooks.
2. Connect and authorize your QuickBooks account. Once linked, you're ready to sync.

Step 2 — Create an expense (receipt) in Bolster

1. Open your project. (In this example the project has five line items, each with an increasing value.)
2. Go to Purchasing → Bills & Expenses and click to create a new expense.
3. Attach your receipt, then select the vendor.
4. Map each receipt line to an estimate item — for example, line 1 to Item 1, line 2 to Item 2, line 3 to Item 3. Each line picks up the correct amount, and the subtotal, tax, and total update automatically.
5. Because this is a receipt, mark it as a receipt, then Save.

The expense is now saved. You can reopen it any time to view or edit.

Step 3 — View the synced expense in QuickBooks

1. In QuickBooks, go to Expenses → Expense Transactions. The new entry appears automatically (e.g. ABC Supply, $154.06). Open it to see the full breakdown.
2. Because it was marked as a receipt, it also appears under Bills as paid, matched to the corresponding Bolster bill number.

Creating a bill (non-receipt)

For an expense that is not a receipt — i.e. not yet paid:

1. Create a new expense in Purchasing → Bills & Expenses.
2. Enter the vendor and receipt/reference number, pull in the relevant line item (e.g. Item 5), set the amount, and add sales tax. Totals reflect automatically.
3. Leave it un-marked as a receipt and save. Because it isn't a receipt and hasn't been paid, it syncs to QuickBooks as an unpaid bill.
4. In QuickBooks, go to Bills and filter to Unpaid to see it (e.g. $10.63, unpaid).

Manually syncing and updating records

1. Go to Integrations → QuickBooks → Data Sync.
2. Use the dropdown to choose a record type — e.g. Bills & Expenses — to see everything synced across your account.
3. If something hasn't synced to QuickBooks yet, push it from here by clicking Sync. The same works for syncing updates to existing bills and expenses.

Quick reference

In Bolster	In QuickBooks
Expense marked as a receipt	Appears in Expense Transactions and as a paid bill
Expense not marked as a receipt (unpaid)	Appears as an unpaid bill
Record not yet synced / later edited	Push or update manually from Data Sync