One direction, automatic, and which accounts get it
Jobber has two QuickBooks integrations and the difference decides most of what follows. The legacy sync went both ways for clients and items, sent an invoice’s paid status back to Jobber, and only ran when someone pressed Sync now. The new integration, which Jobber is rolling out gradually, is one-way from Jobber to QuickBooks and runs continuously. A first-time connection does one import the other way, clients and products from QuickBooks into Jobber, and that is the last time anything flows in that direction. Migration from legacy to new is one way too; there is no going back.
Jobber’s feature page lists the sync on Connect plans and up; the help center says select plans and points you at Account and Billing to check. It is offered in the United States and Canada, for QuickBooks Online Simple Start, Essentials, Plus and Advanced in the US and EasyStart, Essentials, Plus and Advanced in Canada. QuickBooks Self-Employed and QuickBooks Desktop are not supported. One QuickBooks company connects to one Jobber account, an admin has to set it up, and if that admin’s Jobber login is later deactivated the connection drops and has to be reconnected.
| Legacy integration | New integration | |
|---|---|---|
| How it runs | Manual. Someone presses Sync now; Jobber suggested once at the end of the day. | Automatic and ongoing. No button. |
| Clients and items | Synced both ways. | One way, Jobber to QuickBooks. Jobber is the source of truth; edits in QuickBooks do not come back. |
| Invoice paid status | Synced back to Jobber. | Does not sync back. Record the payment in Jobber. |
| Sync errors | Error list in Jobber. | Resolved from the sync dashboard in Jobber, with steps per error, and a Sync Again button for items deleted on the QuickBooks side. |
| First connection | Choose what to sync during setup. | One-time import of active clients and items from QuickBooks, with duplicate resolution, then one-way from there. |
| Moving between them | Legacy accounts can migrate. | Migration is permanent and triggers no new import. |
What syncs, when, and the rule that comes with it
Each item type has a trigger you can set, usually a choice between syncing when the item reaches a state or not syncing at all, and after the first sync every later edit in Jobber follows automatically. The table is the new integration. The right-hand column is the rule that catches people.
| Item | When it syncs | How it lands in QuickBooks | The rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clients | When created, or once they appear on an invoice, payment or timesheet. | Matched on the QuickBooks display name. A client with a billing-address property syncs even without an invoice. | Edit in Jobber only. Deleting in Jobber does not delete in QuickBooks. Updating a client in Jobber reactivates an inactive QuickBooks customer. |
| Products and services | When created, or once they appear on an invoice. | Services become Service items, products become Non-inventory items, costs sync, income account set in QuickBooks. | Custom line items arrive as one item called Custom Service with the Jobber name in the description. Delete in both systems. |
| Invoices | When sent or marked sent, or when created. Later edits sync. | Property address becomes the shipping address; the client’s primary email is filled in. | Delete in both systems. In the US, Automatic Sales Tax works from the Ship From address and suggests rates as warnings you can add to Jobber. |
| Payments by cash, check, transfer or outside card | When collected, or not at all. | Undeposited or Unapplied Funds until a deposit, then Checking. | You reconcile the deposit in QuickBooks. A payment entered on the client page without an invoice arrives as an unapplied payment. |
| Jobber Payments payouts, fees, tips, refunds | When collected, or not at all. Only payouts marked Paid in Jobber are flagged. | Payouts to the Checking account you chose; fees to Jobber Payments Fees; tips to Undistributed Tips as journal entries; refunds through Refunds Clearing. | The deposit account must be a bank account with the Checking detail type. Instant payout fees, disputes and negative payouts each have their own account; see the next section. |
| Timesheets | When approved in Jobber, or not at all. | Time Activities by Employee, into QuickBooks Payroll. | QuickBooks Payroll must be on and employee names must match exactly. Overnight and multi-day entries do not sync; split them. |
| Quotes, jobs, expenses, purchase orders | Not in the sync. | Nothing arrives. | The invoice is the only job record that moves. Job costing in QuickBooks is a separate build. |
| Paid status, QuickBooks-side edits | Not in the sync. | Nothing comes back to Jobber. | Mark payments in Jobber, not QuickBooks, or Jobber will show the invoice as unpaid. |
Where every dollar lands on Jobber Payments
The part of the sync most people get wrong is not the invoice, it is the deposit. Jobber Payments collects the card, holds the money, then pays out in batches, and the sync has to explain that batch to QuickBooks. Jobber’s payouts article lays out exactly which account each piece goes to; this is it in one place, as of October 29, 2026.
| What happened | Where it goes in QuickBooks |
|---|---|
| A card payment or quote deposit is collected | Undeposited Funds (or Unapplied Funds) until its payout syncs, then your Checking account. |
| Jobber takes its processing fee | Removed from the deposit and booked to Jobber Payments Fees, which holds the running total. |
| An instant payout | Full amount to Checking and Instant Payout Clearing; the next standard payout zeroes the clearing balance and books the 1% instant fee to Jobber Payments Fees. |
| A tip on an invoice | Undistributed Tips, as a journal entry with no customer attached and the assigned team members in the memo. It stays there until you pay it out. |
| A refund | Deducted from the payout through Refunds Clearing until the source payout syncs; the fee on the refunded payment comes back to Checking. |
| A dispute | A negative line on the payout to Allowance for Disputed Jobber Payments; moves to Checking only if you win. |
| A negative payout | QuickBooks refuses negative deposits, so it becomes a journal entry from Checking to Undeposited Funds plus a zero deposit. Net effect: Checking goes down. |
| A Stripe Capital advance | The accepted amount to a Loan account; repayments reduce it; fees to Loan Fees. |
What the bookkeeper still does every week
The sync removes the retyping. It does not remove the review. Four jobs stay with a person, and the companies that get into trouble are the ones who assumed the connection did them.
- Open the sync alert. Anything needing attention shows in Jobber’s top navigation; the dashboard behind it lists every error and warning with its fix. An alert left for a month is a month of invoices that never reached the books.
- Reconcile Undeposited Funds. Card payments sit there until their payout syncs, and cash and check payments sit there until you make the deposit. Match deposits to payouts weekly, not at tax time.
- Keep the lists clean in Jobber. A client renamed in QuickBooks, a service recreated there, or an invoice deleted on one side only is the source of most sync errors. Jobber is the source of truth; QuickBooks is the copy.
- Pay out tips and watch disputes. Undistributed Tips and Allowance for Disputed Jobber Payments are holding accounts that only you can clear; the sync fills them and never empties them.
Fictional example: a plumbing office at the Friday close
The office manager opens the alert: three items. One invoice has a tax rate QuickBooks does not have, so she adds the rate in QuickBooks and retries. One client is a name conflict with a customer the bookkeeper created by hand in March; she renames the QuickBooks one and lets the sync map it. One payout cannot associate because the bookkeeper already entered that deposit manually on Tuesday; she deletes the manual deposit and retries, and the payout, fees and one tip land where they belong.
Twenty minutes, every Friday. The alternative she replaced was a Sunday retyping every invoice from Jobber into QuickBooks, which is where the Tuesday deposit habit came from.
The sync errors that actually stop money
Jobber’s error article lists more than fifty messages. Most are informational or fix themselves. These are the ones that keep an invoice, payment or payout out of QuickBooks until a person acts, with the fix Jobber gives.
| Error | What it means | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Client already exists in QuickBooks | A QuickBooks customer has the same name, or is already mapped to a different Jobber client. | Rename one record. If they are the same person, rename temporarily in Jobber, let it sync, rename back, then merge in QuickBooks. |
| Invoice number already in use | QuickBooks already has that number, often from a manually entered invoice. | Change the number in Jobber to one QuickBooks has not used. |
| Tax rate missing in QuickBooks Online | The invoice’s rate does not exist on the QuickBooks side. | Add the rate in QuickBooks, or remove it from the invoice in Jobber. |
| 0% tax rate not found | A non-taxable line with no 0% code in QuickBooks. | Add a 0% tax rate in QuickBooks. |
| Payment method not found | The method used in Jobber does not exist in QuickBooks. | Create it under All Lists, Payment Methods. |
| Missing invoice in QuickBooks | The payment’s invoice has its own error. | Fix the invoice first, then retry the payment. |
| TxnID cannot be linked | The invoice is not in QuickBooks yet, or was deleted there. | Apply the payment to the client balance, update, then reapply to the right invoice after sync, or ask Jobber support. |
| Unable to associate payments with bank deposit | The deposit was already recorded in QuickBooks by hand, or edited. | Delete the manual deposit and retry, or reconcile manually and Ignore. |
| Employee does not exist in QuickBooks | No QuickBooks employee matches the Jobber name exactly. | Create the employee with the identical first name, middle initial and last name. |
| Your Jobber account is no longer connected | Usually the user who connected it was deactivated. | Re-authorize from the link in the error, or disconnect and reconnect from Apps. |
When the sync is not enough
Three gaps come up on almost every call about this integration, and none of them is a setting. Job costs: the sync moves the invoice, not the job, so labor and material cost per job never reaches QuickBooks unless something else carries it. Expenses and purchase orders: not in the documented list. QuickBooks Desktop: no sync at all, only a CSV import of clients.
For the first two, Jobber’s Zapier connector can fire on a new or updated invoice and a closed job, and its API exposes jobs and line items, so a build can post a job-cost journal entry or an expense when a job closes; our Jobber automation guide lists every trigger and the plan it needs. For Desktop, the honest answer is that nothing automates it and the two systems should be treated as separate books with a weekly export. Before any of that, decide which system owns each field; the CRM versus spreadsheet guide is the same decision with different tools.
The questions people ask first
Does Jobber sync with QuickBooks Desktop?
No. Jobber’s help center says the integration is with QuickBooks Online only and there is no active sync with Desktop. You can import a client list from Desktop by CSV, once, and that is the extent of it. QuickBooks Self-Employed is not supported either.
Is the Jobber QuickBooks sync two-way?
Not on the current integration. It runs one way, Jobber to QuickBooks, after a one-time import of clients and items the other way when you first connect. The legacy integration synced clients and items both ways and sent the paid status back; the new one does neither, so edits made in QuickBooks do not reach Jobber. Details in direction and plans.
Which Jobber plan includes the QuickBooks sync?
Jobber’s feature page lists it on Connect plans and up, as of November 2, 2026; the help center says select plans and sends you to Account and Billing to check. It is offered in the United States and Canada.
Does it sync automatically?
On the new integration, yes: it is ongoing with no button, and you set per item whether it syncs when the item is created, sent, collected or approved, or not at all. On the legacy integration someone has to press Sync now, and Jobber suggested doing that once at the end of each day.
Do quotes and jobs sync to QuickBooks?
No. The documented list is clients, products and services, invoices, payments, refunds, tips, payouts and timesheets. A quote becomes visible to QuickBooks only once it is an invoice, and a job never does. See what syncs.
Why is a payment sitting in Undeposited Funds?
By design. Payments land in Undeposited or Unapplied Funds and move to your Checking account when the payout that contains them syncs, or, for cash and checks, when you record the deposit. Reconcile them weekly. The money section shows where fees, tips and refunds go.
Supporting documentation
Official documents were checked for the latest update to this guide. Examples and operating recommendations are GoodHandoff’s analysis; they are not claims of live customer results or vendor certification. We have not tested these integrations in your account. Access, pricing and API behavior can change.
- Jobber: QuickBooks and Xero syncThe list of what syncs, the direction, Connect plans and up, and the supported QuickBooks Online editions.
- Jobber: QuickBooks Integration FAQs (new integration)Automatic one-way sync, the sync dashboard, backdating, supported editions and Desktop.
- Jobber: How to Connect Jobber and QuickBooks Online (new integration)Admin setup, the one-time import, per-item sync triggers, and the deactivated-user disconnect.
- Jobber: How Items Sync Between Jobber and QuickBooks Online (new integration)Per-item rules: matching, edits, deletions, custom line items, Automatic Sales Tax, timesheets.
- Jobber: How Jobber Payments Fees and Payouts Sync to QuickBooks OnlineThe account each payment, fee, tip, refund, dispute and payout lands in.
- Jobber: Migrate to the New QuickBooks IntegrationThe differences between legacy and new, and that migration is permanent.
- Jobber: How to Set Up QuickBooks Online Sync (legacy)Manual Sync now, the end-of-day suggestion, and the one-account rule.
- Jobber: Common QuickBooks Sync Errors and How to Fix Them (new integration)Every error and fix in the errors table.
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