Syncing Expenses to QuickBooks from Bolster
How to create an expense or bill in Bolster and sync it automatically to your QuickBooks account — no double entry.
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.
- Go to Integrations and open QuickBooks.
- Connect and authorize your QuickBooks account. Once linked, you're ready to sync.
- Open your project. (In this example the project has five line items, each with an increasing value.)
- Go to Purchasing → Bills & Expenses and click to create a new expense.
- Attach your receipt, then select the vendor.
- 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.
- 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- 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.
- Because it was marked as a receipt, it also appears under Bills as paid, matched to the corresponding Bolster bill number.
For an expense that is not a receipt — i.e. not yet paid:
- Create a new expense in Purchasing → Bills & Expenses.
- 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.
- 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.
- In QuickBooks, go to Bills and filter to Unpaid to see it (e.g. $10.63, unpaid).
- Go to Integrations → QuickBooks → Data Sync.
- Use the dropdown to choose a record type — e.g. Bills & Expenses — to see everything synced across your account.
- 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.
|
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 |