Set up QuickBooks Desktop for billing and payroll

Connect QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Premier, or Enterprise Solutions with Intuit's free Web Connector. Download links, install steps, and the payroll item and caregiver mapping that makes hours become pay.

7 stepsUpdated for AveeCare
In this guide
Confirm you are on QuickBooks Desktop, not QuickBooks OnlineInstall the QuickBooks Web ConnectorCreate the connection in AveeCare and save the passwordAdd the connection file and authorize it in QuickBooksRun it once so AveeCare can read your QuickBooks listsMap payroll items, caregivers, and your service itemSend hours from Payroll and invoices from Billing

QuickBooks Desktop (Pro, Premier, and Enterprise Solutions) has no cloud API, so AveeCare cannot reach it the way it reaches QuickBooks Online. Intuit's answer is a free Windows utility called the QuickBooks Web Connector, which sits next to QuickBooks and checks in with AveeCare on a schedule. Once it is set up, caregiver hours land on your Weekly Timesheet and invoices land in Accounts Receivable on their own, roughly every 15 minutes.

Quick answer

Install the Web Connector on the computer that runs QuickBooks. In AveeCare go to Settings, open the Payment Integrations tab, find the QuickBooks Desktop card, and click Set up QuickBooks Desktop. Copy the password it shows you, download the connection file, and open that file. Grant the certificate in QuickBooks, paste the password into the Web Connector, and run it once. Then map your payroll items and your caregivers, and you are done.

Open Settings

1. Confirm you are on QuickBooks Desktop, not QuickBooks Online

These are two different products with two different AveeCare integrations, and picking the wrong one is the most common way to waste an afternoon.

  1. Check how you open QuickBooks each morning.

    If QuickBooks is a program on your computer that you open from the Start menu or a desktop icon, you are on QuickBooks Desktop and this guide is for you. If instead you sign in through a web browser, you are on QuickBooks Online, and you want the Connect to QuickBooks button on the QuickBooks Online card instead. See Payroll integration for that path.

  2. Pro, Premier, and Enterprise Solutions all work the same way here.

    The Web Connector supports QuickBooks Pro, Premier, and Enterprise Solutions from the 2015 editions onward, in the US, Canadian, and UK versions. Most multi-office agencies are on Enterprise Solutions, which is fully supported, including class tracking per office.

  3. Do the whole setup on the computer that runs QuickBooks.

    The Web Connector talks to your company file directly, so it has to live on the same machine as QuickBooks. If your QuickBooks runs on an office server or a hosted desktop, install it there and do these steps there, not on your laptop.

2. Install the QuickBooks Web Connector

The Web Connector is free and made by Intuit. It is a separate download, so it may not be on the machine yet. Check the Start menu under QuickBooks for Web Connector first, and if it is already there, skip to step 3.

  1. Download the version that matches your QuickBooks year.

    These are direct downloads from Intuit. Pick one:

    Each file is about 80 MB. If you have two QuickBooks years installed side by side, take the connector for the newer one. Intuit also keeps its own Web Connector page if you would rather download from there.

  2. Right-click the downloaded zip file and choose Extract All.

    Windows will unpack it into a folder next to the download. Do not try to run the installer from inside the zip preview window, because it cannot install its supporting files from there.

  3. Right-click QBWebConnectorInstaller.exe and choose Run as administrator.

    This part matters. Double-clicking the installer normally will look like it worked and then the Web Connector will refuse to open. Running it as administrator is the fix, and it also lets the installer add Microsoft .NET 4.5.1 if the machine does not already have it.

  4. Open the Web Connector once to confirm the install took.

    Start menu, then QuickBooks, then Web Connector. An empty list of applications is exactly what you should see at this point. Leave the window open for step 4.

3. Create the connection in AveeCare and save the password

Open Settings

  1. Open Settings and click the Payment Integrations tab.

    You will see cards for each provider. The one you want is titled QuickBooks Desktop, with the subtitle Pro, Premier & Enterprise. The separate QuickBooks Online card is not involved, and connecting Desktop never disturbs it.

  2. Click Set up QuickBooks Desktop.

    AveeCare generates a login just for your agency. The user name looks like avee-1a2b3c4d and stays the same from here on.

  3. Copy the password before you navigate away.

    The password appears once, in the amber box, and AveeCare only stores a scrambled version of it. Paste it somewhere safe now. If you lose it there is no recovery, but there is no harm either: click Create new credentials and set the connection up again with a fresh password.

  4. Click Download connection file.

    Your browser saves a small file named aveecare-quickbooks.qwc. It holds your user name and the web address the Web Connector should call. It does not contain the password, which is why you had to copy that separately.

4. Add the connection file and authorize it in QuickBooks

  1. Open QuickBooks and sign in as the Admin user, with your company file open.

    Only the Admin user can grant an application permission the first time. Switching to single-user mode for these few minutes makes it go smoothly. After this one-time approval, everyone else can work normally.

  2. Double-click aveecare-quickbooks.qwc.

    The Web Connector opens it automatically and asks you to confirm the new web service. If double-clicking does nothing, open the Web Connector yourself, click Add an Application, and pick the file. An entry named AveeCare appears in the list.

  3. Grant the certificate when QuickBooks asks.

    QuickBooks shows an application certificate window. Choose Yes, whenever this QuickBooks company file is open, and tick the box that allows access to personal data. That box is what lets AveeCare read your payroll items and employee list, so the sync cannot work without it. Click Continue, then Done.

  4. Paste the password into the Password box on the AveeCare row.

    The Web Connector will offer to remember it. Say yes, otherwise it will ask again on every run. If it reports an invalid password, go back to AveeCare and click Create new credentials rather than guessing.

5. Run it once so AveeCare can read your QuickBooks lists

Nothing is written to your books in this step. The first run is AveeCare reading your file so the setup screens can offer you your own real names instead of asking you to type them.

  1. Tick the checkbox on the AveeCare row and click Update Selected.

    AveeCare reads your employees, payroll items, service items, classes, and customers. On a large file this takes a few seconds. Your QuickBooks data is not changed.

  2. Check the Last Result column.

    A completed status means the connection is live. If you see a number instead, it is a QuickBooks status code, and the common ones are explained under Common pitfalls below.

  3. Leave Auto-Run ticked so it keeps itself up to date.

    The connection file sets a 15-minute interval, so once QuickBooks and the Web Connector are open, hours and invoices flow without anyone clicking anything. You can always press Update Selected to sync immediately.

6. Map payroll items, caregivers, and your service item

Back in AveeCare, the QuickBooks Desktop card now has extra sections filled with your own QuickBooks names. This is the part that turns hours into money, so it is worth five careful minutes.

  1. Under How hours become pay, pick a payroll item for each kind of visit.

    QuickBooks works out a timesheet line as hours multiplied by the rate on the payroll item. A line with no item is filed as time tracking and can never reach a paycheck, so hours would appear to sync perfectly and nobody would get paid. There are rows for Hourly visits, Overtime hours, Per-visit or flat rate, Salaried caregivers, and Mileage. Map Hourly at minimum, then click Save mapping.

  2. For per-visit work, use an item whose rate is the flat fee itself.

    A flat 100 dollars for a bath visit cannot be written as hours times a rate, so create a wage item in QuickBooks whose rate is 100 and map it here. AveeCare sends exactly one unit against it. The same applies to mileage: the item rate is your per-mile amount.

  3. Under Who each caregiver is in QuickBooks, confirm every match.

    QuickBooks matches employees on the exact full name. If your roster says Barbara Walters and your books say Barbara J. Walters, that caregiver's hours are rejected. AveeCare pre-matches anyone whose name lines up exactly and flags the rest as Not matched. Fix those from the dropdown and click Save caregiver matches. For a single new hire later on, the same control sits on that caregiver's Payroll tab.

  4. Under How invoices are booked, pick a service item.

    QuickBooks refuses an invoice line without an item, because the item is what decides which income account the revenue lands in. Pick the service item you already use for home care billing. Skip this and invoices will not send.

  5. Optional: match each office to a QuickBooks class.

    If you track locations as classes, this section appears once AveeCare has read your class list. Matching them keeps each office's labour in its own bucket instead of one combined total.

7. Send hours from Payroll and invoices from Billing

Open Payroll

  1. On Payroll, set the date range and click Send hours to QuickBooks.

    AveeCare runs a check first. If everything is ready it queues the visits. If some cannot go, you get a plain-language list of why (an unmatched caregiver, an unmapped visit type, a visit with no recorded time) and the option to send the ready ones now and come back for the rest. The hours appear on your Weekly Timesheet within about 15 minutes, and you run Pay Employees in QuickBooks exactly as you do today. Related: Run a payroll batch.

  2. On Billing, tick invoices and click Send to QuickBooks.

    The button only appears when QuickBooks Desktop is connected. Each invoice posts to Accounts Receivable against the service item you chose. If the client does not exist in QuickBooks yet, AveeCare creates them rather than failing the invoice. Related: Invoices tab.

  3. Expect a payment to land on the run after its invoice.

    A payment has to be attached to the invoice's QuickBooks transaction ID, and AveeCare only learns that ID once QuickBooks has accepted the invoice. So an invoice and its payment always arrive on two consecutive runs, about 15 minutes apart. Nothing is wrong if you see the invoice first.

Common pitfalls

  • The installer was not run as administrator. The install appears to finish and then the Web Connector will not open, or opens and immediately closes. Uninstall it, then right-click QBWebConnectorInstaller.exe and choose Run as administrator.
  • QBWC1039, unique OwnerID and FileID required. An older AveeCare entry is still registered. Select the old row in the Web Connector, remove it, then add the new connection file again.
  • QBWC1040, invalid password. The password only exists in the clipboard copy you made. There is no way to look it up, so go to Settings, click Create new credentials, and paste the new one. Your user name does not change.
  • Error 3140, invalid reference to a QuickBooks entity. A caregiver or client name does not match your QuickBooks list character for character. Only that line is skipped and everybody else still gets paid. Fix the match in Settings and the skipped visits go through on the next run by themselves.
  • Hours arrive but nobody gets paid. That is an unmapped payroll item. QuickBooks filed the time as time tracking only. Set the mapping under How hours become pay, and re-send the period.
  • Nothing syncs overnight. The Web Connector can only reach your books while QuickBooks is running on that machine. If you close QuickBooks at the end of the day, the queue simply waits and clears the next time you open it.

Frequently asked questions

Keep going

Run a payroll batch and send to your provider

Filter unpaid visits on /payroll, push to QuickBooks or Paychex, then bulk Mark Paid to close the batch.

Payroll integration

Connect QuickBooks, Paychex, ADP, or Gusto. Sync settings, frequency, manual sync.

Caregiver payroll & pay rate

Link payroll provider, view paid history, override pay rate per caregiver.

Invoices tab

Visit Billing table on /billing with stats, filters, Mark Billed, Charge via Stripe, EDI 837P/837I export, and 835 ERA import.

Written by
Calvin Nesvig
Founding Partner, AveeCare

Builds AveeCare full-time. The AveeCare Help Center is written and maintained by the team that builds the product, so the steps in every article come from the same people who ship the features.

All help articlesNeed a person?