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FlintPOS imports existing QBO customers and supported products. It does not import historical orders, invoices or payments as Flint orders and payments. Historical transactions and outstanding balances stay in QBO. Collect those older receivables in QBO; do not create replacement Flint orders just to bring the history across.
If you already use FlintPOS, outbound sync sends eligible existing Flint records as well as future activity. Review older records before connecting. Legacy records may need an audited correction even when current Flint entry rules would prevent that state.
Supported product imports are active QBO Inventory and NonInventory items. An imported Inventory item turns on stock tracking in Flint. Service and Category records do not become Flint products through initial import.
During onboarding, you receive all imported inventory quantities in your default FlintPOS location, even if you have other locations. You can create locations and transfer stock after import. Keep one active location marked as default before starting.
If Flint already has customers, complete Match customers before syncing: confirm the company, scan for possible matches, review each exact link or keep the customers separate, then finish customer setup. A matching name alone does not establish a link.
01 / Connection
Choose the right company
- Open Settings > QuickBooks in FlintPOS.
- Choose Connect QuickBooks and authorize the intended company with an account that can approve the connection.
- Check the company name and company ID before turning on sync. For testing, use your sandbox, not live books.
- Complete any customer matching review before proceeding.
You do not need to create an Intuit developer app or configure webhooks. FlintPOS manages that infrastructure. Contact support if the connection is unavailable.
02 / Chart of accounts
Map where the money belongs
Choose existing QBO accounts where possible. Names can differ; account types and purposes matter. Have your bookkeeper confirm the mappings. Refresh Flint after adding an account in QBO, select it and click Save Settings.
| Flint setting | Use |
|---|---|
| Income Account | Sales income for your products. |
| Accounts Receivable | Your QBO A/R account for on-account invoices. |
| Inventory Asset Account | Other Current Asset, with Inventory detail type, for tracked products. |
| Cost of Goods Sold Account | Your cost-of-goods-sold account for tracked products. |
| Payment Deposit Account | The bank or clearing account where customer receipts belong. Do not select Inventory Asset. |
| Sales Tax Liability Account | The liability account for tax collected when QBO sales tax is not enabled. |
| Paid Will Call Liability Account | A liability account for paid goods awaiting pickup. |
| Purchasing Expense / Asset Account | The expense or asset account for supplier bills. |
| Accounts Payable Account | Your QBO A/P account for supplier bills. |
| AP Payment Account | The account used to pay suppliers. |
Map purchasing accounts before enabling purchase order and accounts payable sync. If you only use POs to request goods, you do not have to adopt Flint bill entry.
03 / Locations & inventory
Match the yards you use
If QBO Location tracking is on, create a QBO location matching each Flint location name used by synced transactions. Use a unique matching name. Flint chooses the location from the record; you do not choose one default yard for all transactions.
A one-location merchant can leave QBO Location tracking off. Flint then sends transactions without a QBO Location. When tracking is on, a missing or ambiguous match needs attention, even for a one-location merchant.
Flint supports multi-location fulfillment. For a transaction spanning multiple yards, Flint leaves the QBO transaction Location blank rather than assigning the whole sale to one yard. QBO accounting locations do not replace Flint’s per-yard stock and fulfillment records.
Check the features available in your QBO subscription. See Intuit’s location tracking instructions.
Inventory tracking and dates
For products created in Flint, Track inventory controls the QBO item type. Flint retains inventory start dates for historical sales and handles the older, non-inventory portion of a product’s history when tracking starts later. Do not move those dates forward in QBO to clear an error.
Once a product links to a QBO Inventory item, Flint blocks turning tracking off. Use a separate non-inventory product if needed. If QBO reports that your subscription cannot track inventory, review the option shown in Flint before continuing; do not assume QBO now tracks stock.
For linked inventory, a QBO stock change can update the existing stock row when Flint has one active location and no stock elsewhere. If stock needs allocation across locations, Flint warns instead of guessing. Imported products retain supported QBO dates and photos.
Alternate-unit sales preserve their stock conversion. The QBO sales line currently shows the product name without the alternate unit label.
Product photos copy as attachments in the background. They can finish after the main sync. Flint does not add photo URLs to item descriptions.
04 / Reporting setup
Keep dates and reporting aligned
Complete the QBO company’s sales tax setup if you want transactions in QBO’s sales tax reports. Flint sends the tax collected and the saved sale or delivery address. Delivery orders can have different tax rates; do not replace them with one blanket rate.
Without QBO sales tax enabled, Flint uses its tax line and mapped Sales Tax Liability account. A matching liability balance does not mean QBO’s sales tax reports are configured. Follow Intuit’s automated sales tax setup guide and verify reporting with your bookkeeper before filing.
Use the same cash or accrual reporting method in Flint and QBO when comparing sales reports. Match the date range and location scope too. Flint’s Payment Summary reports money received by payment date under either reporting method. Compare refunds separately; on-account and store-credit settlements are not new money received.
Flint preserves order and payment dates separately. An order from last month paid this month belongs in this month’s payment receipts. Current entry rules do not allow payments before the order date. Arrange a supported special-order workflow before collecting money; do not invent dates to make reports match.
05 / Initial sync
Turn on the paths you need
- Customers and Products: import supported QBO records and sync linked Flint records.
- Orders to QuickBooks: send eligible Flint sales, deliveries, walk-ins and Will Calls.
- FlintPOS payments to QuickBooks: send collected payments and supported settlements.
- QuickBooks payments to FlintPOS: reconcile payments against linked Flint invoices, not historical QBO-only sales.
- Purchase orders and accounts payable to QuickBooks: sync suppliers as vendors, eligible POs, bills and supplier payments.
Click Save Settings. Follow the phase labels and progress bars for Customers, Inventory, Orders and Payments. Large initial syncs run in batches. Product photos continue separately.
New eligible activity and linked-order edits request background sync promptly. Webhooks carry supported QBO changes back. Recovery passes catch missed work; throttling, timeouts and active work can delay a pass. Check unresolved warnings and compare records even after progress shows complete.
06 / Verification
Check before relying on the totals
- Compare imported customers and products with QBO. Check names, SKUs, prices and inventory tracking. Confirm there are no unwanted duplicates.
- Complete a small Flint sale. Check the QBO customer, products, quantity, tax, total and location.
- Edit that sale in Flint. Confirm the existing QBO document updates without a duplicate.
- Test an on-account sale and a later payment. Confirm invoice date, payment date, method, amount and remaining balance.
- Test deliveries and Will Calls through delivery or pickup if you use them. Check paid Will Call liability and release behavior.
- For purchasing, create a PO, receive it, record a bill with confirmed costs, then a supplier payment. Check the QBO vendor, bill and balance.
- Compare a full month: sales, receipts, refunds, receivables, credits and purchasing, with equivalent filters. Investigate each difference before going live.
Use a sandbox for deliberate invalid edits and refunds. Do not create artificial transactions in live books just to exercise an error.
After setup
Make operational changes in Flint
Create and edit quantities, prices, discounts, order customers, shipping addresses, returns and fulfillment in Flint. QBO customer information and supported linked payments can flow back; QBO is not a second order editor.
If someone changes a linked order’s accounting details in QBO, Flint blocks the conflicting change and shows a warning. Equivalent address formatting is acceptable; a different address, quantity or amount is not. Restore the matching QBO values, then make the intended edit in Flint.
An unpaid, unfinished future order stays in Flint until an accounting event makes it eligible. Fully paid counter sales can use sales receipts; on-account, split-date and non-cash settlements may require invoices and separate payments. Do not convert linked documents by hand.
Customers and products
Keep saved QBO links. A customer-number suffix distinguishes separate customers with the same QBO display name. Removing it can create a duplicate-name conflict. Customer merging and database cleanup remain the merchant’s responsibility; Flint does not move or delete accounting history to reconcile a merge. Use Flint’s safe delete flow and contact support for mapping conflicts.
Purchase orders and bills
A PO can record a request before you know the cost. Enter confirmed line costs when you create the bill. Flint requires valid bill lines, accounts and totals before syncing; it does not silently turn an unknown PO cost into a known expense.
When something needs attention
Resolve the record, keep the link
- Missing account or location
- Create or correct it in QBO, refresh Flint and save settings. Match the location name, not just a similar yard name.
- Timeout or rate limit
- Allow automatic retry. Check current sync status before starting another import.
- Changed or missing QBO record
- Open the linked record in both systems. Restore matching QBO values or contact support for an audited correction. Do not clear the saved link to bypass the warning.
- Legacy overpayment, date or item error
- Review the specific record with support. Do not backdate payments, invent refunds or edit the database to force reconciliation.
- Another record has a conflict
- Unrelated queued records can continue. Check the warning’s record ID; an old notification does not mean the whole sync stopped.
Changing companies is not a retry button
Disconnect stops the connection. Use Change QBO company or account only for an intentional company change or an assisted reset. That workflow clears mapping state so a new connection can establish links. Do not clear QBO data or reset mappings during normal troubleshooting: you can create duplicate accounting records.
Include the Flint order number, QBO record ID and exact warning when you contact FlintPOS support.