Legacy QuickBooks Online integration is being retired in favor of the new integration

[AnnaQ]

What’s changing about Hubspot’s QuickBooks Online Integration?

HubSpot still has an integration with QuickBooks Online, and that integration remains a top priority for us. We launched a new integration in 2023 and we are now working on helping users of the legacy integration migrate to the new one. The new QuickBooks Online integration features enhanced syncing functionality, including two-way Contact and Product syncs, as well as sync customization and sync health insights. In the near future, we will also be adding two-way Invoice sync and Payment sync. Learn more about the differences between the legacy integration and new QuickBooks Online integration below.

Starting on March 12, the legacy integration will be labeled “legacy” because the integration is being retired in favor of the new integration.

No functionality of the legacy integration has changed for current users, and you will not experience any disruptions before May 14. If you intend to keep HubSpot and QuickBooks integrated, you will need to migrate to the new QuickBooks integration by May 14.

Click this link to migrate

If you do not complete these steps before May 14 the legacy QuickBooks integration will stop syncing data and workflow actions will begin to fail. All teams who are using the legacy QuickBooks integration on May 14 will be affected, unless you have requested an extension.

Why are we sunsetting the legacy QuickBooks integration?

We have a new improved integration with QuickBooks that offers a better customer experience. By sunsetting the legacy QuickBooks integration, we are setting our customers up for success on a more scalable sync platform and expanding our capacity to improve the integration in the long term.

What are the core differences between the new QuickBooks Online integration and the legacy QuickBooks Online integration?

The primary difference between the new integration and legacy integration concerns syncing capabilities. The new QuickBooks Online integration, powered by HubSpot Data Sync, has more robust data syncing capabilities, which will continue to expand and mature. Some of the key differences include:

• Bi-directional Contact and Product Sync: The new integration offers bi-directional Contact and Product syncing, whereas the legacy QuickBooks Online integration offered only one-way sync from QuickBooks Online → HubSpot. Two-way invoice sync is coming soon.

• Advanced Sync Filtering: The new QuickBooks Online integration offers robust filtering, enabling you to control when data should sync from, and apply custom filters to control which data should sync.

• Sync Health Reporting: The new QuickBooks Online integration offers sync health reporting to identify failing syncs and help remediate the failures.

How does the new QuickBooks Online integration affect my use of other HubSpot services?

Please note that if you are using the Integration Invoices CRM sidebar card, you will lose access to it if you migrate to the new QuickBooks Online integration

If you are using the Integration Invoices CRM sidebar card, we do not recommend for you to migrate to the new QuickBooks Online integration until two-way invoice sync is available later in Q2. We are offering extensions for customers who fall into this category. In order to request an extension, please reach out to your HubSpot Customer Success representative.

If you have customized your Contact or Product field mappings, you will need to recreate those mappings in the new QuickBooks Online integration, which requires HubSpot Ops Hub Starter.

If you have created internal process, Workflows, or Reports that depend on invoice deal properties located in the Deal object’s Accounting properties group (e.g. Amount Billed, Invoice Number), the new integration will not support those properties. Instead, we recommend using invoice objects to view/automate/report on this data. This allows you to leverage data across multiple invoices tied to a deal, rather than the deal properties, which stores data only on the most recent invoice.

What steps can I take to migrate to the new QuickBooks Online integration?

On May 14 the legacy QuickBooks Online integration will stop syncing data and workflow actions associated with the integration will begin to fail. To avoid being affected, we recommend following these steps:

Step 1: Determine if your team is using the Integration Invoices sidebar card

.

This card will be removed when migrating to the new QuickBooks Online integration. You can create invoices natively within HubSpot, but they will not sync to QuickBooks Online. However, you can still attach existing QuickBooks Online invoices to deal records.

Important: If your team currently uses the Integration Invoices sidebar card to sync invoices to QuickBooks Online, you should not migrate to the new QuickBooks Online integration. Similar functionality will be available with the introduction of two-way Invoice sync in Q2. If you wish to seek an extension until two-way Invoice sync becomes available, kindly contact your HubSpot Customer Success representative.

Step 2: Proceed with migrating to the new QuickBooks Online integration if you are not using the Integration Invoices card above.

1. Log in to HubSpot, then navigate to Settings → Integrations → Connected Apps → Legacy Quickbooks Online → Begin transition process.
2. The migration wizard will guide you through the steps of the migration, including re-authenticating HubSpot’s access to QuickBooks Online, re-creating your existing sync settings, and re-creating any workflows that leverage the integration.
3. Your old Invoice, Contact, and Product data will not be deleted.

Step 3: Once your migration is complete, the wizard will automatically uninstall the legacy QuickBooks Online integration on your behalf.

If you see any discrepancies after migration (e.g. duplicate products or invoices), please contact HubSpot Support.

Please note: We highly recommend that you finish the migration process (which should take <10 minutes) once you start the migration wizard. Interrupting the migration process may lead to an incomplete migration.

The new QuickBooks Online integration does not have the Integration Invoices sidebar card and its associated actions (i.e. Create Invoice, Add Existing Invoice). Instead, the new QuickBooks Online integration relies on the native “Invoices” sidebar card.

What are key dates I should look out for?

If you intend to keep HubSpot and QuickBooks integrated you will need to update to the new QuickBooks Online integration by May 14. Please stay tuned for the following notifications:

• All customers using the legacy QuickBooks Online integration will be notified for the first time on Mar 12, 2024
• All customers who have not migrated by Apr 30, 2024 will be reminded again.
• Starting May 14, 2024, the legacy QuickBooks Online integration will stop syncing data and workflow actions will begin to fail.

3/25 Update: If you are worried about meeting the migration deadline outlined above, we can provide a new extension that gives you a minimum of 45 days from the email notification that two-way invoice sync is GA. Those granted an extension will be informed once two-way invoice sync is ready, and they will have 45 days from the email notice to test the feature and complete the migration before facing any service disruptions. If you believe you require an extension, reach out to your HubSpot Customer Success representative or customersuccessteam@hubspot.com and they can initiate the request on your behalf.

[katherineladue]

Hi, can you clarify this piece:

"Step 1: Determine if your team is using the Integration Invoices sidebar card

.

This card will be removed when migrating to the new QBO integration, but you will not lose the ability to create new or attach existing QBO invoices on deal records. If you need to create Invoices, sign up for free for HubSpot’s Commerce Hub."

The invoice sync between HubSpot and Quickbooks in the new version of the integration appears to still be one-way from Quickbooks to HubSpot, so I’m confused about how creating HubSpot invoices in Commerce Hub will replace the “Integration Invoices” sidebar card, unless that sync is becoming bidirectional? How will we be able to manually create Quickbooks invoices from HubSpot with this new integration?

Thank you!

[RGould]

Hi,

I’m in agreement with @katherineladue’s concern.

We have also been using the “Integration Invoices” sidebar to create invoices in QuickBooks and would very much prefer to continue sending our invoices via QuickBooks, or at least have copies made of the invoices in QuickBooks. Will we continue to be able to create QuickBooks invoices from HubSpot in some way?

We also value the ability to send invoices as PDF attachments, rather than webpage links. Will this be supported in the native HubSpot invoice creation?

Any support and clarification you can provide will be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

[ethankopit]

Hey @katherineladue - thank you for the question. So, I have two answers:
1. In the very short term, you can create Invoices, then you can export invoices from HubSpot and import them into Quickbooks.
2. We also just kicked off beta testing for our outbound invoice sync from HubSpot --> Quickbooks, and we hope to have that available for folks to use soon, ideally before the May 14th sunset date.

[ethankopit]

@RGould thanks for asking! Native Hubspot invoices support both a web-hosted version, as well as invoice PDFs. Long term, our goal is for you to create invoices in HubSpot, and then have them synced over to QBO using two-way invoice sync, which is under active development. We’re hoping to have this available for broad use before the May 14th sunset date, and we’re currently beta testing it.

You can try creating a native invoice in your portal today and seeing how it renders, what the sending options are, etc. Let me know if you have more questions.

[JRedding]

My company just did the integration and it is not as easy as it sounds. Quickbooks and HS are not syncing for us and I am having concerns that the new process will upset customers as we always have our accountant approve an invoice before it gets sent so no errors get made.

I put a support ticket in this morning but I have yet to hear an answer.

[cjl2016]

I very much share the sentiments and concerns above.

@ethankopit, Does the new integration have a way to:

• Manually create invoices when we’re ready?
• Include additional details like PO number and tracking information (either auto-filled from properties or input manually when creating said invoice)?
• Push those invoices into the QBO Task Manager for approval instead of just creating an open invoice, helping to avoid duplicate invoice numbers that cause sync issues with other systems feeding into QBO?
• Show payment status in the new Invoices sidebar card?

[ethankopit]

Hey @JRedding - I’m sorry that was your experience. I’ll will reach out to support to identify what could be causing an issue with the two systems not syncing.

Re: having the accountant approve an invoice, I think we may need to make a small process change here. HubSpot invoices do not need to be sent immediately once they are finalized. You can just exit out of the sending screen. It might be good to ask your reps to finalize, but not send, invoices, then the accountant can review the invoices before they are sent. In the case of mistakes, we don’t yet offer editing of invoices (you’ll need to clone, void, and re-issue), but we are actively working on making invoice editing available in the coming weeks.

[ethankopit]

@cjl2016 thanks for asking. I’ll tackle those one at a time.

Manually create invoices when we’re ready? <-- Yes, Invoices can be created but NOT sent. You can even schedule them to be sent with a custom message, if you click “Write Email Manually”.
Include additional details like PO number and tracking information (either auto-filled from properties or input manually when creating said invoice)? <-- Yes! The invoices tool supports adding PO number manually, and we’re currently working on a project to support embedding fields (e.g. PO number) automatically.
Push those invoices into the QBO Task Manager for approval instead of just creating an open invoice, helping to avoid duplicate invoice numbers that cause sync issues with other systems feeding into QBO? <-- No, for now invoices are created with their own HubSpot invoice number (which by default has a prefix INV to avoid conflicting with QBO, and the number start-point can be adjusted as well).
Show payment status in the new Invoices sidebar card? <-- Yes, Payment status is displayed in the sidebar card.

[JRedding]

@ethankopit I talked to support an hour ago and the problem though is that I was told that the data sync is no longer two-directional and only information from QuickBooks is entering Hubspot. This is not a small sales process for our company but a huge difference that impacts our accounting processes and business operations. We did not realize this update was going to impact that much of our business when we decided to do it.

[ethankopit]

Hey @JRedding - it’s surprising to hear them say that, since the new integration actually supports more data syncing than the old.
The old integration supports one-way sync of invoices, contacts, and products. The new integration supports two-way sync of contacts, products, and one-way invoice sync. But, we are currently beta testing two-way invoice sync.

I’ll email you about your specific situaton and we can figure out a path forward.

[GMachado54]

Unfortunately HS is giving a stepback. @ethankopit the solution you present of exporting and importing invoices adds one layer to the process, which makes it more complicated than it originally was.

I share the same concerns as everyone else here. It was extremely easy and convenient to create invoices from strach using these buttons shown below. HS is forcing its customers to use its own solution as opposed to give freedom of choice.

Please set back the old and excellent methodology!

[GMachado54]

@ethankopit

in respect to your comment:

Long term, our goal is for you to create invoices in HubSpot, and then have them synced over to QBO using two-way invoice sync, which is under active development. We’re hoping to have this available for broad use before the May 14th sunset date, and we’re currently beta testing it.

Why didn’t you discontinue the old solution after the new one was ready? Why do you have to create chaos with your customers?

[ethankopit]

Hey @GMachado54 - thanks for the feedback. We recognize that in the short term, using import is a less streamlined experience than before, but in the long term we feel that the new integration is the right choice for our community. The new integration gives us two-way contact and product sync, sync health reporting, and the ability to control precisely which data flows from system to system using sync filters. All of this functionality is available at no cost.

And, soon, the same infrastructure powering two-way contact and product sync will also power two-way invoice sync and payment sync, which will give you the freedom to choose to invoice from HubSpot OR from QBO. Either way, your invoice data can live in HubSpot and you can use it for Reporting, Automation, etc.

I do want to re-iterate that while we sent out the sunset announcement yesterday, the legacy QBO integration will not experience any changes until May 14th - more than two months from now. If you are concerned about your ability to migrate by that date, you can also ask your Customer Success manager (or customersuccessteam@hubspot.com) to proactively request a two-week extension.

While the new integration is a change for those using the Integration Invoices card’s “Create Invoice” button, only ~10% of our user-base is using the card and the new integration will serve 90% of users even better. Like I said, if you’d like to see invoice sync in action before you switch, I recommend requesting an extension to get the maximum amount of time on the old integration.

[AEvans8]

The new app forces the use of your payment system, it is a fundamental change which is to make you money and remove choice.

How is that good for your customers?

[BSummerson]

The soon to be retied Invoice Card and ‘Create Invoice’ button are amazing quality of life buttons.
It makes it very easy for our front end team to prepare the invoice and have it populated in QB. Then another QB user sends out the invoices.
We have this set up with two different business units and different QB accounts and I’m concern this change will impact our ability to easily handle these transactions.

[KWhelan]

We had something break with the old integration and were getting error messages referencing our integration as “legacy” and I assumed the new integration was meant to fix that error, so I upgraded not knowing the vast impacts this would make to our process. Given that the change was going to be forced in several weeks anyway, I figured we’d just go ahead and do it now when it was top of mind. We also use the create invoice card to send draft invoices to our finance team to view and approve. The statement in the post above that you can “add payments for free” is a bit frustrating and doesn’t elaborate on how much work that process will be. As an admin, this is not an easy feature to set up. I’m being asked to provide personal information (last four of SSN) for someone from our senior leadership team, as well as fill out a TON of financial information for our company for a tool we have no intention of actually using, aside from recreating the process we used that you phased out. I have already reached out to Hubspot’s support team, but overall I am both displeased with myself for not reading deeper into this before making the change, and Hubspot for making me click through to this blog to understand what the change meant.

[ethankopit]

Hey @AEvans8 - sorry for the confusion there. For now, using HubSpot Invoices does require you to sign up for Commerce Hub (i.e. sign up for HubSpot Payments or connect a Stripe account for payment processing), but there are two things worth noting:
1. Commerce Hub is free to sign up for, and you do not need to offer payment collection on your invoices if you choose. If you do want to offer payment processing, you can use HubSpot Payments, or bring your own Stripe account.

2. HubSpot Invoices will soon be available for use without signing up for HS Payments or connecting a Stripe account for payment processing. If you would like to wait until then, then I would contact your CSM about getting an extension to the May 14th deadline.

[ethankopit]

@BSummerson I’m glad to hear you have found value in the “Create Invoice” button! Let’s chat 1:1 with your Customer Success Manager and figure out if we can provide that same value in the new integration before you migrate. The migration wizard will facilitate migration for multiple accounts, but, to be clear, you will lose access to the “Create Invoice” button if you migrate.

[ethankopit]

@KWhelan I’m sorry that’s been your experience. I’m going to reach out 1:1 and loop in your Customer Success manager so that we can put together a plan to reduce the friction involved. Please keep an eye on your inbox.