Connecting QuickBooks Online to URBI
URBI's QuickBooks Online (QBO) integration keeps your books in QuickBooks automatically up to date with what happens in URBI. Once connected, invoices, payments, expenses, journal entries, customers,...
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URBI's QuickBooks Online (QBO) integration keeps your books in QuickBooks automatically up to date with what happens in URBI. Once connected, invoices, payments, expenses, journal entries, customers, and vendors created in URBI sync to your QuickBooks Online company without any manual data entry.
This article covers what QuickBooks integration is, what you need before you connect, the connection flow step by step, what "Connected" means once it's done, and how to read the connection health badge. Mapping your chart of accounts and backfilling your fiscal year happen in a guided wizard right after you connect, covered in their own articles (linked at the end).
Who can do this: A property manager or board member with manager-level access to the property, on a property whose management company is on the PREMIUM plan.
What it is
QuickBooks Online integration is a PREMIUM feature that links one URBI property to one QuickBooks Online company. After the initial setup (connect, map accounts, backfill the current fiscal year), URBI keeps pushing new activity to QuickBooks on an ongoing basis: new invoices, expenses, payments, and posted journal entries sync automatically, and QuickBooks-side changes are checked periodically so drift between the two systems doesn't go unnoticed.
Connecting does not move any historical data by itself. Nothing is pushed to QuickBooks until you complete the account-mapping step and launch the backfill in the post-connect wizard.
Prerequisites
Before you start, make sure you have:
- PREMIUM plan. The QuickBooks card is locked and shows a "Requires PREMIUM" badge on any plan below PREMIUM. Upgrade the management company's plan first if you see the locked card.
- Manager-level access. You need property-manager or board-member permissions on the property. Staff without manager access won't see a Connect action.
- Accounting enabled for the property. The property must already be set up for accounting in URBI (chart of accounts, fiscal year start month configured) before the QuickBooks card is usable.
- An existing QuickBooks Online company. URBI connects to QuickBooks Online only; QuickBooks Desktop is not supported.
- Company-admin sign-in for that QuickBooks Online company. Authorizing the connection happens on Intuit's own sign-in screen, so whoever clicks Connect needs to be able to sign in to the QuickBooks company as an admin (or have an admin nearby to complete the Intuit sign-in step).
- Pop-ups allowed for the URBI site. The Connect button opens Intuit's authorization screen in a pop-up window; browsers that block pop-ups by default will need an exception added.
- Your fiscal year start month set correctly. This lives in the property's accounting settings and determines where the backfill starts from later in the wizard. It's worth double-checking before you connect, since correcting it after connecting means going back to accounting settings and revisiting the backfill preview.
Step by step: connecting
Open the property in Settings, and go to the Accounting section. Find the QuickBooks Online card.
If the card shows a lock icon and "Requires PREMIUM," the property isn't eligible yet. Upgrade to PREMIUM and come back.
Click Connect to QuickBooks. The button briefly reads "Opening QuickBooks..." and a pop-up window (roughly 600 by 700 pixels) opens to Intuit's authorization page.
Sign in to the QuickBooks Online company you want to connect, using an admin account. Review the permissions Intuit lists (URBI requests accounting access only) and click Connect (or Authorize) on Intuit's screen.
The pop-up closes on its own. URBI exchanges the authorization with Intuit behind the scenes and finishes setting up the connection (see "Behind the scenes" below).
You land back on the property's Accounting settings, and the QuickBooks Online drawer opens automatically with the post-connect wizard already running. The first step, Connected, confirms the company name you just linked. From here you'll map your accounts and preview/launch the fiscal-year backfill, both covered in their own articles.
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What "Connected" means
Once connected, the QuickBooks Online drawer's Connection tab shows:
| Field | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Company | The QuickBooks Online company name you authorized |
| Status | The health badge (see below) |
| Realm ID | QuickBooks' internal ID for the connected company (useful if you ever need to reference the connection with support) |
| Connected Since | When the connection was first authorized |
| Last Sync | The last time URBI successfully pushed something to QuickBooks ("Never" until the first push completes) |
| Sync Frequency | How often URBI checks for QuickBooks-side changes to reconcile (daily, by default) |
From this tab you can also click Sync Now to trigger an immediate sync check, or Disconnect to stop syncing (see the disconnect article for what that does and doesn't affect).
Reading the health badge
URBI shows a connection health badge on both the QuickBooks card and inside the drawer. It reflects three states:
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active (green) | The connection is healthy. Nothing to do. |
| Renewing soon (yellow) | QuickBooks' refresh token for this connection is due to expire within about two weeks. Syncing still works normally, but you should reconnect proactively (click Reconnect, which runs the same authorization flow as the initial connect) before it lapses. |
| Reconnect needed (red) | The connection has broken (most commonly, the refresh token expired without being renewed). Syncing is paused. A red banner appears in the drawer explaining that the connection needs to be reconnected before syncing can resume, with a Reconnect button. |
Reconnecting after a broken connection runs through the exact same Intuit sign-in flow described above. URBI resumes catching up on anything that was missed while the connection was broken once you reconnect.
Behind the scenes
For staff who want to understand what's happening during the authorization step:
- When you click Connect, URBI generates a one-time, digitally signed request and sends you to Intuit's authorization page with it. This proves the request came from URBI and hasn't been tampered with, and it can't be reused once it's been used.
- After you authorize on Intuit's page, Intuit redirects back to URBI with a short-lived authorization code. URBI immediately exchanges that code with Intuit for an access token (used for about an hour at a time) and a refresh token (used to get new access tokens for roughly 100 days before it needs to be renewed by reconnecting).
- Both tokens are encrypted before URBI stores them. URBI never displays these tokens anywhere, including to staff.
- A record is written to the property's accounting audit log noting that the QuickBooks connection was established, and by the connection event itself (not tied to a specific staff member, since the redirect from Intuit doesn't carry your URBI session).
- Going forward, URBI checks for QuickBooks-side changes once a day by default.
Edge cases and troubleshooting
- The Connect button doesn't appear, only a locked card. The property (or its management company) isn't on PREMIUM. Upgrade first.
- I have manager access but don't see a Connect button. Confirm you're viewing a single property, not the "All Properties" combined view. QuickBooks connections are per-property, so you need to select the specific property first.
- The pop-up never opens, or opens and immediately closes with nothing happening. Your browser is likely blocking the pop-up. Allow pop-ups for the URBI domain and try again.
- I authorized on Intuit's screen but landed on an error message in URBI. This usually means the one-time authorization request expired (it's time-limited) or was already used. Close the wizard, go back to the QuickBooks card, and click Connect again to start a fresh authorization.
- "Reconnect needed" (red badge) keeps appearing shortly after I reconnect. This can happen if the refresh token was revoked from the QuickBooks Online side (for example, if someone removed URBI's app access in QuickBooks' own connected-apps settings). Check QuickBooks Online's app management page for the URBI connection, then reconnect from URBI again.
- We use QuickBooks Desktop, not QuickBooks Online. This integration only supports QuickBooks Online. QuickBooks Desktop isn't supported.
FAQs
Does connecting immediately push our historical data to QuickBooks? No. Connecting only establishes the link. Nothing is pushed until you complete account mapping and launch the fiscal-year backfill in the wizard that opens right after connecting.
Can more than one URBI property connect to the same QuickBooks Online company? Each property has its own independent QuickBooks connection. If you manage multiple properties that should share one QuickBooks company, connect each property individually through its own Accounting settings.
Who gets notified when the connection is established? The connection itself doesn't send a notification. You'll get an email and an in-app notification later, once you launch and complete the fiscal-year backfill.
Does disconnecting delete anything we've already synced to QuickBooks? No. Disconnecting only stops future syncing; anything already pushed to QuickBooks stays there. See "Disconnecting and reconnecting QuickBooks" for details.
What happens if our QuickBooks Online subscription lapses or we get logged out on the QuickBooks side? The connection typically shows "Reconnect needed" once QuickBooks stops honoring the stored tokens. Reconnect from the QuickBooks card once your QuickBooks Online access is restored.