Handling Drift: Using Re-push to Restore

A guide for property managers, board members, and staff on the Premium accounting plan to understanding QuickBooks "drift" and when to use the Re-push to restore action.

What "drift" means

Drift happens when URBI sends a value to QuickBooks, for example an invoice, an expense, or a journal entry, and afterward someone changes that value directly inside QuickBooks itself, outside of URBI. On its regular background check, URBI compares what it originally sent against what QuickBooks currently holds. If the two no longer match, URBI records that as drift and lists it for your review.

You do not create drift. It shows up on its own whenever URBI notices that QuickBooks and URBI have diverged.

Where to find it

Open the QuickBooks sync console and go to the Sync History tab. Look for the Attention section, which carries a count badge showing how many items need a look.

If nothing is drifting, the section shows "Nothing needs attention" along with a short explanation: values QuickBooks changed after URBI pushed them will show up here for review.

The Attention list loads 25 items at a time with a Load more button, the same as the Failed Transactions list, and tells you "You have reached the end" once you have seen everything.

How to read a drift row

Each row in Attention gives you four things:

1. Record type. The kind of URBI record the drift relates to (for example an invoice or an expense), shown in bold. If the item is not tied to a specific URBI record type, it shows "Unmapped entity" instead.
2. Drift kind badge. A short label naming the kind of drift detected, for example "QB EDIT URBI AUTHORED."
3. Digested badge. Only appears on some rows (see below).
4. Field-by-field changes. For each field that changed, you'll see the field name, the old value, an arrow, then the new value, so you can see exactly what moved and by how much.

Are all drift items actionable?

No. Most drift kinds are informational only, and you will not see an action button on them. They exist so you know QuickBooks and URBI have diverged on something, and you can look into it manually on the QuickBooks side if you want to understand why. Examples include items QuickBooks created on its own that URBI cannot match, bank-reconciliation conflicts, items pulled from QuickBooks that could not be matched to a URBI record, coverage gaps, and a handful of bill-payment-related cases.

There is exactly one drift kind that offers an action: when QuickBooks-side changes were made to a value that URBI originally created and pushed. That row shows a Re-push to restore button. Every other drift kind is read-only.

The "Digested" badge

A Digested badge generally means this drift item has already been included in a prior summary or report, so seeing it in Attention is not necessarily new information you haven't encountered before. Treat it as a signal that someone (or some process) has already surfaced this item once, rather than something you're seeing for the first time.

Note: The exact timing of when an item gets marked Digested is not something URBI surfaces in detail today, so don't read a specific schedule into the badge, just treat it as "this has already been flagged once before."

Re-push to restore: what it does

The Re-push to restore button appears only on the one restorable drift kind: a QuickBooks-side edit to a value URBI originally authored and sent. Clicking it queues URBI's original version of that value to be sent back to QuickBooks, which will overwrite whatever was changed on the QuickBooks side.

Note: Re-push to restore is a one-way, URBI-wins action. URBI's original value overwrites the QuickBooks-side edit. The QuickBooks change is not pulled into URBI first for you to review, compare, or merge. It is simply replaced. If you want to keep the QuickBooks-side change instead, do not use this button, see the FAQ below for what to do instead.

How to use it

1. Open the Sync History tab and find the drift row you want to fix in Attention.
2. Confirm the drift kind badge shows the restorable kind (that is the only case where the button appears).
3. Click Re-push to restore.

4. The row disappears from Attention immediately once you click it.
5. In the background, URBI queues the original value to be sent back to QuickBooks. This is not instant, it goes out on the next sync pass, so the actual overwrite in QuickBooks happens a short while later, not the moment you click.
6. If the queueing step fails, the row reappears in its original spot in Attention with a persistent error message. You will need to dismiss that error yourself; it will not clear on its own.

Note: The button is disabled for a moment while the restore request is being submitted, so you won't be able to double-click it into a duplicate request.

Edge cases

FAQ

Should I go into QuickBooks myself and change the value back instead of using Re-push to restore? No, use Re-push to restore. It queues the exact original value URBI holds and sends it back to QuickBooks in the normal sync flow, which is more reliable than re-typing the number by hand on the QuickBooks side.

What if I actually want to keep the QuickBooks-side change instead of URBI's original value? There is no "keep the QuickBooks version" button today. Re-push to restore only works one way: URBI's value overwrites QuickBooks. If the QuickBooks-side edit was actually the correct one, the fix is to update the record inside URBI to match it, then let the normal sync push that corrected value to QuickBooks. If you're not sure how to do that safely, contact URBI support before making changes.

I already looked into a drift item, why is it still showing in Attention? For the non-restorable drift kinds, there is currently no dismiss or acknowledge action. Those items stay listed in Attention even after you've reviewed them. This is expected today, not a bug.

Why didn't the change go to QuickBooks right away after I clicked Re-push to restore? The click only queues the restore. The actual push to QuickBooks happens on the next sync pass in the background, so there is normally a short delay between clicking the button and seeing the value corrected in QuickBooks.

Related articles

• Using the Sync Console and Retrying Failed Transactions
• Reconnecting a Broken QuickBooks Connection
• Understanding QBO Sync States and Errors