Harvest QuickBooks Integration Guide [2026 Updated]

Connecting your time tracking tool to your accounting software is one of the most effective ways to reduce manual data entry and get a clear picture of project profitability. This guide provides a detailed, step-by-step walkthrough for integrating Harvest with QuickBooks Online. We'll cover everything from your initial setup options to troubleshooting common issues, ensuring you can synchronize your financial data accurately and efficiently.

Why Integrate Harvest and QuickBooks?

For service-based businesses, consultants, and agencies, time is money—literally. You track your hours in Harvest, but your financial books live in QuickBooks. Without an integration, you're stuck in a cycle of manually creating invoices, re-entering expense details, and exporting CSV files. This process is not only time-consuming but also a perfect breeding ground for data entry errors that can lead to incorrect invoices and flawed financial reports.

By connecting Harvest and QuickBooks, you create a direct pipeline between your project data and your accounting system. Here’s what that accomplishes:

• Reduces Administrative Work: Automatically sync invoices, payments, and expenses. Stop spending your valuable time copying and pasting data from one system to another.
• Improves Accuracy: Automation eliminates the risk of human error. Invoices are generated directly from tracked time and expenses, meaning what you bill is always what you worked.
• Provides Real-Time Financial Insight: With data flowing automatically, your financial reports in QuickBooks are always up-to-date. You can instantly see which projects are most profitable and manage cash flow with greater confidence.
• Speeds Up Invoicing and Payments: Send invoices from Harvest and have them appear instantly in QuickBooks. When a client pays that invoice online, the payment gets recorded in both systems, making reconciliation simple.

Understanding Your Integration Options

Before you jump into the setup, it’s helpful to know the different ways you can connect Harvest and QuickBooks. Each method offers a different level of control, complexity, and cost.

1. Native Integration

The simplest and most direct method is using the built-in connector that Harvest provides. This native integration is designed to be a straightforward, user-friendly solution for syncing invoices and payments directly to QuickBooks Online.

• Setup Difficulty: Easy. The process is managed entirely within the Harvest user interface without any code.
• Cost: Included with your Harvest subscription. There are no additional fees for using the native integration.
• Best For: Most businesses that need to sync invoices, record payments, and keep their client data consistent between Harvest and QuickBooks Online.
• Limitations: The native integration primarily supports QuickBooks Online, not QuickBooks Desktop. It focuses on the core workflow of invoicing and payments, so complex or custom data syncing might not be supported.

2. Third-Party Automation Tools

If you need more flexibility or want to automate workflows beyond simple invoicing, third-party tools are an excellent option. Platforms like Zapier or Make (formerly Integromat) act as a bridge between hundreds of different applications, including Harvest and QuickBooks.

• Setup Difficulty: Moderate. While these platforms are user-friendly, setting up multi-step or conditional workflows requires some technical thinking.
• Cost: Varies. Most services offer a free tier with limited "tasks" or "operations" per month. Paid plans are required for more advanced workflows or higher data volumes.
• Best For: Businesses that want to create custom triggers and actions. For example, you could create a workflow that automatically adds a new Harvest client to QuickBooks, sends a Slack notification when an invoice is paid, and adds the client to an email marketing list.
• Limitations: Data syncs are not always instant and can be slightly delayed. You are also dependent on a third-party service, introducing another layer to your workflow.

3. Custom API Integration

For large organizations or businesses with highly specific needs, a custom integration built using the Harvest and QuickBooks APIs provides the most power and flexibility. The API (Application Programming Interface) allows a developer to build a bespoke connection tailored to your exact requirements.

• Setup Difficulty: Complex. This option requires a software developer or someone with extensive API experience.
• Cost: High. You will have costs for development, implementation, and ongoing maintenance.
• Best For: Companies with unique workflows, such as syncing custom data fields, handling complex multi-currency transactions, or integrating with other proprietary software.
• Limitations: This is a resource-intensive path. Beyond the initial cost, you are responsible for maintaining the integration and updating it when either Harvest or QuickBooks changes their API.

For the vast majority of users, the native integration is the best choice. It's direct, reliable, and handles the most common tasks perfectly. The rest of this guide will focus on setting up the native integration.

Step-by-Step Guide: Setting Up the Native Harvest and QuickBooks Integration

Connecting your accounts is a straightforward process that you can complete in a few minutes. Before you begin, make sure you have an active Harvest account and an active QuickBooks Online account, along with administrative access to both.

Step 1: Access Integrations in Harvest

Log in to your Harvest account. In the top-right corner, click on Settings. From there, scroll down the page until you see the section labeled Integrations. Under the "Exports & Imports" or a similar category, you'll find the QuickBooks Online integration. Click on "Connect to QuickBooks."

Step 2: Authorize the Connection

After clicking to connect, a new window will pop up prompting you to log in to your Intuit account. Enter your QuickBooks Online user ID and password. QuickBooks will then ask you to grant Harvest permission to access your company data, including customers, invoices, and payments. This is a standard security step to ensure the two applications can communicate. Click Connect or Authorize to proceed.

Step 3: Configure Your Sync Settings

Once the connection is established, you’ll be redirected back to Harvest to configure how the data sync will work. You'll typically have several options here:

• Invoice Copying: Choose whether you want invoices from Harvest to copy over as drafts or as finalized invoices in QuickBooks. Selecting "draft" gives you a chance to review them in QuickBooks before they are formally recorded.
• Payment Syncing: Enable this to automatically record payments in QuickBooks whenever a payment is registered in Harvest. This is a huge time-saver for reconciliation.
• Income & Expense Accounts: You'll need to map where your Harvest data should go. Select a default QuickBooks Income Account for your Harvest invoices and a default QuickBooks Expense Account for your recorded expenses. This ensures everything is categorized correctly for accounting purposes.

Carefully review these settings to ensure they match your firm's bookkeeping practices. You can always come back and change them later, but setting them correctly from the start reduces future cleanup work.

Step 4: Test and Review an Invoice Sync

The best way to confirm everything is working is to test it. Go to the Invoices section in Harvest and find an existing invoice, or create a new test invoice.

Open the invoice. At the top, you should now see a button or link that says "Copy to QuickBooks." Click it. Harvest will send the invoice data to QuickBooks Online based on the settings you just configured. It may take a moment to complete.

Next, log in to your QuickBooks Online account. Navigate to Sales > Invoices. You should see the newly synced invoice from Harvest. Check to ensure the client name, line items, amounts, and dates are all correct. If you chose to copy payments, mark the invoice as paid in Harvest and check that the payment also appears correctly in QuickBooks.

Step 5: Finalize and Automate

Once you’ve confirmed that a manual sync works as expected, you don't have to push every invoice individually. When you create new invoices in Harvest, you'll see an option to copy them to QuickBooks. By selecting this option regularly, you maintain a consistent data flow. The payment sync, once enabled, is typically automatic, saving you a manual step each time a client pays.

What Data Syncs Between Harvest and QuickBooks?

Understanding which data fields are transferred is key to managing the integration effectively. The native connection is designed to handle the most important financial data points.

• Invoices: This is the core of the integration. Your Harvest invoice, including client details, invoice ID, issue date, due date, line items (with descriptions, quantities, and rates), taxes, and totals, are all copied to QuickBooks.
• Payments: When you record a payment in Harvest on a synced invoice, the payment amount, date, and any notes are created in QuickBooks and applied to the corresponding invoice.
• Clients: When you copy an invoice for a client that doesn't exist in QuickBooks, Harvest can automatically create that client for you, preventing manual setup.
• Expense Categories & Items: When configuring your settings, you map your expense and line items to specific accounts in your QuickBooks Chart of Accounts, which keeps your bookkeeping organized.

Common Integration Issues and How to Fix Them

Even with a smooth setup, you might run into a few bumps in the road. Here are some of the most common issues and their solutions.

• Authorization Errors: Sometimes the connection between Harvest and QuickBooks can be lost, often due to a password change or security update. If you see an error message, the first step is to go back to Settings > Integrations in Harvest, disconnect QuickBooks, and then go through the authorization process again to re-establish the connection.
• Data Mismatches: If an invoice shows different information in QuickBooks than it does in Harvest, it’s usually because the invoice was edited in one system after being synced. The native integration is primarily a one-way street (Harvest to QuickBooks). As a best practice, always make invoice edits in Harvest and then re-copy the invoice to QuickBooks to ensure consistency.
• Duplicate Entries: This can happen if you accidentally copy the same invoice twice or if a client exists with a slightly different name in both systems. To avoid this, always check if an invoice or client already exists in QuickBooks before syncing. If you end up with a duplicate, you will have to manually delete the incorrect entry in QuickBooks.
• Tax Mapping Issues: If your tax amounts aren't correct, head back to the integration settings in Harvest. Ensure your Harvest tax rates are properly mapped to the corresponding tax rates you've set up in QuickBooks. An incorrect mapping is the most common cause of tax-related discrepancies.

Final Thoughts

Integrating Harvest and QuickBooks is a foundational step toward creating an efficient, accurate, and scalable financial workflow. By letting automation handle the administrative tasks, you free up more time to focus on doing great work for your clients and growing your business.

Once your operational data is flowing smoothly, you can focus on higher-level activities like financial planning and tax strategy. When complex tax questions arise from your client projects and revenue streams, you need fast, reliable answers. Instead of spending hours sifting through forums and outdated articles, we built Feather AI to give tax pros instant, citation-backed answers from authoritative IRS and state tax codes.