Connecting QuickBooks to Workroom for the first time, without a bookkeeper yet? Here’s what each setting means, and a starting point many new design studios use.
Connect your bank account and studio card in QuickBooks, so their transactions come in on their own.
Check that QuickBooks has the accounts Workroom uses. Most come with QuickBooks. Missing one? Open the Chart of accounts in QuickBooks and choose New. Workroom never adds accounts for you; it only uses the ones you have.
A starting point, not advice. This guide explains how Workroom’s QuickBooks settings work and a setup many new studios begin with. It isn’t accounting or tax advice, and every studio is different. When you can, have a bookkeeper or accountant look over your setup.
Workroom asks how you keep your books, and each answer only suggests a setting. Nothing changes until you save. Then Workroom matches the clients and vendors already in your QuickBooks, so nothing is created twice. No bookkeeper yet? Choose Start with Workroom’s setup for new studios, and this is what it picks.
Starting setup: No, once the work is done or the piece is installed
Money paid ahead stays the client’s until you’ve earned it: a design retainer when you bill the work, a furniture deposit when the piece is installed (or delivered, if you choose). If your tax return uses the cash method, ask your tax preparer which answer fits.
Starting setup: In Workroom
Card and bank payments through Workroom are marked paid for you, and each card payout matches your bank feed in QuickBooks.
Starting setup: Yes, by client and project
Each invoice and bill is filed under its client and project in QuickBooks, so you can see what every project made.
Starting setup: Yours to answer
Whether you charge sales tax, and how much, depends on your state. Pick one place to set it up: using both adds the tax twice.
Starting setup: In Workroom
POs and vendor invoices start in Workroom, so QuickBooks gets them from there, already matched to the project.
Starting setup: From my bank or card feed
Your bank feed already brings in every charge, so Workroom doesn’t send expenses too. Nothing is entered twice, and charges you assign to a project in QuickBooks still show up in Workroom.
Say a client buys the Molecule Chandelier by Hollis+Morris for $13,500 and pays half up front. Here’s where that money sits in QuickBooks with the starting setup.
It’s a liability, because it’s still the client’s money until the chandelier is installed.
The vendor’s invoice goes to QuickBooks from Workroom, under the client and project.
Before install, QuickBooks shows the $6,750 the client still owes, and the full $13,500 waits in Client Deposits until the piece is in.
That day, Workroom moves the full $13,500 from Client Deposits to your product sales, under Lighting. Nobody makes a journal entry.
Retainers work the same way. A design retainer waits in its own account and comes off when you bill your design time against it.
When your bank feed in QuickBooks shows a payment or charge that Workroom already sent, choose Match, not Add. Add enters it a second time.
In Workroom, open Settings, then Integrations, then QuickBooks. The ⋯ menu has Setup questions. A change only affects what syncs from then on.
A bookkeeper who knows design studios catches what a guide can’t: your state’s sales tax, how you file, and how you want to see your numbers. Good moments to bring one in are before your first sales tax filing, when you hire, or when a project’s numbers don’t look right.
Book a session to walk through Workroom’s QuickBooks settings with your bookkeeper →
No. Workroom shows you how its QuickBooks settings work and suggests a setup from your answers. Your accounts, and the decisions about them, stay with you and your bookkeeper.
Nothing changes until you save, and nothing posts until you’ve matched the clients and vendors already in QuickBooks. When you save, Workroom creates the few QuickBooks items it needs to post your invoices, such as one for each product category. It never creates or changes your accounts.
Send them this page and answer the questions together. Every suggestion shows its reason, so they can see why it’s there and change anything that doesn’t fit.
No. Whether you charge sales tax, and how your studio files, depend on your state and your tax preparer. This guide only covers how Workroom’s settings work.
Yes. In Workroom’s QuickBooks settings, open the ⋯ menu and choose Setup questions. A change only affects what syncs from then on.
Yes, with QuickBooks Online in Canada and the UK too. The six questions are the same. Instead of sales tax, every line goes to QuickBooks with a tax code, and you match each of Workroom’s tax codes to yours once.
Log in, open Settings, then Integrations. Not a customer yet? We’ll show you how Workroom and QuickBooks work together.