At a Glance
- ShelfSpace QuickBooks setup uses OAuth to securely connect your QBO account
- Three things to configure: expense account, bank account, and vendor mappings
- We handle the entire setup during onboarding — no technical work on your end
- Tokens refresh in the background so the connection stays active
- You can disconnect and reconnect at any time from your ShelfSpace settings
Connecting ShelfSpace to QuickBooks
Setting up the ShelfSpace QuickBooks connection starts with OAuth, the same secure authorization flow used by every QuickBooks integration. You click "Connect to QuickBooks" in your ShelfSpace settings, sign in to your Intuit account, and grant ShelfSpace permission to create Bills and Vendors in your QBO company. The entire process takes less than two minutes, and we walk you through it during onboarding.
Once connected, ShelfSpace stores encrypted tokens that keep the connection alive. Tokens refresh in the background before they expire, so you never need to reconnect manually. If a token does expire (for example, if your QBO subscription lapses), ShelfSpace marks the connection as inactive and notifies you. See the QuickBooks integration overview for what syncs once the connection is live.
Mapping Your GL Accounts
After connecting, we configure two account mappings that tell ShelfSpace where to post transactions in your chart of accounts:
- Expense account — The GL account where settlement and payment Bills are posted. This is typically a Cost of Goods Sold or Expense account. ShelfSpace pulls your active account list from QBO so you can pick from a dropdown.
- Bank account — The checking account used for BillPayment records. This tells QuickBooks which account the check was drawn from, so your bank reconciliation stays accurate.
If you are not sure which accounts to use, our team will review your chart of accounts during onboarding and recommend the right mapping. Most dispensaries use a single COGS account for vendor payments.
Vendor Mapping During ShelfSpace QuickBooks Setup
ShelfSpace needs to know which QBO vendor corresponds to each vendor in your ShelfSpace account. During setup, we match your existing vendors in three ways:
- Name matching — We search QBO for vendors with matching display names or company names. Most vendors match on the first pass.
- Manual mapping — For vendors that exist in QBO under a different name, you (or we) can manually link them in the vendor mapping screen.
- New vendor creation — For vendors that do not exist in QBO yet, ShelfSpace creates them with the company name, email, and phone number from your ShelfSpace records.
Once a vendor is mapped, the mapping is cached. Future syncs use the cached mapping without making additional QBO API calls, which keeps the integration fast and efficient.
After Setup
Once the connection is active and accounts are mapped, syncing happens in the background. Every time a settlement is finalized or an AP payment is processed, the corresponding Bill is created in QuickBooks within seconds. A sync log in your ShelfSpace settings shows the status of every synced record so you can verify that everything is flowing correctly.
If a sync fails (for example, due to a QBO rate limit), ShelfSpace retries with exponential backoff. Failed syncs are flagged in the log with the error message so we can investigate. Duplicate Bills are impossible because every sync checks for an existing record before creating a new one.
Disconnecting
You can disconnect from QuickBooks at any time from your ShelfSpace settings. Disconnecting revokes the OAuth token and stops all future syncs. Existing Bills in QuickBooks are not affected. If you reconnect later, ShelfSpace picks up where it left off and syncs any transactions that were processed while disconnected.