Getting Started: Connecting QuickBooks
The first thing you need to ensure is that QuickBooks is enabled in your settings under External Systems. This is straightforward — hit the Connect button, log into QuickBooks when prompted, and you’re set and ready to go.
Once connected, go to Tools, where you’ll see all available tools that can be added to your IDnest system. Several of these tools require an active QuickBooks connection. Once added, all your tools will appear on the dashboard.
Let’s walk through a few of these tools so you can see how they work together.
Tool #1: Budget-to-Actual
Selecting Accounts to Track
Navigate to Budget-to-Actual and select the year you want to review (e.g., 2025). Open the cog and select the QuickBooks accounts you want to track, then click OK. Since QuickBooks can contain many accounts, this gives you the flexibility to monitor only the ones that matter to you.
1. Configuring Your Settings
From the cog settings, you can also configure the following:
Overall Percentage Difference Threshold — Enter the percentage that represents your acceptable variance from your overall budget. Once you hit that threshold, your tool on the dashboard will turn red to alert you.
Budget Period — Choose whether you want to monitor your budget annually, quarterly, or monthly.
2. Reviewing Your Budget Data
Once your settings are complete, you can view your actuals and budget side by side. This view pulls your actuals directly from QuickBooks and displays your budget, the difference, and the percent difference for each line item you’ve chosen to track.
In addition to the overall budget threshold, you can also set individual thresholds per line item. These will display as red or green indicators — green means you’re within budget and good to go.
3. Dashboard Indicator
Back on the dashboard, the Budget-to-Actual tool will appear black when you’re within your overall threshold. If you exceed it, the tool will turn red.
Tool #2: Project Profitability
Project Profitability pulls data from QuickBooks on a per-project basis, showing you total sales, total income, total cost of goods, and gross profit for each project.
1. Configuring Your Settings
In the general settings, you can define your personal profitability percentage goal for your overall business — essentially, what profitability you want to see across all your projects. If you fall below (or exceed) that goal, your dashboard will notify you with a red or green indicator.
You can also choose which projects you want to follow — all of them or just a select few.
2. Per-Project Thresholds
Similar to Budget-to-Actual, you can set a profitability threshold per individual project. For example, you might want 60% profitability on one project and 75% on another. The red and green visuals make it easy to see at a glance whether you’re meeting each target.
Tool #3: Cash Availability Analysis
This tool is designed with privacy in mind — it will gray out when you’re not actively clicking on it, so anyone walking by your desk won’t see your bank balance.
What Makes This Tool Unique
Cash Availability Analysis doesn’t just pull your actual cash balance from QuickBooks — it also factors in a critical line item: Due to Vendors, Paid by Client. This pulls data from your project management system and identifies all items where a client has paid you, but you still owe the vendor.
This means you can look at your checking account balance and know your true cash available for business operations, with that liability already accounted for. It’s an especially valuable tool for designers to understand what’s genuinely available for distributions, paying themselves, and day-to-day business expenses.
Tool #4: Vendor Insights
Vendor Insights combines data from both your CRM system and QuickBooks to give you a comprehensive view of your vendor relationships. For each vendor, you can see:
- Total paid to date
- Total markup earned from that vendor
- Star ratings entered in your CRM
- Notes written about the vendor in your CRM
Filtering and Settings
You can filter vendors by minimum or maximum paid to date, rankings, and tags. For example, you could filter by the tag “artists” to see only vendors in that category.
In the cog settings, similar to other tools, you can set a personal profitability goal for how much markup you want to earn across all your vendors. Your dashboard will then show green or red depending on whether you’re meeting that goal.
Summary
Those are some of the key areas within IDnest that take full advantage of the QuickBooks integration — giving you real-time financial visibility directly within your workflow.