How to get field service payments into Quicken or QuickBooks

Updated 2026-10-16

Short answer: pick one way to record the money and use it only. Either import your invoices as income and match the bank deposits to them, or upload your payments as income, or let your bank feed record the deposits and import neither. Doing two of those counts every job twice. Whichever you pick, you can build the import file in a spreadsheet; the layouts are below.

Why payments do not just show up

Quicken has no public API, and most field service tools do not connect to QuickBooks either, so the dependable route is a file you export from one program and import into the other. Neither program spots duplicates in a payments file, which is why the order of operations below matters more than the file itself.

Step 1: decide how income gets recorded

Step 2a: Quicken for Windows (payments)

  1. Make a CSV with exactly these ten columns, in this order: Date, Payee, FI Payee, Amount, Debit/Credit, Category, Account, Tag, Memo, Chknum. Dates as mm/dd/yyyy, amounts signed, file saved as UTF-8.
  2. Put the name of your checking account in the Account column exactly as Quicken shows it, and your income category in Category (write Category:Subcategory for a subcategory).
  3. In Quicken choose File > File Import > Banking Transactions > From (.CSV) File and pick the file.
  4. Import it once. Quicken does not detect duplicates in a CSV import, so a second import adds every row again.

Quicken for Mac and Quicken Simplifi differ. Quicken for Mac puts every CSV import into a new account instead of an existing one. Simplifi imports only in its web app, one account per import, and only keeps a category that already exists.

Step 2b: QuickBooks Online, payments as a bank upload

  1. Make a CSV with three columns named Date, Description and Amount, one row per payment, dates as MM/dd/yyyy. Put the customer, invoice number and work order in Description.
  2. In QuickBooks Online go to Bank transactions and choose Upload transactions (in some versions, Link account > Upload from file). Choose the file and the account to upload into.
  3. When asked about columns, choose the 3-column layout with a single Amount column and the date format MM/dd/yyyy.
  4. The rows land in the For review list. Categorize each to your service income account, or match it to its invoice, then add it.

Step 2c: QuickBooks Online, invoices

  1. Build a file with an invoice number, customer, invoice date, due date and an item amount on every line. QuickBooks takes at most 100 invoices and 1,000 lines per file, and invoice import is only on the Essentials, Plus and Advanced plans.
  2. First turn on Custom transaction numbers (Settings gear > Account and settings > Sales > Sales form content), or QuickBooks numbers the invoices itself. Turn on Service date there too if you want to keep it.
  3. Go to Settings > Import data > Invoices. On the first screen, choose the file and tick Add new customers there, not on the mapping screen.
  4. If your QuickBooks company has sales tax set up, the file also needs a Taxable column with Y or N on each line. Without it QuickBooks blocks the invoices with a problem in the Taxable column.
  5. On the mapping screen check the columns and the date format. If Customer is left empty, pick it from the dropdown. Then import.
  6. An invoice number QuickBooks already has is skipped without an error, so a changed invoice is not updated. Customers created from a file have no email address.

When doing it by hand stops being worth it

Building the file by hand is fine for a handful of payments. It gets slow and error-prone at a few dozen a month: one mis-typed account name, one date in the wrong format, one range exported twice, and you spend an evening undoing it.

The faster way: export it from Sprinklerly

Sprinklerly has an Export for accounting card on the Reports page, for owners and office admins, on every plan from Starter up. It writes the files described above from the payments and invoices you have already recorded. For QuickBooks Online it makes a payments file (the 3-column bank upload) and an invoices file (with the Taxable column and the invoice numbers), and there is a plain CSV for other programs. By default each file holds only what you have not exported before, and it warns before you re-export a range. The card shows the same import steps as this page, including the one-way-only warning.

What it is not: it is a file, not a sync. Sprinklerly does not connect to QuickBooks or Quicken, send anything to either, or ask for a login to either.

What we have tested: we imported Sprinklerly's QuickBooks Online payments file and invoice file into an Intuit sandbox company on 2026-10-16. The payments uploaded, and the five test invoices imported once the file carried a Taxable column, which the exporter now writes. A sandbox is not your company, so check the first import against a few invoices. We have not yet imported the regenerated invoice file again, and we have not yet imported the Quicken files into Quicken. Those are written to Quicken's documented column layout, so check the first import there too.

Start free Free during early access for sign-ups by December 31, 2026, no credit card required. Planned prices at general availability are $79, $149 and $249 per month, locked in for early-access accounts.

Common questions

Does Sprinklerly sync with QuickBooks or Quicken?

No. It gives you a file of your own payments or invoices and you import it yourself. If live QuickBooks sync is a must, see how we compare in Sprinklerly vs HindSite.

Will importing payments and my bank feed count the same money twice?

It can. If your bank already feeds QuickBooks or Quicken, use the bank feed and do not import the payments file.

Which plans include the accounting export?

Every plan, Starter and up. Sprinklerly is free during early access for contractors who sign up by December 31, 2026, with no credit card.

Sources

Related

Sprinklerly is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Intuit or Quicken. QuickBooks and Quicken are trademarks of their respective owners, named here only to describe which files Sprinklerly writes. Menu names and limits are as published by those vendors on the dates shown and can change. This page is practical guidance, not accounting or tax advice. The Sprinklerly features described are those currently shipped in the product.