Connect PreCal-IQ to QuickBooks Online

What the integration does

PreCal-IQ is an AI-powered preconstruction platform that turns construction spec and plan PDFs into structured takeoffs, vendor RFQs, and bids. The QuickBooks Online integration connects the bid you build in PreCal-IQ to the records your finance team already works in:

• Bid → Estimate. Push a finished bid to QuickBooks as an Estimate. PreCal-IQ finds or creates the customer and adds one priced line per bid item — no re-keying.
• Vendor sync. Push your PreCal-IQ vendors into QuickBooks as Vendors in one click, matched by name so re-syncing never creates duplicates.
• Accepted quotes → Purchase Orders. Turn a project's accepted vendor quotes into Purchase Orders — one per vendor — posting to the expense account you choose.

Every push is idempotent: re-pushing a bid updates the same Estimate (and re-running POs updates the same purchase orders) instead of creating duplicates.

Before you begin

You'll need:

• A PreCal-IQ account with organization-admin permissions. Sign up at app.precaliq.ai if you don't have one yet.
• A QuickBooks Online company you can sign into as an admin.
• For Purchase Orders specifically, a QuickBooks Online Plus or Advanced subscription — Estimates and vendor sync work on any edition, but QuickBooks only offers Purchase Orders on Plus and Advanced.

Step 1 — Connect QuickBooks from PreCal-IQ

1. Log in to PreCal-IQ at app.precaliq.ai.
2. Go to Settings → Integrations.
3. On the QuickBooks Online card, click Connect QuickBooks.
4. You'll be redirected to Intuit to authorize the connection. Sign into the QuickBooks company you want to use and approve the access request.
5. You'll be sent back to PreCal-IQ. The QuickBooks card now shows Connected and your company name.

One QuickBooks connection per PreCal-IQ organization. Anyone in your org can then use it; connecting and disconnecting require the admin role.

Step 2 — Choose your Purchase Order expense account

So that Purchase Orders post to the right place in your books, pick an account once:

1. On the QuickBooks card in Settings → Integrations, open the Purchase-order expense account dropdown.
2. Choose the QuickBooks Expense or Cost-of-Goods-Sold account that committed vendor costs should post to.

This is only needed for the Purchase Order flow — Estimates and vendor sync don't require it.

Step 3 — Push a bid to QuickBooks as an Estimate

1. Open a PreCal-IQ project with a built bid.
2. Click Push to QuickBooks in the project header.
3. PreCal-IQ finds or creates the customer (from the project's client), then creates a QuickBooks Estimate with one priced line per bid item and a deterministic document number.
4. Open the Estimate in QuickBooks to review it. Push again any time — PreCal-IQ updates that same Estimate rather than creating a duplicate.

Step 4 — Sync your vendors

1. On the QuickBooks card in Settings → Integrations, click Sync vendors to QuickBooks.
2. PreCal-IQ finds or creates a QuickBooks Vendor for each of your vendors (name, email, phone, contact) and reports how many were created versus already present.

Step 5 — Raise Purchase Orders from accepted quotes

1. Accept the winning vendor quotes on your project in PreCal-IQ.
2. Click Push POs to QuickBooks in the project header.
3. PreCal-IQ groups the accepted quotes by vendor and creates one Purchase Order per vendor, with a line per quote posting to the expense account you selected in Step 2.

Re-running the push updates the same purchase orders in place. If you haven't picked an expense account yet, PreCal-IQ will prompt you to do so first.

Data handling

• Push, not pull. The integration writes records you generate in PreCal-IQ (Estimates, Vendors, Purchase Orders) at your direction. It does not warehouse your QuickBooks customers, ledger, or financials.
• No model training on customer data. PreCal-IQ uses frontier AI from Anthropic via their commercial API for inference only; your data — and anything from QuickBooks — is never used to train a model.
• Encrypted & scoped. The connection is scoped to a single PreCal-IQ organization. OAuth tokens are AES-256-GCM encrypted at rest and purged on disconnect; every API call is recorded in an append-only audit log.

Troubleshooting

"Pick an expense account first." Purchase Orders need a destination account. Choose one on the QuickBooks card in Settings → Integrations (Step 2), then push again.

Purchase Orders won't create. QuickBooks only offers Purchase Orders on the Plus and Advanced editions. Estimates and vendor sync still work on Simple Start and Essentials.

"No accepted vendor quotes to push." Accept at least one vendor quote on the project before pushing POs.

"No Income account found." Estimates hang priced lines on a service item, which QuickBooks requires an income account to create. Add one income account in QuickBooks, then retry the push.

Connection needs a reconnect. If the QuickBooks card shows "Needs reconnect," click Connect QuickBooks again to re-authorize. Your existing Estimates and purchase orders are preserved.

Disconnect

To disconnect, go to Settings → Integrations in PreCal-IQ and click Disconnect on the QuickBooks card. PreCal-IQ revokes the token with Intuit and purges the stored credentials immediately. Documents you already pushed stay in QuickBooks.

Need help?

Email hello@precaliq.ai with the affected PreCal-IQ project URL and a description of what you were trying to do. We typically respond within one business day.