Buildertrend to QuickBooks drift check

Works with: Buildertrend export, QuickBooks Online, emailSteps: 20 nodesTested on: n8n 2.45 (imports on 1.70 and later)

Bills get entered twice, typed differently, or put on the wrong job, and nobody notices until job costs stop adding up. This workflow compares your Buildertrend bills with the bills in QuickBooks Online every morning and emails you what doesn't match.

What it does

1. Latest export: finds the newest CSV in a Google Drive folder and warns if it is older than max_export_age_hours. Buildertrend has no public API, so the bills report you export is the source.
2. Read it: parses the CSV (quoted fields, commas in names, amounts like "1,234.50") using the column names you set in Config, and keeps the last lookback_days.
3. QuickBooks: reads the bills for the same period from the QuickBooks Online API.
4. Compare: matches each bill by bill number and vendor, then by vendor, amount and a date within date_tolerance_days. It reports:

• bills missing in QuickBooks,

- bills missing in Buildertrend (on the same jobs),

- amounts that differ by more than amount_tolerance,

- bills on a different job (the QuickBooks customer or Customer:Job),

- job totals that differ by more than job_total_tolerance.

1. Report: one plain email, only when something needs a look (or every day, with send_when_clean). Problems already reported are marked so new ones stand out.
2. Retries and alerts: every API and email step retries 3 times; anything that still fails emails the step and the reason.

What you need

• n8n
• QuickBooks Online and an Intuit developer app (OAuth2)
• A Google Drive folder for the Buildertrend exports
• An SMTP account for the email

Setup

1. Import workflow.json into n8n.
2. Export your Buildertrend bills report as CSV into one Google Drive folder. Each new export is picked up on the next run.
3. Add a Google Drive OAuth2 credential on Find latest export and Download export, a QuickBooks Online OAuth2 credential on Get QuickBooks bills, and SMTP on the two email steps.
4. In Config, set drive_folder_id, realm_id, report_to, from_email, and the field_* names to match the column headers in your export.
5. Click Test workflow to run a sample export and sample QuickBooks bills through the checks and see the report.
6. Activate.

Notes

• No credentials are included. Every value marked REPLACE_WITH_... must be set before you activate the workflow.
• Read-only: nothing is changed in QuickBooks, Buildertrend or Drive.
• The list of problems already reported lives in the workflow's static data, which n8n saves on production runs only.
• Tested on n8n 1.110.1 with the sample data and against mocked Google Drive and QuickBooks APIs.

Importing it

In n8n, open a new workflow, choose the … menu at the top right, then Import from file and pick the downloaded workflow.json. You can also open the file, copy everything and paste it onto an empty canvas. New to n8n? Start with what n8n is and how templates work.

Background reading: Buildertrend and QuickBooks reconciliation.

Want it set up and running in your own n8n? Send us a short brief.