At a glance
- Why the two drift apartBuildertrend's QuickBooks connection moves bills and invoices between the two, but people still enter or edit bills on both sides.
- What to compareCompare bills, not totals alone.
- Getting the Buildertrend sideBuildertrend does not offer a public API; its integrations are built through partner agreements.
- Getting the QuickBooks sideQuickBooks Online has an API.
- Making it a daily habitA check is only useful if it runs when nobody remembers to.
Automation
- Read the newest bills export
- Read the same bills from QuickBooks
- Match by bill number, vendor and amount
- Flag what differs, job by job
- Missing bill found
- Amount differs
- Report sent
Why the two drift apart
Buildertrend's QuickBooks connection moves bills and invoices between the two, but people still enter or edit bills on both sides. Common causes:
- A bill entered straight into QuickBooks and never added in Buildertrend
- An amount corrected in one system and not the other
- A cost coded to the wrong job or customer
- A sync that stopped after a login expired, with nobody noticing
- Duplicates from entering the same bill twice
What to compare
Compare bills, not totals alone. For each bill, check the vendor, the bill number, the date, the amount and the job. Then compare the total cost per job, because a wrong-job bill leaves the overall total right while two jobs are wrong.
Match on bill number and vendor first. Where a bill number is missing on one side, match on vendor, amount and a date within a few days.
Getting the Buildertrend side
Buildertrend does not offer a public API; its integrations are built through partner agreements. The practical source is the bills or job cost report you export from Buildertrend as CSV.
Save each export to one Google Drive folder. A check can then pick up the newest file and warn you when it is getting old.
Getting the QuickBooks side
QuickBooks Online has an API. The bills for a date range come back with the vendor, bill number, date, total and the customer or Customer:Job on each line, which is what you need to compare against Buildertrend.
Making it a daily habit
A check is only useful if it runs when nobody remembers to. Run it every morning, send the report only when something needs a look, and mark which problems are new since the last report so the same ones do not hide the fresh ones.
The free template below does this in n8n. It reads the export, reads QuickBooks, compares them and emails the report. It never changes anything in either system.
Updated 2026-10-28. General guidance, not advice for your situation; we scope each project in writing before any work starts.
Download the template
An n8n workflow that compares your Buildertrend bills export with QuickBooks Online every morning and emails bills missing on either side, amounts that differ, bills on the wrong job and job totals out of step. Free, with setup steps. You add your own accounts and settings.
Questions people ask first
Does Buildertrend have an API for this?
Not a public one. Buildertrend's integrations are built with partners, so this check works from the reports you export as CSV.
Will the check change anything in QuickBooks?
No. It only reads bills from QuickBooks and the export from Google Drive, and it emails a report.
What if my export has different column names?
The column names are set in the workflow's Config, so you match them to your export without editing any code.
Does it work with QuickBooks Desktop?
The template uses the QuickBooks Online API. QuickBooks Desktop needs a different connection, which we can scope with you.
Tell us what you need built.
Tell us the process and the tools involved, or call. We reply with questions or a written scope.
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