Builder Prime runs the sales and production side of a home improvement business: leads, proposals, contracts, crews, and payments. QuickBooks Online keeps the books. The connection sends your sales and payments into QuickBooks, and it handles customer deposits in a way that keeps a big deposit month from looking like a big profit month. Job costs stay in Builder Prime.
Greg Neilsen, JD, LLM (Master of Laws in Taxation), reviews our guides. Checked against Builder Prime’s published documentation on October 1, 2026. Zero Tax is not affiliated with Builder Prime.
Five points. Each one is explained below.
The connection runs one way, from Builder Prime into QuickBooks. Clients go over as customers, sold contracts as estimates, and invoices, payments, and material and subcontractor purchase orders follow. Two lists come the other way when you set up: your QuickBooks products and services, which Builder Prime calls accounting codes, and your sales tax rates.
Timing follows the work. A contract waits in an export queue until the proposal is marked sold. Invoices, payments, and purchase orders queue as soon as they are created. A payment exports only after its invoice does.
Builder Prime matches an existing QuickBooks customer by email first, then by exact name. Class tracking needs QuickBooks Online Plus.
On each project, mark one invoice as the deposit invoice. It posts to an item tied to a liability account you choose. Later invoices back the deposit out of that liability, so the income lands when the work is billed, not when the deposit arrives.
Example: A roofer signs a $30,000 roof. The customer pays a $9,000 deposit in June. QuickBooks records the $9,000 as a liability, money held for work not yet done. The roof goes on in August. The final invoice bills $30,000, applies the $9,000 deposit, and collects $21,000. The $30,000 of income lands in August, the month the work was done.
That is the book treatment. Whether the deposit is taxable when received depends on the business’s tax accounting method. Many small businesses on the cash method are taxed on a deposit when they receive it. That is a planning question, and it can move a lot of income between years.
Errors show in the Pending tab of the export queue.
Card payments deposit in two to three business days and ACH in five to seven. Match each bank deposit in QuickBooks to the payments that synced, and book any processing fee on its own line. Financed payments through Builder Prime’s lending partner also come over. Check how the lender’s payout and fee land before you match them.
Builder Prime tracks costs inside each project: labor, material, and equipment, updated to actuals as the job runs. That gives estimate-to-actual by job. QuickBooks gives the company’s real profit, overhead, and taxes. Compare the two monthly, so a job that looked like a 40 percent margin in the proposal is not a 25 percent job in the books.
Yes. Builder Prime supports QuickBooks Desktop and Intuit Enterprise Suite as well as QuickBooks Online.
We keep sales and production in Builder Prime and the books in QuickBooks Online.
See how we work with roofing, remodeling, and painting companies. Read about our bookkeeping service.
No. Transactions flow from Builder Prime into QuickBooks. Only your products and services list and sales tax rates come back, at setup.
Mark one invoice per project as the deposit invoice. It posts to a liability item, and later invoices apply it, so income lands when the work is billed.
It depends on your tax accounting method. Many cash-method businesses are taxed on deposits when received, even if the books hold them as a liability. Plan for it before year end.
Most often a line with no accounting code, a tax rate that does not match, or a transaction edited in QuickBooks after it synced. Check the Pending tab of the export queue.
No. Job costs are entered and tracked in Builder Prime. QuickBooks keeps the company-level books.
Software features change. This guide reflects Builder Prime’s published documentation as of October 1, 2026. Zero Tax is not affiliated with Builder Prime or Intuit. Builder Prime and QuickBooks are trademarks of their owners. Educational only, not tax advice for your situation.
Source: Builder Prime’s QuickBooks Online integration article.
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