How do I set up bill line-type account mapping for QuickBooks?

Overview

Luminous can now route each bill line type to its own QuickBooks Online (QBO) expense account when syncing vendor bills. The mapping is two-tiered:

1. Bill line type → Luminous chart of account — tells Luminous which internal GL account represents each line type.
2. Luminous chart of account → QBO account — connects that internal account to the exact account in your QBO chart of accounts.

This feature must be enabled by Luminous support for your tenant before the Bills tab appears.

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Step 1 — Refresh your QBO account list

Before you can map anything, make sure Luminous has a current copy of your QBO accounts.

1. Go to Settings → QuickBooks.
2. Click the Connection tab.
3. Click Pull Accounts and wait for the confirmation message.

Repeat this step any time you add new accounts in QuickBooks.

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Step 2 — Open the Bills tab

1. Go to Settings → QuickBooks.
2. Click the Bills tab.

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Step 3 — Map line types to chart-of-account entries

The first grid, Bill Line Type → Chart of Account, lists all six line types:

Line type	When it appears on a bill
Product	Inventory SKU lines
Freight	Shipping and freight charges
Duty	Import duty charges
Service	Service fees
Other	Extra costs imported from a receipt (e.g. handling)
Adjustment	Manual credit or debit adjustments

For each line type you want to control, select a Luminous chart of account from the dropdown. Leave a row blank to let that line type fall back to the default expense account.

Tip — receipt extra costs: Extra costs that flow in from a received shipment arrive as Other. If you need them split (for example, freight vs. duty), open the bill and change the line type before it syncs.

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Step 4 — Map chart-of-account entries to QBO accounts

The second grid, Chart of Account → QuickBooks Account, connects each Luminous chart-of-account entry you selected above to a specific QBO expense account.

1. For each chart-of-account row, select the matching QuickBooks account from the dropdown.
2. Only expense-type accounts from your QBO chart of accounts appear here.

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Step 5 — Save

Click Save Bills Settings. The settings take effect on the next bill sync.

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Fallback and error behaviour

Situation	What happens
Line type is mapped → QBO account resolves	Line posts to that QBO account ✓
Line type has no mapping	Line falls back to the default expense account from the Account Mappings tab
No mapping and no default expense account	Bill sync fails; the bill status shows an actionable message telling you which line type to configure
Mapped QBO account has been deactivated in QBO	Bill sync fails with a message naming the inactive account

The system will never silently redirect a line to the wrong account.

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Warning: purchase order sync enabled

If you also have QuickBooks PO Sync enabled (Account Mappings tab), the Bills tab shows a warning. Bills and purchase orders both carry inventory value, so leaving both enabled books that value twice in QBO. Once bills are your source of record for inventory value, disable PO sync.

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Reference: AP account

The payable account that every bill posts against is the AP Account set on the Account Mappings tab. It is displayed read-only on the Bills tab for reference.