Why duplicates appeared
When Luminous pushes an estimate, purchase order, or bill to QuickBooks Online (QBO), it records the QBO document ID so future syncs update the existing record instead of creating a new one. If the network connection dropped — or QBO returned a response that could not be parsed — after QBO had already created the document but before Luminous could store the ID, Luminous would try to create the document again on the next sync. In some cases QBO accepted the second creation under the same document number, producing a true duplicate.
What has changed
Luminous now handles this scenario automatically. When QBO rejects a create request with a "Duplicate Document Number" error, Luminous:
- Looks up the existing document in QBO by its exact document number.
- Verifies the document belongs to the correct customer (for estimates) or vendor (for purchase orders and bills) before adopting it.
- Records the QBO document ID in Luminous so subsequent syncs update rather than re-create.
- If the document number is already taken by a different customer or vendor (a genuinely unrelated QBO record), Luminous will not overwrite it and will surface an error instead.
No configuration changes or manual steps are required — the recovery happens automatically during the sync.
If you already have duplicates in QuickBooks
For any duplicates created before this fix, you will need to manually void or delete the extra records in QuickBooks. The steps depend on the document type:
- Estimates: Open the duplicate estimate in QBO → More → Delete (or change its status to Rejected to preserve the audit trail).
- Purchase Orders: Open the duplicate PO in QBO → More → Delete.
- Bills: Open the duplicate bill in QBO → More → Delete (only possible if no payment has been applied).
After removing duplicates, re-trigger the sync from Luminous to ensure the correct QBO document ID is stamped. For estimates, click the green QBO sync icon on the invoice row in Sales → Invoices.
Which sync toggles are affected
| Document type | Toggle location |
|---|---|
| Estimates | Settings → QuickBooks → Account Mappings → QuickBooks Estimate Sync |
| Purchase Orders | Settings → QuickBooks → Account Mappings → QuickBooks Purchase Order Sync |
| Bills | Enabled automatically when PO Sync is active and a bill is generated from a received PO |
Note: QuickBooks Estimate Sync is available under a feature flag. Contact support to have it enabled for your account.