Connect Planning Center and QuickBooks
What each connection can reach, who can connect, and what happens right after.
Constat needs two connections: Planning Center, where your giving is recorded, and QuickBooks Online, where each payout is posted. You make both in the first steps of setup. An approver or owner can connect. If someone else manages Giving at your church, use Send this step: we email them a link that works once, for this church only, and needs no account. These steps are for churches on Planning Center Giving and QuickBooks Online. For another giving platform or ledger, write to [email protected].
Connect Planning Center
Click Connect Planning Center, sign in and allow access to Giving. We ask for the giving scope only, which is read access to Giving. Constat reads funds, campuses, gifts, refunds and batches, and never writes to Planning Center.
Right after you connect, Constat pulls your funds and campuses so you can map them. If no funds appear, click Pull funds again, and check that Giving has funds set up.
Connect QuickBooks
Click Connect QuickBooks, sign in to QuickBooks Online and choose this church’s company. QuickBooks grants reading and writing together under the com.intuit.quickbooks.accounting scope. Constat then checks your QuickBooks plan and whether you track classes and locations, and shows what it found.
Constat writes only what a payout needs:
- one deposit per payout, to your bank account, or to the clearing account with the clearing account model;
- with the clearing account model, a fee expense and a transfer of the net to your bank as well;
- in detail mode, which is off unless you turn it on, a sales receipt per gift under the donor’s name, plus an item per fund and a customer per donor, created as payouts post;
- an account, class or location only when you click a Create for me button.
Nothing posts during setup, and nothing posts later until an approver approves it or an approver turns on automatic posting.
Choose accounts
The next step picks the QuickBooks accounts every deposit uses. The bank account for online payouts is required: it is where Planning Center’s payouts land. The others, such as the bank account for batch deposits and the processing fees expense account, can wait until a payout needs them. When an account doesn’t exist yet, Create for me makes a sensibly named one in QuickBooks.
After you connect
Setup continues with mapping your funds, choosing how payouts post and how far back the first sync reads, and payout reports. When every step is done, Start syncing turns on the nightly sync and runs one right away.
If a connection stops working, for example because a password changed or access was removed, the church’s owners get a connection alert by email and nothing posts until it is reconnected. You can disconnect either service at any time from Settings, Connections. The security page lists exactly what we read, store and delete.
Next: Map your funds.