Accounting Problems with Jobber Payments

Question

I saw a post that was voicing the same frustration that I have and it looks like none of the responses were truly helpful… so here’s my version and hoping Jobber will resolve it. (Yes, I have already spoken to Jobber representatives several times about the issue and they couldn’t do anything about it… other than change the program which is what I’m advocating for)

We enabled Jobber Payments a while back because we rely pretty heavily on getting down-payments especially for bigger jobs. However, we quickly realized that ANY transaction going through Jobber payments didn’t match the invoice amounts. In short, we figured out that it was because it was taking the fees out BEFORE the money was deposited and it was an absolute NIGHTMARE to fix our books and match numbers. Made reconciling literally impossible. It also was difficult to match the payments to an account. We had to hire a separate accountant to fix it and we ended up shutting it down before it could do more damage.

We have been sending payment links with the QuickBooks payment processor because it actually works without messing up the books, but it can be a pain to send the invoice twice. Not to mention once they actually pay we have to manually enter the payment into Jobber since the sync is only one-way.

I now know that we aren’t the only ones with this experience. Please like this post so Jobber will do something about this. Any tips would also be appreciated in the meantime.

tesvt · Answer

I have been using Jobber for less than a month but I am not having an issue with this.&nbsp; The bank transaction does not match the invoice amount, but when Jobber syncs the payment it syncs a split transaction with the invoice amount and the fee.&nbsp; The total of that split transaction matches the bank transaction.&nbsp; Maybe I'm misunderstanding the issue you all are having?&nbsp; &nbsp;

tbarth · Answer

Ugh, that reminds me that I also have a bunch of those to fix.

Why did they choose to sync net instead of gross?

A handful of conveniences, probably: existing hardcoded references, matching what users see in their bank deposits, and avoiding the extra work to handle partial payments, refunds, and other edge cases. Basically, it was the shortest line between points A and B. If they saved money or reduced friction by going with net instead of gross, that’s an obvious business decision for most companies. This is also why it won’t change; the decision was made deliberately a long time ago.

The fact that QuickBooks Sync is a tool specifically designed to send a transaction amount to a system that has expected the gross amount since people started trading beads and bobbles makes this nearly impossible to fathom or accept. Outside of a black and white business expense decision, it simply isn’t understandable.

However, there is a solution that eliminates the headache: use something like Zapier to deal with it automatically. After working it out just now, I think this is what I will do.

Workflow:

Send invoice from Jobber
Client pays via Jobber Payments
Jobber syncs invoice and net payment to QuickBooks Online
Zapier monitors QBO for new payments
Zapier fetches gross payment from Jobber
Zapier updates QBO and the invoice now clears correctly.

Optional: handle fees separately.

Pros:

Invoice in QBO is cleared with the correct gross amount.
Jobber remains the operational hub.
The net vs gross problem is fixed automatically without manual reconciliation.
You stop getting ALL CAPS texts from your bookkeeper.

Cons:

The time to set it up: Like all automation, there's effort upfront, but the payoff far outweighs it.
The frustration of having to do it in the first place: To borrow a line from the Italian philosopher, Rambo, John J.: "Let it go."

danjhu · Answer

Jobber also has a problem with applying the correct USA tax because it makes the state, county and city taxes on separate lines.&nbsp; This often results in a difference of $0.01 between Jobber and Quickbooks because the rounding is applied per breakdown rather than just as a whole. I don't see any way to work around this. Invoices would look cleaner if there was just a one-line item for sales tax and I think it would solve the rounding issue too.&nbsp;

jade · Answer

Hey QHS!&nbsp;As long as you are on the new QBO integration, the payment should sync over with the full amount, roughly 2 business days later, the "payout" will sync, this will be the deposit amount after the fees are removed, as long as you have this set up to match your checking account used for Jobber payments, no reconciliation is needed. Quickbooks should then match the deposit to the payment and the fee to a separate expense account. It is important that you do not try to match the deposit manually, as it will not reconcile.&nbsp;Here is a Help Center Article that explains how this works.&nbsp;

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Accounting Problems with Jobber Payments

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