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Overview: QuickBooks Desktop is a powerful accounting software widely used by businesses to process payroll and manage financial operations. Its quality features allow for seamless integration with Buddy Punch, enhancing its functionality and adaptability to your business needs. However, despite its robust architecture, users can sometimes encounter integration and/or settings errors that can disrupt workflows.

Not to worry! Here within, we provide additional context and step-by-step instructions on how to fix the most commonly encountered QuickBooks Desktop errors.

Common Errors:

Billable Activities Must Have a Customer:Job and Service Item
​Payroll Items Not Syncing
​QBWC1003: The application could not be reached
​QBWC1039: Unique Owner ID/File ID pair value required

Check the Box for Personal Data Sharing

QuickBooks Desktop error "Billable Activities Must Have a Customer:Job and Service Item" may look something like as follows:

When mapping customers & jobs in our system (whether to locations or departments) if you mark the locations or departments as billable, QuickBooks Desktops requires a Service Item to be associated:

This means that in Buddy Punch, your must ensure you are mapping both the Customer & Job along with Service Items to Locations AND Department Codes.

The "Billable activities must have a customer:job and service item" error occurs because a customer has a location or department code marked as billable (typically a location code), but doesn't have a corresponding Service Item (typically a department code) associated with it:

This particular error should always populate with an employee name to help you determine where the issue might be occurring.

If it does, the first step would be to determine if any time was transferred for that employee and if so, when was the last date transferred. In the example below, the last day transferred for Dalton Zentz was 2/13/24 so we know that the error probably occurred on the 2/14 punch:

You'd then check the employee's time card for that timeframe and note the location/department codes assigned:

From there, visit the Mapping page and review the mappings for the location/department codes previously noted. In this particular example, the mapping was missing as noted by the Add Mapping link:

Lastly, you need to Add Mapping and then resync; hours that were transferred before will not be transferred again. Only the remaining hours will be.

Another common scenario is that there is a mapping, but the mapping is no longer valid (as in the code has been deactivated from the QuickBooks Desktop side) in which case we'd advise to review the mapping and ensure it's associated with an Active mapping.

Payroll items that aren't getting pulled in could result from a few different issues:

Administrator Rights

One of the first things you'll want to check if you're running into a QuickBooks Desktop integration issue is that you're logged into QuickBooks on an Admin account. A different user with admin rights will not work and may cause unexpected behavior

Payroll Items

If payroll items are not being pulled in for your users this could be the cause of a permissions issue.

You can update your permissions by selecting Edit --> Integrated Applications --> click Company Preferences tab, click on Buddy Punch and then click on Properties.

You will then want to check the box next to "Allow this application to access Social Security Numbers, customer credit card information, and other personal data" as shown below:

Another main reason a payroll item may not be pulled in is that the Employee in QuickBooks is not assigned a payroll item. You will want to ensure that all Employees have been assigned the correct payroll items.

QuickBooks Desktop error QBWC1003 often occurs when trying to run the sync, but you don't have the proper QBD permissions.

For the QuickBooks Desktop integration to work with Buddy Punch, you'll need to be signed into QuickBooks Desktop as the main account holder.

If you are signed in as a different user with admin rights, it will not work, as QuickBooks requires the main company holder to install the WebConnector that links Buddy Punch and QuickBooks together.

Your error might look similar to this:

You'll need to uninstall the WebConnector, then sign in as the QuickBooks main account holder and reinstall the WebConnector for it to work.

QuickBooks Desktop error QBWC1039 occurs when trying to run the web connector on multiple devices. Each web connector file needs to be unique to sync properly, so to fix this, you need to update the owner ID value to make it unique.

1. Log into your Buddy Punch account and go to Settings --> Integrations --> Integrate with QuickBooks Desktop, and click the BuddyPunch.qwc link.

The Buddy Punch web connector file will start downloading immediately:

Here's a direct link to that page in Buddy Punch: https://app.buddypunch.com/Quickbooks

2. You'll then want to browse to the folder on your device where the file was downloaded—most commonly the downloads folder—and then open the file with TextEdit (Mac) or Notepad (Windows).

3. Once opened, you need to change the first value in the <OwnerID> number.

In this example, the first part of the OwnerID is 3c852375. The first number, 3, would need to be changed to any other number, like 5. Save when done.

4. After you've saved, open QuickBooks, then navigate back to the Buddy Punch file you downloaded and updated—click on it to open it. The QuickBooks Web Connector will open.
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5. If you see Authorize New Web Service, click OK.
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6. If you see QuickBooks Application Certificate, look for “Do you want to allow this application to read and modify this company file?”. Click “Yes, whenever the QuickBooks Company file is open” --> Continue --> Done.
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7. On the right side of the web connector, you will need to enter a password. This is the password that is in the settings area of the QuickBooks Integration area (Settings ---> Integrations --> QuickBooks Desktop). When asked if you want to save your password, click Yes.
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8. To begin the web connector sync, check the box on the left side of the application and click the “Update Selected” button.

QuickBooks Desktop error "Buddy Punch requires access to payroll information so you need to check the box for Personal Data Sharing" means that new payroll items are likely trying to get pulled in from QuickBooks Desktop, but you don't have the proper permissions enabled in QuickBooks Desktop yet:

You can update your permissions in QuickBooks Desktop by selecting Edit --> Integrated Applications --> click Company Preferences tab, click on Buddy Punch, and then click on Properties.
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You will then check the box next to "Allow this application to access Social Security Numbers, customer credit card information, and other personal data" as shown below:

Once you've made that change, you can run the sync again.

Q: What should I do if these steps don't work?

A: Please get in touch with our customer support team, and we'd be happy to assist.
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