QuickBooks Online + Claude — Capabilities Guide

Sales & customers

Read + write

The full customer-to-cash cycle — who you sell to, what you've quoted them, what they've been invoiced, what they've paid, and what you've credited back. Anything that changes a record is marked ✎ below.

Customers

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find customers	Search your customer list any way you'd describe it — top 10 by total invoiced this year, anyone who hasn't bought in 12 months, customers whose days-to-pay is slipping.	—
Open a customer record	Pull up one customer in full — contact details, billing address, payment terms and current balance.	—
Create a customer	Set up a new customer from a plain description: name, billing address, contact, terms. Shown to you for approval before it's added.	✎Write
Edit a customer	Correct or update a customer's details — address, contact, payment terms.	✎Write
Deactivate a customer	Take a customer out of active use. QuickBooks keeps the record and all its history.	✎Write

Quotes & estimates

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find estimates	Look up quotes you've issued — by customer, date, amount or whether they've been accepted.	—
Open an estimate	See a single quote in full, line by line.	—
Create an estimate	Draft a quote from a description or a pasted proposal — e.g. 50 widgets at $12 each plus 10 service hours at $85, due in 14 days.	✎Write
Edit an estimate	Change lines, pricing or dates on a quote before the customer accepts it.	✎Write
Delete an estimate	Remove a quote that's no longer live. You'll be asked to confirm the exact quote first.	✎Write

Invoices

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find invoices	Every invoice over $10,000 open more than 60 days; everything unpaid for one customer sorted by date; whatever slice you need.	—
Open an invoice	See a single invoice in full — lines, dates, amounts, what's been paid against it.	—
Create an invoice	Bill a customer, including turning an accepted quote into an invoice (“convert estimate #1042 to an invoice”).	✎Write
Edit an invoice	Change lines, amounts, dates or terms on an existing invoice.	✎Write
Void or delete an invoice	Take an invoice out of your active books. QuickBooks normally keeps the record marked void, but it does affect your financial reports — so you're asked to confirm the exact invoice first.	✎Write

Cash sales (sales receipts)

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find sales receipts	Look up over-the-counter or paid-at-the-time sales by date, customer, amount or payment method.	—
Open a sales receipt	See a single cash-sale receipt in full.	—
Create a sales receipt	Record a sale that was paid at the time, so the income and the cash both land in the right place.	✎Write
Edit a sales receipt	Correct the lines, amounts or payment details on a recorded cash sale.	✎Write
Void or delete a sales receipt	Reverse a cash sale that shouldn't have been recorded. Confirmed with you first; it moves your reported income.	✎Write

Credits & refunds

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find credit memos	See credits issued to customers for returns, disputes or over-billing — including any still sitting unapplied.	—
Open a credit memo	See a single customer credit in full.	—
Create a credit memo	Issue a credit to a customer — e.g. $250 against invoice #2089 for a damaged item.	✎Write
Edit a credit memo	Change the amount, lines or customer on an existing credit.	✎Write
Void or delete a credit memo	Reverse a credit that was issued in error. Confirmed with you before anything changes.	✎Write
Find refund receipts	Look up money actually refunded back to customers, by date, customer or amount.	—
Open a refund receipt	See a single refund in full.	—
Create a refund receipt	Record a refund paid back to a customer — e.g. $500 to John Smith for last week's cancelled order.	✎Write
Edit a refund receipt	Correct the amount, account or customer on a recorded refund.	✎Write
Void or delete a refund receipt	Reverse a refund recorded in error. You confirm the exact record first.	✎Write

Purchasing & vendors

Read + write

The vendor-to-pay cycle — who you buy from, what they've billed you, what's still owed, and the credits you're holding against them.

Vendors

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find vendors	Search your supplier list — who you spend the most with year-to-date, who you've stopped buying from, who has an unapplied credit.	—
Open a vendor record	Pull up one vendor in full — contact details, terms, current balance.	—
Create a vendor	Set up a new supplier, e.g. “Quebec Wholesale Foods, terms Net 30”.	✎Write
Edit a vendor	Update a supplier's contact details, address or payment terms.	✎Write
Deactivate a vendor	Take a supplier out of active use while keeping their history intact.	✎Write

Bills (what vendors charge you)

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find bills	All bills due in the next 14 days grouped by vendor, anything overdue, anything missing a receipt — however you want it sliced.	—
Open a bill	See a single vendor bill in full, line by line.	—
Create a bill	Record what a vendor has charged you — including from a PDF you drop into the conversation, with the amount, lines and due date read straight off it.	✎Write
Edit a bill	Correct the amount, expense category, due date or department on a bill.	✎Write
Void or delete a bill	Remove a bill from your active payables. Confirmed with you first, since it changes what you appear to owe.	✎Write

Purchase orders

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find purchase orders	See what you've ordered and from whom — open, closed, by vendor or by date.	—
Open a purchase order	See a single order in full, line by line.	—
Create a purchase order	Raise a formal order — e.g. 100 lbs of flour at $1.20/lb and 50 lbs of sugar at $0.85/lb from Quebec Wholesale Foods.	✎Write
Edit a purchase order	Change quantities, pricing or delivery details on an order that hasn't been fulfilled.	✎Write
Void or delete a purchase order	Cancel an order you no longer want. You confirm the exact order first.	✎Write

Vendor credits

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find vendor credits	See credits your suppliers owe you — from over-billing or returns — including ones you haven't applied yet.	—
Open a vendor credit	See a single supplier credit in full.	—
Create a vendor credit	Record a credit a supplier has given you, so it offsets what you owe them.	✎Write
Edit a vendor credit	Correct the amount, account or supplier on a recorded credit.	✎Write
Void or delete a vendor credit	Reverse a supplier credit recorded in error, after you confirm it.	✎Write

Direct purchases & card spend

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find purchases	Look up cash purchases and credit-card transactions — by card, category, vendor, date or amount.	—
Open a purchase	See a single expense entry in full.	—
Create a purchase	Record spend that didn't come through a bill — e.g. “$42.50 at Starbucks, business meals, today, paid with the Amex”.	✎Write
Edit a purchase	Recategorize or correct an expense entry.	✎Write
Void or delete a purchase	Remove a duplicate or mistaken expense entry, after confirming which one.	✎Write

Money movement

Read + write

Cash actually moving — payments received, bills paid, deposits banked, money shifted between your own accounts. Recording these here updates your books; it does not itself move money at a bank or card processor.

Money in — customer payments

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find customer payments	All payments received in the last 30 days by payment method, everything applied to one customer, or duplicates recorded twice.	—
Open a customer payment	See a single received payment and what it was applied against.	—
Record a customer payment	Log money received and apply it to the right invoice — e.g. “$5,000 from ACME Corp received today, apply it to invoice #2105”.	✎Write
Edit a customer payment	Change the amount, date, deposit account or which invoices a payment is applied to.	✎Write
Delete a customer payment	Reverse a payment recorded in error, after you confirm the exact one.	✎Write

Money out — bill payments

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find bill payments	See what you've paid vendors, when, and from which account.	—
Open a bill payment	See a single payment and the bills it cleared.	—
Record a bill payment	Pay bills and mark them settled — e.g. “pay every bill from Vendor X due this week from the operating checking account”.	✎Write
Edit a bill payment	Correct the amount, date, account or the bills a payment was applied to.	✎Write
Delete a bill payment	Reverse a payment recorded in error, after you confirm it — the bills go back to unpaid.	✎Write

Bank deposits

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find deposits	Look up banked deposits by date, account or amount — useful when reconciling against the bank statement.	—
Open a deposit	See a single deposit and every payment grouped into it.	—
Create a deposit	Group several customer payments into one bank deposit so your books match what the bank shows as a single line.	✎Write
Edit a deposit	Add, remove or correct the payments and amounts inside a deposit.	✎Write
Delete a deposit	Undo a deposit that was grouped incorrectly, after you confirm it.	✎Write

Transfers between your accounts

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find transfers	See money moved between your own accounts — by date, amount or account.	—
Open a transfer	See a single transfer in full.	—
Create a transfer	Record moving money between your own accounts — e.g. “$10,000 from the operating account to the tax savings account”.	✎Write
Edit a transfer	Correct the amount, date or accounts on a recorded transfer.	✎Write
Delete a transfer	Reverse a transfer recorded in error, after you confirm it.	✎Write

Products, services & inventory

Read + write

The catalogue of what you sell, plus quantities on hand for anything you track as inventory in QuickBooks.

Products & services

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find products & services	List everything you sell with quantity on hand, spot what's out of stock, find prices that haven't been reviewed in over a year, or rank best sellers year-to-date.	—
Open a product or service	See one item in full — pricing, income account, and stock on hand if it's inventory-tracked.	—
Create a product or service	Add something new to sell — e.g. a service item “Consulting Hour - Senior” at $150/hour posting to Service Revenue.	✎Write
Edit a product or service	Change pricing, description or the account an item posts to.	✎Write
Deactivate a product or service	Retire something you no longer sell while keeping its sales history.	✎Write

Accounting & the ledger

Read + write

The accounting backbone — your account structure and the manual entries your accountant makes against it.

Chart of accounts

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find accounts	See your chart of accounts organized by type, or hunt for specific accounts by name or balance.	—
Open an account	See one account's details — type, sub-account, current balance.	—
Create an account	Add a new account — e.g. an expense account “Software Subscriptions” under Operating Expenses.	✎Write
Edit an account	Rename, re-parent or deactivate an account. QuickBooks does not allow accounts to be deleted, so retiring one means marking it inactive.	✎Write

Journal entries

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find journal entries	Review manual entries — anything posted straight to cash last quarter, entries over $10,000, or entries with no description before close.	—
Open a journal entry	See one entry with every debit and credit line.	—
Create a journal entry	Post an adjustment — e.g. depreciate the truck fleet: debit Depreciation Expense $2,500, credit Accumulated Depreciation $2,500, dated month-end.	✎Write
Edit a journal entry	Correct or reclassify an existing entry — including bulk clean-ups like moving six months of Misc Expense to proper categories.	✎Write
Delete a journal entry	Remove an entry posted in error. Confirmed with you first, since it moves your reported numbers.	✎Write

People & time

Read + write

Employee records and the hours logged against them — the inputs to billing and payroll, not payroll processing itself.

Employees

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find employees	List active employees with hire dates, or find people by name, role or status.	—
Open an employee record	See one employee's details in full.	—
Create an employee	Add someone new — e.g. “Jane Doe, hire date today, role Bookkeeper”.	✎Write
Edit an employee	Update an employee's details or role.	✎Write
Deactivate an employee	Mark a leaver inactive while keeping their history.	✎Write

Time tracking

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find time activities	Show all unbilled time from last week so it can be invoiced, or build a weekly timesheet summary per employee.	—
Open a time activity	See a single time entry — who, when, for which customer and service.	—
Record time	Log hours worked — e.g. “6.5 hours for Sarah on Tuesday, billable to ACME Corp, service item Consulting Hour - Senior”.	✎Write
Edit a time entry	Correct hours, dates, the customer or the service item on a logged entry.	✎Write
Delete a time entry	Remove a time entry logged in error, after you confirm it.	✎Write

Classification & company settings

Read + write

The optional ways you slice your numbers — classes for product lines or revenue streams, departments for locations or cost centres — plus the standard reference data your transactions point at.

Classes

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find classes	List your classes and see which are most profitable year-to-date, or find transactions with no class assigned.	—
Open a class	See one class and its details.	—
Create a class	Add a new class — e.g. “Catering Division”.	✎Write
Edit a class	Rename or deactivate a class. QuickBooks does not allow classes to be deleted, so retiring one means marking it inactive.	✎Write

Departments & locations

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find departments	List your departments or locations — the basis for “show me revenue and expenses by department for last month”.	—
Open a department	See one department and its details.	—
Create a department	Add a new department, location or cost centre.	✎Write
Edit a department	Rename or deactivate a department. QuickBooks does not allow departments to be deleted.	✎Write

Payment terms

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find payment terms	See the terms you offer and use — Net 15, Net 30, early-payment discounts.	—
Open a payment term	See one set of terms in detail.	—
Create a payment term	Add new terms — e.g. “Net 45 with a 2% discount if paid within 10 days”.	✎Write
Edit a payment term	Adjust or deactivate existing terms. QuickBooks does not allow terms to be deleted.	✎Write

Payment methods

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find payment methods	See which methods you accept — cash, check, card — and how many transactions used each this year.	—
Open a payment method	See one payment method in detail.	—
Create a payment method	Add a new way of taking or making payment.	✎Write
Edit a payment method	Rename or deactivate a payment method. QuickBooks does not allow payment methods to be deleted.	✎Write

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
View company information	See the company details on file — legal name, addresses, contact information, fiscal year.	—
Update company information	Change your company details — e.g. update the address after an office move. Shown to you before it's applied.	✎Write

Taxes

Look-up only

Tax reference data is available to look at and check, but never changed here — it's maintained by your accountant or by QuickBooks itself.

Tax codes, rates & agencies

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find tax codes	List active tax codes with their rates, or spot inactive ones as a clean-up opportunity.	—
Open a tax code	See one tax code and how it's configured.	—
Find tax rates	See the rates currently set up — e.g. the GST/HST rates in use.	—
Open a tax rate	See one rate in detail.	—
Find tax agencies	See which agencies you collect and remit for, and which were active this quarter.	—
Open a tax agency	See one agency's details.	—

Documents & attachments

Read + write

The supporting paperwork behind your transactions — receipts, contracts, signed work orders.

Attachments

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find attachments	Find supporting documents — everything uploaded this month over 5 MB, or the reverse: bills with no receipt attached at all.	—
Open an attachment	See one document's details and what it's attached to.	—
Upload an attachment	Attach a file to a transaction — e.g. put the signed work order PDF on invoice #2103, or the vendor PDF on the bill it created.	✎Write
Edit attachment details	Rename a document or change what it's linked to.	✎Write
Delete an attachment	Remove a document — e.g. a duplicate receipt on a bill. You confirm which one first.	✎Write

Budgets

Look-up only

Budgets can be read and analysed in depth, but not created or changed — Intuit doesn't allow budgets to be written to from outside QuickBooks. You'll still set budgets up in QuickBooks itself.

Budgets

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
Find budgets	See which budgets are active and pull the figures behind them, so they can be compared against actuals — e.g. “find any budget where actual exceeds budget by more than 10% year-to-date”.	—

Reports

Look-up only

Eleven standard reports, runnable for any period you name, and combinable — “run it, compare it to last year, flag anything that moved more than 25%, and write me a paragraph for the board” is one request, not four.

Financial health

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
get_balance_sheet	Assets, liabilities and equity at a point in time — “show me the balance sheet as of today”.	—
get_profit_and_loss	Income and expenses over any period, with comparisons on request — “this year against last year, month by month”.	—
get_cash_flow	Where cash came from and where it went — operating, investing and financing movements for the period you name.	—
get_trial_balance	Debits and credits for every account — the sanity check before you close the books.	—
get_general_ledger	The complete transaction history behind any account — e.g. everything in Travel & Entertainment for the last 90 days.	—

Who owes you (A/R)

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
get_aged_receivables	Outstanding customer invoices grouped by how old they are — current, 1-30, 31-60, 61-90, 90+.	—
get_customer_balance	What each customer owes you right now.	—
get_customer_sales	Sales totals by customer over a period — “who are my top 20 by revenue this year?”	—

What you owe (A/P)

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
get_aged_payables	Outstanding vendor bills grouped by how overdue they are — the basis for “what's coming due in the next 14 days?”	—
get_vendor_balance	What you currently owe each vendor.	—
get_vendor_expenses	Spending by vendor over a period — sort by total spend, or flag vendors whose costs grew more than 50% year-over-year.	—

Connection & setup

Look-up only

Housekeeping for the link between Claude and your QuickBooks company. None of these change anything inside your books.

Connection

Action	What you can do / what to expect	Writes?
connect_qbo	Get the link that connects Claude to your QuickBooks company. You sign in and approve in your own browser, so no password ever passes through the chat. If a connection is already live it just tells you so.	—
get_connection_status	Check the connection is healthy — which QuickBooks company is linked, and how much longer the current authorization is good for.	—
disconnect_qbo	Remove your stored QuickBooks authorization. Nothing in your books changes; the next request simply asks you to reconnect.	—

Worth knowing

The honest boundaries — what this deliberately will not do, and the few places where QuickBooks itself sets the rules.

Know which actions touch real records. Looking things up and running reports changes nothing. The actions marked ✎ do change your books. Claude is instructed to restate a deletion or void and get your agreement before running it, but that's a working habit rather than something the connection enforces — if you need writes genuinely prevented, use the QuickBooks permissions on the account behind the connection.
It won't move actual money. It records payments, deposits and transfers in your books, but it cannot charge a credit card or push funds — that's a separate Intuit service that is deliberately not switched on here.
It can read and analyse budgets but cannot create or change them. Intuit doesn't allow budgets to be written from outside QuickBooks. You'll still set those up in QuickBooks itself.
Some things can only be deactivated, never deleted: accounts, classes, departments, payment terms and payment methods. QuickBooks itself doesn't allow deletion for these.
“Delete” on most transactions is really a void. QuickBooks keeps the record marked void rather than erasing it. It still removes the document from your active workflows and changes your financial reports, which is why it always asks first.
It won't touch who has access to QuickBooks. User permissions are managed by your QuickBooks Admin in QuickBooks itself.
It never acts on its own or on a schedule. Every action starts from something a specific person typed in a specific conversation.
It doesn't work with QuickBooks Desktop. This is for QuickBooks Online only (Simple Start, Essentials, Plus or Advanced).
Nothing is copied or stored anywhere new. Every question results in a fresh look at QuickBooks at that moment; there's no separate database and no cached copy of your books.
Everyone shares one QuickBooks connection today. In the current setup, everyone you've granted access to sees the same QuickBooks company, and actions appear in QuickBooks' audit log under the single connected account. Connecting each person to their own QuickBooks login instead — so QuickBooks' own audit log reflects who specifically did what — is supported and can be switched on for your company.
Access is all-or-nothing per person by default. Anyone you grant access to gets every capability listed here — there is no per-person "this one can only look" setting today. If some people should not be able to change your books, the way to achieve that right now is the QuickBooks permissions on the account behind the connection, which applies to everyone using it. Per-person scoping is something we can look at for your rollout; it isn't a switch that already exists.
An internet outage stops both ends. Both Claude and QuickBooks are cloud services, so neither is usable during an outage. QuickBooks itself is unaffected once you're back online.

Sales & customers

Customers

Quotes & estimates

Invoices

Cash sales (sales receipts)

Credits & refunds

Purchasing & vendors

Vendors

Bills (what vendors charge you)

Purchase orders

Vendor credits

Direct purchases & card spend

Money movement

Money in — customer payments

Money out — bill payments

Bank deposits

Transfers between your accounts

Products, services & inventory

Products & services

Accounting & the ledger

Chart of accounts

Journal entries

People & time

Employees

Time tracking

Classification & company settings

Classes

Departments & locations

Payment terms

Payment methods

Company information

Taxes

Tax codes, rates & agencies

Documents & attachments

Attachments

Budgets

Budgets

Reports

Financial health

Who owes you (A/R)

What you owe (A/P)

Connection & setup

Connection

Worth knowing