If you run your jobs in Eano and your books in QuickBooks Online, you’ve probably felt the friction of keeping the same project in two places. Project sync closes that gap: it ties an Eano project to the matching project in QuickBooks so expenses and invoices land in the right place on both sides — no double entry, no wondering which system is right.

This guide covers how project sync works, how to link projects, and the newest piece: letting Eano create the QuickBooks project for you automatically whenever you start something new.

Project sync is rolling out gradually, so it isn’t switched on for everyone yet. Two things need to be true:

Don’t see it in your QuickBooks settings? Email us at [email protected] and we’ll switch it on for your team. Everything below assumes it’s already available to you.

As with all QuickBooks settings, only Admins and Owners can turn project sync on or off.

That’s it. With project sync on, you can link any Eano project to its QuickBooks counterpart, and once two projects are linked, the invoices and expenses for that job flow to the right QuickBooks project automatically.

Turning project sync back off also turns off automatic project creation (below) — the two travel together.

Once project sync is on, every project in Eano shows a small QuickBooks badge that reads Synced or Unsynced.

Searching instead of scrolling. If you’ve got hundreds of projects in QuickBooks, don’t hunt through the list — there’s a Search projects… box at the top of the dropdown. Start typing and the list narrows to matching project names as you go. It’s a straightforward name search, so type the part of the name you’re sure about rather than a whole phrase. If nothing matches you’ll see a No matches for “…” message, which is your cue to check the spelling or refresh the list.

A couple of small conveniences: the list only ever shows QuickBooks projects that aren’t already linked to something else, so anything you can see is fair game. And if you’re re-picking the project on an already-linked job, your current selection stays visible while you search, so you can’t lose track of what you had.

To break the connection, open the panel on a synced project and click Unlink. Unlinking stops new data from syncing for that project — anything already synced stays put in both systems.

Linking projects by hand works, but it’s still a step to remember every time you start a job. The newest option removes that step entirely: Eano can create the QuickBooks project for you and link the two automatically.

Once Project Sync is on, a second option appears right beneath it: Automatically create new projects in QuickBooks. It’s off by default — flip it on when you’re ready.

With it on, every time a new opportunity or project is created in Eano, Eano creates a matching project in QuickBooks and links the two on the spot. From that moment, everything you add on either side keeps flowing to the right place — no manual linking, no double entry.

A few things worth knowing about how this works:

Project sync isn’t only about projects — turning it on changes how Eano handles your clients too, and that’s what makes the whole thing hang together.

QuickBooks nests things: client → project → invoice. A project belongs to a client, and an invoice belongs to a project. So when project sync is on, Eano takes your job’s primary client, sets them as the parent of the QuickBooks project, and the invoice inherits its place from there. Set the client relationship correctly once and the invoice linkage comes free.

Your invoice naming setting gets locked. Open your QuickBooks settings with project sync on and you’ll see the customer name mapping fixed to Project name, greyed out, with a note reading “Invoice names will automatically come from the project name.” That’s not a bug. QuickBooks fills the project name in on the invoice itself once the hierarchy is in place, so there’s nothing for you to choose. Locking it also prevents a genuinely bad outcome: if a project-derived name were used to create customers, you’d end up with a QuickBooks client list full of entries like “123 Main Street.”

Clients are matched on email and phone. Rather than matching your client to a QuickBooks customer by name — which duplicates the moment anyone types a name differently — Eano identifies them the way it does internally, by contact details. Both match, or one matches and the other is blank, and it’s the same person. But if one field matches and the other is filled in and different, Eano treats that as a real conflict and creates a separate customer rather than risk merging two different people. So the single best thing you can do for a clean QuickBooks customer list is keep each client’s email and phone accurate and consistent.

Once a project is linked, its client stays put. Invoices on a linked project follow that project’s parent customer in QuickBooks. Editing a client’s contact details later won’t re-route the job’s invoices to a different customer mid-stream.

If you’re not using project sync, this works differently — and the settings will warn you when a choice is going to create a client per project. The duplicates article linked below covers that case in full.

I don’t see project sync in my settings. Why? It’s either not available on your QuickBooks plan (you’ll need Plus or Advanced) or it hasn’t been switched on for your team yet, since this is a gradual rollout. Email [email protected] and we’ll get it turned on.

Do I have to turn on automatic creation to use project sync? No. You can leave automatic creation off and link projects by hand whenever you like — the two are separate switches.

Will turning on automatic creation create QuickBooks projects for all my existing jobs? No. It only applies to opportunities and projects created after you turn it on. Link older jobs manually from the QuickBooks badge on each project.

What name does the QuickBooks project get? Your Eano project’s name, or the project address if there’s no name, always followed by the Eano project ID in parentheses so names never collide in QuickBooks.

What happens if I hadn’t added a client yet? Eano attaches a placeholder customer called Unknown so QuickBooks will accept the project, then swaps in the real customer as soon as you add a client to the job.

If I delete a project, does it disappear from QuickBooks too? No. Deletions aren’t propagated in either direction, on purpose — deleting in one system never touches the other.

Why can’t I change the invoice customer name setting anymore? Because project sync is on. With the client → project → invoice hierarchy in place, QuickBooks puts the project name on the invoice itself, so the setting is locked to Project name and shows a note explaining it. Turn project sync off and the choice comes back.

I can’t find the right project in the link dropdown. Use the Search projects… box at the top of the list and type part of the project’s name. If you get No matches, either the name is spelled differently in QuickBooks, or the project is already linked to another Eano job — the list only shows projects that are still available. Click Refresh projects if you created it in QuickBooks just now.

A project didn’t get created in QuickBooks. What now? You’ll have seen a message explaining what went wrong. You can link the project by hand any time using the Unsynced badge on the project — pick the QuickBooks project and click Link Project.