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Converting QuickBooks Sub-Customers to Projects

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QuickBooks Online has two ways to track work under a customer: sub-customers and QuickBooks Projects. Readybuild syncs projects as sub-customers. If you or someone in your accounting team converts a sub-customer to a QuickBooks Project, the link stays connected — but some Readybuild fields stop flowing through.

:::warning Read before converting Converting a sub-customer to a QuickBooks Project is one-way in QuickBooks — it cannot be undone. Review the gotchas below before making the change. :::

How Readybuild Syncs Projects​

When a Readybuild project syncs to QuickBooks Online, it appears as a sub-customer nested under the project's contact. You'll find it in your QuickBooks Customers list, indented under the parent customer's name.

Readybuild does not use QuickBooks's native Projects feature for sync. All project records are created and updated as sub-customers.

How the Conversion Works​

Intuit's process for converting sub-customers to QuickBooks Projects is documented here:

👉 Change sub-customers into projects (Intuit Help)

After the conversion, the sub-customer becomes a QuickBooks Project. The link from Readybuild stays connected, so existing invoices, payments, and credit memos continue to reference the project correctly.

What Changes After Conversion​

QuickBooks Projects don't carry the same fields as sub-customers, so some updates from Readybuild stop flowing through. Most of this can be handled by editing the Project directly in QuickBooks when needed.

What continues to sync automatically:

  • Invoices, client payments, credit memos, and estimates continue to sync and reference the project correctly
  • The parent customer link is preserved
  • Billing address is unaffected because it lives on the parent customer record, which QuickBooks Projects use automatically

What no longer updates in QuickBooks after conversion:

  • Project title
  • Project site address
  • Project description

Updating these fields in Readybuild no longer changes them on the QuickBooks Project record. Edit them directly on the QuickBooks Project record if they need to stay current there.

What Readybuild has never synced​

For reference, Readybuild has always pushed a limited set of information to QuickBooks for a project: the project title, description, the project's site address, the customer's billing address, and the parent customer link. The following is not synced in either direction:

  • Project stage and status
  • Start date, end date, and due date
  • Custom fields
  • Project budget and cost code details (these sync as separate transaction records like estimates, bills, and invoices)
  • Opportunity or sales pipeline data
  • Attachments and photos

Gotchas​

1. The conversion cannot be undone in QuickBooks​

Per Intuit, converting a sub-customer to a Project is a one-way change. If you need to revert, you'll have to unlink the project in Readybuild, recreate the sub-customer manually in QuickBooks, and re-link the records through Entity Linking.

2. Project title and site address updates no longer take effect in QuickBooks​

After conversion, renaming the project or updating its site address in Readybuild won't update the QuickBooks Project record. Make those edits directly in QuickBooks when needed — the QuickBooks Project record can be edited there at any time, and those edits will sync back into Readybuild.

3. QuickBooks Project fields are not managed by Readybuild​

QuickBooks Projects include a Start Date, End Date, and Status (In Progress, Completed, Canceled). Readybuild does not set or update any of these. You'll need to maintain them in QuickBooks manually if your accounting reports rely on them.

4. The parent customer must remain intact​

The sync requires the parent customer to stay linked. If the parent customer is deleted or unlinked in QuickBooks, subsequent updates to the project will fail.

Deciding Whether to Convert​

Convert to a QuickBooks Project if you want to use QuickBooks's native Project profitability reports and you're comfortable managing Project-specific details (dates, status, renaming) directly in QuickBooks going forward.

Stay on sub-customers if you want Readybuild to remain the source of truth for project details and continue pushing updates automatically.