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Setting Up Expense Sync with QuickBooks Online in LeanLaw

How to configure expense sync between LeanLaw and QuickBooks Online — including hard cost and soft cost account setup, vendor name inclusion, attachment sync, and how synced expenses appear in LeanLaw.

LeanLaw handles two types of client expenses: soft costs (created directly in LeanLaw) and hard costs (vendor bills and expenses entered in QuickBooks Online). Expense sync allows hard costs from QuickBooks Online to automatically appear in LeanLaw for billing. This article covers the full expense sync configuration.

 

Understanding the Two Expense Types

Type

Created In

Soft costs (LeanLaw expenses)

LeanLaw

Hard costs (QBO expenses)

QuickBooks Online

 

💡 Best practice: Use separate QuickBooks Online accounts for hard costs and soft costs. This keeps your general ledger clean and makes it easier to track reimbursable client costs separately from operational expenses.

 

Configuring Expense Sync

Navigate to Settings → QuickBooks → Edit Expense Settings. The Expense Configuration wizard walks you through two sections — one for hard costs (QuickBooks Online expenses) and one for soft costs (LeanLaw expenses).

 

Hard Cost (QuickBooks Online Expense) Configuration

  1. Select or create the QuickBooks Online account to use for hard costs (e.g., 'Advanced Client Costs').
  2. Select or create a Product/Service item to use for hard cost line items on invoices.
  3. Set the sync start date — how far back to import existing QuickBooks Online expenses. Start far enough back to capture unbilled items but not so far that you import already-billed expenses.
  4. Optionally enable 'Include vendor/payee names in descriptions' — adds the vendor name to the beginning of the expense description.
  5. If you're a Pro subscriber, optionally enable 'Sync attachments from QuickBooks to LeanLaw' — pulls expense receipt attachments into LeanLaw.
  6. Click Next.

 

Soft Cost (LeanLaw Expense) Configuration

  1. Select or create the QuickBooks Online account for soft costs. You can use the same account as hard costs or a separate one.
  2. Select or create a Product/Service item for soft cost line items.
  3. Click Done.

 

How Synced Hard Costs Appear in LeanLaw

Once configured, QuickBooks Online bills and expenses assigned to client cost accounts appear automatically in LeanLaw's Expenses tab. LeanLaw watches the configured Advanced Client Costs account and pulls in any expenses assigned to it.

Synced hard costs are identifiable by the green QuickBooks Online logo on the left of the expense in LeanLaw. From there they can be assigned to a client and matter (if not already assigned in QuickBooks Online) and billed through the normal billing workflow.

 

📋 Assigning expenses to clients in QuickBooks Online:   Assigning a QuickBooks Online expense to a specific client (in QuickBooks Online) requires a QuickBooks subscription that supports customer-level expense assignment (Essentials or Plus). If your QuickBooks Online plan doesn't support this, you can assign the client from LeanLaw after the expense syncs.

 

Expense Pipeline: How Hard Costs Flow to Invoices

Once a hard cost syncs to LeanLaw:

  1. It appears in the Expenses tab in LeanLaw with the green QuickBooks Online logo.
  2. Assign it to a client and matter if not already assigned.
  3. It appears in the Ready to Bill queue for that matter.
  4. Stage it into a draft invoice — it becomes an expense line item.
  5. Submit the invoice to QuickBooks Online. The expense line item appears in QuickBooks Online, cancelling out the original outgoing expense in the Advanced Client Costs account. This reflects that the cost has been billed and is now the client's obligation, not the firm's.