When your invoices are also in Stripe, QuickBooks or Xero, every change here has to reach those copies — and every payment, refund or edit made there has to come back. Finance → Sync shows what's copied between them and AspirePro, and anything that needs a person to decide. On the QuickBooks and Xero pages, View sync activity in the ⋯ menu opens it.
The Sync page appears in the Finance menu once one of those systems is connected (and stays while anything is still waiting or unresolved). Anyone with Finance access can see it; people who manage Finance can act on it.
The Sync page#
- One card per connected system — Last worked, New payments show up (how soon), Payments checked (QuickBooks and Xero: when payments were last checked), Waiting before overdue (when there are any), Waiting to go through and Needs a decision.
- Needs a decision — where the other system and AspirePro disagree and AspirePro won't guess which is right. Each one says what happened, why it matters and what your choices are. Every item can always be closed with a note, even when you fixed it yourself in the other system.
- Waiting to go through — changes made in AspirePro that are on their way to a system that can't take them right now (a cancellation, a payment to record). Each shows its status — Waiting its turn, Going through now, Trying again later or Waiting for a reconnect — and says what it is and where, for example Record payment in QuickBooks, Replace recurring invoice in Xero or Update amount owed in Stripe. They're tried again after a growing delay, wait quietly while a system is disconnected, and go the moment it's reconnected. Try again now sends one straight away; Cancel change stops one that hasn't started (AspirePro and the other system may then disagree until someone fixes it there by hand).
- Recent activity — everything copied to or brought in from each system, newest first, filterable by system. The log keeps 90 days.
A banner on the invoices list tells you when something is waiting for a decision, and finance managers get a notification.
How soon payments show up#
- Stripe — right away, from Stripe's webhook (once the webhook signing secret is saved on the Stripe page; without it, overnight).
- QuickBooks — right away once QuickBooks' notifications reach AspirePro; otherwise within 15 minutes. Its card's New payments show up says Right away only after a notification has actually been acted on this week (otherwise Within 15 minutes).
- Xero — within 15 minutes. Xero doesn't send payment notifications, so AspirePro checks.
AspirePro checks QuickBooks and Xero every 15 minutes only while an invoice there is still unpaid, so a quiet organization costs nothing; with nothing unpaid, changes (a payment edited or deleted there, say) come in overnight. Every check picks up from where the last good one ended, so nothing is missed after an outage.
The nightly overdue check looks for new payments first, and leaves an invoice as it is while its QuickBooks or Xero copy hasn't been heard from for an hour — including while the connection needs reconnecting — so an invoice paid there yesterday isn't called late today. It waits at most three days; the system's card shows how many invoices are Waiting before overdue.
When a system is unreachable#
Nothing you do in AspirePro waits on Stripe, QuickBooks or Xero being up. The change is made here straight away and waits under Waiting to go through until the other system can take it. It never goes to a different account than the one it was meant for.
Cancelling an invoice that has outside copies#
Voiding an invoice cancels it here at once, and the cancellation waits to go through to every outside copy. The invoice shows a notice while that happens:
- The work it billed — time, charges and expenses — is held until every outside copy confirms it's cancelled, so it can't be billed again while a copy the client could still pay exists.
- If a copy was already paid in the other system, you're asked on the Sync page whether to keep the invoice (re-open it and apply the payment) or record the money some other way.
- Money that arrives for a cancelled invoice is held too, never quietly applied.
- Release the work now hands the work back early when you've dealt with the other copies yourself. You give a reason, and it's on the audit trail.
One account per system#
Each organization is linked to one Stripe account, one QuickBooks company and one Xero account. Every invoice, payment and client link remembers which account it belongs to.
Connecting a different account on top of linked records is refused, because it would mix two sets of books — the page says "That's a different … so it wasn't connected." To switch, use the card on that integration's page (Linked Stripe account, Linked QuickBooks company or Linked Xero account), which lists what's linked there: disconnect, choose Unlink these records (the old account's links are set aside, not deleted), then connect the new one. Reconnecting the same account later brings its links back.
Records linked before AspirePro noted which account they came from ask Which … are these from? before you connect: choose Keep them for the … I'll connect if they belong to the one you're about to connect, or unlink them if they came from a different one.
Stripe and QuickBooks together#
With both connected, one receipt is one payment and one invoice is one invoice, whichever system reports it first:
- A payment QuickBooks reports for money Stripe collected is matched to Stripe's payment, never recorded twice. If it can't be matched with confidence it waits, and after a week it becomes a question on the Sync page.
- A new QuickBooks invoice with the same number and total as one you already have is linked to it. Anything else that looks like a duplicate goes to review on Finance → Invoices — link, import as new or leave it out — and your choice sticks.
- Under Stripe and QuickBooks together on the Sync page, say who adds Stripe invoices to QuickBooks: AspirePro (the option reads AspirePro copies your invoices to QuickBooks), or Stripe's own QuickBooks connector does it. With the connector, AspirePro won't copy invoices that went through Stripe to QuickBooks, so they aren't in QuickBooks twice.
With QuickBooks as the books and Stripe taking cards, AspirePro records each Stripe payment against the QuickBooks invoice for you, and takes refunds back off it — unless Stripe's connector does that. See Pay now.