Quickbooks MCP Server

QuickBooks MCP Server

An MCP server for QuickBooks Online — built for bookkeepers, CFOs, and accountants who use AI assistants in their daily workflow.

Ask your AI assistant to pull a P&L report, create a journal entry, or investigate an account balance — using plain language, not API payloads.

Why This Server?

Intuit provides an official MCP server that's a solid starting point for developers exploring the QuickBooks API. This server takes a different approach: it's designed for financial professionals working in production books.

Use natural language, not internal IDs

Intuit's server requires QuickBooks internal IDs for every reference — you need to look up a vendor's ID before creating a bill. This server resolves names automatically:

"Create a bill for PG&E, $450 to Utilities, dated 2025-01-15"
→ Vendor, account, and department names are resolved automatically

Financial reports built in

This is the only QuickBooks MCP server with report tools. Pull a P&L, Balance Sheet, or Trial Balance — broken down by month, department, or class — without leaving your AI conversation.

Safe by default

Every create and edit operation defaults to draft/preview mode. You see exactly what will be written to your books before committing. No accidental journal entries or misclassified expenses.

One query tool instead of dozens

Instead of separate search tools for each entity type, a single SQL-like query tool works across all QuickBooks entities. AI assistants write SQL naturally, and QuickBooks validates it — no field whitelists to maintain.

"SELECT * FROM Purchase WHERE TxnDate >= '2025-01-01' AND TxnDate <= '2025-01-31'"

Production-ready credential management

Store credentials locally for personal use, or in AWS Secrets Manager for shared environments. OAuth tokens refresh automatically and persist across sessions.

At a glance

Prerequisites

• QuickBooks Developer Account: Register at developer.intuit.com
• Node.js 18+

Installation Options

Choose the setup that fits your use case:

---

Option 1: NPM Install

The simplest way to get started. Credentials are stored locally on your machine.

1. Create a QuickBooks App

1. Go to developer.intuit.com and sign in
2. Create a new app (or select an existing one)
3. Go to "Keys & credentials"
4. Note your Client ID and Client Secret
5. Under "Redirect URIs", add: https://developer.intuit.com/v2/OAuth2Playground/RedirectUrl

2. Add to Claude Code

Add to your project's .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "quickbooks": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "quickbooks-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

3. Configure Credentials

Create ~/.quickbooks-mcp/credentials.json:

{
  "client_id": "your_client_id",
  "client_secret": "your_client_secret"
}

4. Authenticate

Once Claude Code is running, use the qbo_authenticate tool:

1. Call qbo_authenticate with no arguments to get an authorization URL
2. Open the URL in your browser and authorize the app
3. Copy the code and realmId from the redirect URL
4. Call qbo_authenticate again with the authorization code and realm ID

Your OAuth tokens will be saved and automatically refreshed.

---

Option 2: Local Checkout

For development or customization.

1. Create a QuickBooks App

Follow the same steps as Option 1 above.

2. Clone and Build

git clone https://github.com/laf-rge/quickbooks-mcp.git
cd quickbooks-mcp
npm install
npm run build

3. Add to Claude Code

Add to your project's .mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "quickbooks": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/quickbooks-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

4. Configure Credentials

Create ~/.quickbooks-mcp/credentials.json with your client credentials (same as Option 1), then run qbo_authenticate to complete the OAuth flow.

---

Option 3: AWS Mode

For shared or production environments. Stores credentials in AWS Secrets Manager.

1. Create AWS Resources

Create the secret in Secrets Manager:

aws secretsmanager create-secret \
  --name prod/qbo \
  --secret-string '{
    "client_id": "your_client_id",
    "client_secret": "your_client_secret",
    "access_token": "your_access_token",
    "refresh_token": "your_refresh_token",
    "redirect_url": "https://developer.intuit.com/v2/OAuth2Playground/RedirectUrl"
  }'

Store Company ID in SSM Parameter Store:

aws ssm put-parameter \
  --name /prod/qbo/company_id \
  --value "your_company_id" \
  --type SecureString

2. Configure the Server

Create a .env file in the quickbooks-mcp directory:

QBO_CREDENTIAL_MODE=aws
AWS_REGION=us-east-2
QBO_SECRET_NAME=prod/qbo
QBO_COMPANY_ID_PARAM=/prod/qbo/company_id

Note: Due to a known Claude Code bug, environment variables from .mcp.json are not reliably passed to MCP servers. The .env file workaround is required.

3. Add to Claude Code

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "quickbooks": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/path/to/quickbooks-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

4. IAM Permissions

The server needs these AWS permissions:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": [
        "secretsmanager:GetSecretValue",
        "secretsmanager:PutSecretValue"
      ],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:secretsmanager:*:*:secret:prod/qbo*"
    },
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": ["ssm:GetParameter"],
      "Resource": "arn:aws:ssm:*:*:parameter/prod/qbo/*"
    }
  ]
}

---

Inline Output Mode

By default, large responses (reports, query results) are written to /tmp files and the server returns a file path. This works well for Claude Code in terminal environments but breaks in Claude Desktop and plugin environments where the model cannot read from /tmp.

Set QBO_INLINE_OUTPUT=true to return all responses inline instead.

Option A — via .env file (recommended for local checkout):

Create a .env file in the quickbooks-mcp directory:

QBO_INLINE_OUTPUT=true

Option B — via .mcp.json env block (recommended for NPM install):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "quickbooks": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "quickbooks-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "QBO_CREDENTIAL_MODE": "local",
        "QBO_INLINE_OUTPUT": "true"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note: Due to a known Claude Code bug, environment variables from .mcp.json are not reliably passed to MCP servers in some configurations. If Option B doesn't work, use the .env file workaround.

---

Environment Variables

---

Available Tools

Naming Vendors, Customers, and Employees

Every write tool that can attribute a line or a header to a name list accepts a name and resolves it to an ID, the same way account_name and department_name do. Which parameter you get depends on what QuickBooks will actually store there:

Each also has an _id form (entity_id, customer_id) if you already know the internal ID. On edit tools, the rule for line parameters is:

• omit the parameter and a line addressed by line_id keeps the entity it already has;
• name one and it is set or replaced;
• pass an empty string (entity_name: "") and it is cleared.

See docs/quickbooks-api-limitations.md for the underlying QBO field shapes, which are not uniform.

Parameter Names Are Enforced

Arguments are checked against the schema each tool advertises, before anything runs. An unknown parameter is an error that names the closest valid one, a missing required parameter is an error, and an edit_* call with no field to change is an error rather than a write that reports success.

The alternative is silence. A handler reads the parameters it knows about, so a misspelled one is simply absent: a create call that puts the date under the wrong key posts on today's date, an as-of report asked for a date range returns today's balances, and an edit whose fields are all misspelled comes back "updated successfully" having changed nothing. None of those raise anything for the caller to notice.

Relatedly, when QuickBooks accepts an update without advancing the record's SyncToken — meaning the payload matched what was already stored — the edit tools report no change instead of success.

---

Token Refresh

The server automatically refreshes OAuth tokens on each request and persists them back to your credential store (local file or AWS Secrets Manager).

---

Development

npm run dev      # Run in development mode
npm run build    # Build
npm run typecheck # Type check
npm test         # Run the test suite

Tests live in tests/, mirroring src/. They are TypeScript, compiled by tsconfig.test.json into dist-test/ and run by Node's built-in test runner — no test framework dependency. Type errors in a test are build failures, so a test referencing a renamed export fails loudly rather than silently skipping. Anything needing a QuickBooks client passes a hand-written stand-in covering just the calls under test, so the suite runs offline with no credentials.

---

Troubleshooting

"QuickBooks credentials not configured"

Run the qbo_authenticate tool to set up OAuth credentials (local mode only).

"Authorization code expired"

Authorization codes are only valid for a few minutes. Start the OAuth flow again.

Token refresh fails

• Check that your refresh token hasn't expired (~100 days)
• Verify your client credentials are correct
• Try re-authenticating with qbo_authenticate

AWS credential errors

• Ensure .env file has QBO_CREDENTIAL_MODE=aws
• Check your AWS credentials and permissions
• Verify the secret and parameter names match your configuration