Pencel

Appearance

QuickBooks Online (Beta) ​

Connect your QuickBooks Online company and Pencel can answer questions from your live books and draft expenses for you to approve. It powers the QuickBooks Accountant Room.

Beta

QuickBooks support is in beta. If connecting fails, contact us through pencel.ai.

What Pencel can do with it ​

  • Summarize a month. "How did we do last month, and what were our biggest expenses?"
  • Chase what you're owed. "Which invoices are overdue, and by how much?"
  • Check your cash. "How much cash came in and went out this quarter?"
  • Log an expense. "Log $240 for the Staples order on the company card." Pencel drafts it with your real accounts and vendors, and posts it only after you approve.

What it can read: your company details, accounts, customers, vendors, invoices, bills, payments, estimates and purchase orders, plus reports such as profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, general ledger, and aged receivables and payables.

The only changes it can make: log an expense, create a vendor (so a new payee's expense can be logged) and attach a receipt note to an expense. It can't change or delete anything else in your books.

Connect it ​

  1. Install QuickBooks Accountant from Team. See QuickBooks Accountant.
  2. Go to Settings ▸ Connections ▸ Recommended, find QuickBooks Online and click Install.
  3. Your browser opens on Intuit. Sign in, choose the company to connect, and allow access.
  4. Back in Pencel, the QuickBooks Online card reads Installed.

If a room shows an expense card with Choose QuickBooks for this room, click it, pick your QuickBooks account and click Add to room.

What needs your approval ​

Every change asks, every time. There is no Always Allow for QuickBooks, in a room or anywhere else.

  • Expenses. The card says Internal candidate only · nothing has been imported to QuickBooks. Check the amount, vendor and account, click Import to QuickBooks, then Approve & import.
  • New vendors. Pencel asks before adding a vendor with Create vendor. No expense is posted by that step. In a room that takes expenses by email, the vendor is added when you approve the expense instead (see below).
  • Receipt notes. Pencel asks before attaching one.

If a card says the outcome is unknown, click Check status rather than importing again.

Log expenses by email ​

Once your accounting room is set up, you can forward a receipt to it instead of typing the expense in.

  1. Open the room, click its name, and go to Schedule. Under Expenses by email, pick the Gmail account you connected, keep the suggested tag or change it, and click Save. Pencel shows the address to forward to, such as you+books@gmail.com.
  2. Click Work the queue just above the room's message box and confirm in the small card, then switch on Expenses by email.
  3. Forward a receipt from that Gmail account to the address. Add a note on top if it helps, for example "Amex, client dinner".

Pencel replies in the same email thread:

  • If something is missing, it asks. Reply with the answers, one per line.
  • If the vendor isn't in QuickBooks yet, it asks whether to add it. Reply yes and the entry shows the vendor as new: replying post adds the vendor to QuickBooks, then logs the expense. Reply no to log the expense without a vendor.
  • When the entry is ready, it shows the vendor, amount, date, category, the account it was paid from and a reference number. Reply post to log it in QuickBooks, or tell it what to change. Plain approvals such as "yes", "approved" or "go ahead, thanks" count too. "Looks good" on its own does not: Pencel asks you to reply post.
  • Above your approval cap (500 dollars unless you change it), or for an amount that is not in US dollars, the email includes a six-digit code. Reply post followed by that code.
  • Once the expense is in QuickBooks, it confirms with the QuickBooks reference and a link that opens the expense.

You can also reply skip to leave a forward out, or not a duplicate when Pencel thinks it may already be in your books.

If something goes wrong, the email says what to reply:

  • retry when Pencel could not finish reading a receipt, was interrupted because the app was closed, or could not post the expense.
  • check when it sent the expense but could not confirm QuickBooks saved it. Pencel looks in QuickBooks for the reference. If it is there, it confirms. If it is still not there after a few minutes, Pencel tells you nothing was posted and you can reply retry. It never sends the same expense twice on its own.
  • If QuickBooks needs to be reconnected, the email says so. Reconnect it in Settings, then Connections, and reply retry.

Good to know:

  • Forwarding works alongside the room finding receipts in your inbox on its own. The same receipt is never logged twice: if the receipt number matches one the room already has, Pencel keeps one. If only the amount, date and vendor match, or the expense is already in QuickBooks, it asks you first. Reply not a duplicate to log it anyway, or skip.
  • Pencel reads only mail sent to that address, from your own Gmail account or from people you've added (see below). From anyone else it notes just the sender and subject, so you can see it under Not taken in, and never opens the message. Pencel never reads your other mail.
  • You can forward a photo of a paper receipt (JPEG or PNG; most phone photos work). Pencel reads it and the entry email says it was read from your photo, so check the amount and date before you reply post. Photos are read on Pencel credits or with your own Anthropic API key (Settings, then API keys). If a photo can't be read, the email says why and asks you to type the details instead.
  • A photo attached to a reply is not read; replies are taken as answers.
  • It works while Pencel is open and your computer is awake. Forwards wait in Gmail until then.
  • Every posting still asks you first. Replying post is the same approval as clicking Approve & import in the app, and only counts for the exact entry shown in that email.

Let others send receipts ​

A bookkeeper, a partner or a teammate can send receipts to the same address. You choose who, and what they can do.

  1. Open the room, click its name, and go to Schedule. Under Expenses by email, find Who can send receipts.
  2. Type their email address and pick a role:
    • Sends receipts: they forward receipts and answer questions about the ones they sent. The entry to approve comes to you.
    • Can approve: they can also reply post to log an expense, not a duplicate, and retry. The entry to approve goes to them.
  3. Click Invite. Pencel emails them from your Gmail account. They reply confirm to accept, and their row changes from Invited to Active. An invitation expires after 7 days; click Resend to send a fresh one.

Once they're active, they forward receipts to the address the same way you do. Pencel answers them in the same email thread: questions about their receipt go to them, and so does the "Logged in QuickBooks" email.

Good to know:

  • If something only you can fix comes up, such as QuickBooks needing to be reconnected, Pencel emails you and tells them it's waiting on you.
  • Changing someone's role, or clicking Remove, takes effect right away. Anything Pencel was about to send them is cancelled, and an approval email they already have no longer counts. Invite again sends a removed person a new invitation.
  • Mail from anyone not on the list is never answered. It shows under Not taken in with the reason, and you can click Invite there.
  • Pencel only accepts mail that Gmail can confirm really came from that address. If someone shows under Not taken in with "Gmail could not verify the sender", whoever runs their email needs to set up email authentication (SPF and DKIM) for their domain.
  • If someone's emails never show up at all, look in your Gmail Spam folder. Open their email, click Not spam, then use Filter messages like these and choose Never send it to Spam.
  • You can add up to 20 people.

Good to know ​

  • Your books stay on your computer. Pencel reads your data straight from Intuit. Pencel's servers only help you sign in and keep that sign-in fresh. Your financial data never passes through them, and the AI model sees only what a task needs.
  • It learns your habits. After you approve an expense, Pencel remembers which account that payee goes to.
  • It's an organizing aid. It isn't accounting or tax advice. Check anything important with your accountant.
  • Needs sign-in? If Intuit ends the sign-in, the connection shows Needs sign-in. Click Sign in on the Recommended tab or Re-authorize on the Installed tab.

Disconnect or change what it can do ​

Go to Settings ▸ Connections ▸ Installed and open the ⋮ menu on the QuickBooks Online card.

  • Manage Tools: switch off anything you don't want Pencel to use, such as logging expenses. Click Save changes.
  • Disconnect: pause the connection. Click Connect to sign in again.
  • Remove: delete the connection and its saved sign-in from Pencel.

To also withdraw access on Intuit's side, remove Pencel from the connected apps in your Intuit account.