QuickBooks for Stone Shops: Setup Guide + Integrations

QuickBooks for Stone Shops: Setup Guide + Integrations

Eighty percent of stone shops in North America keep their books in QuickBooks. The other twenty percent are either on Xero, an older industry-specific ERP, or a spreadsheet held together with duct tape. This guide is for the eighty percent, with a working setup that does not require an accountant on retainer.

QuickBooks is not built for stone fabrication. It is built for small business accounting. The trick is configuring it so that the stone-shop reality (slab inventory, fabrication labor, edge profile add-ons, install crews, financing customers) maps cleanly onto QuickBooks' general ledger structure without creating a reporting nightmare at year end.

This article lives in the Stone Shop Tech Stack & Integrations cluster under the Complete Guide to Countertop Fabrication. For the full picture of how QuickBooks fits with Slabwise, CompanyCam, Wisetack, and the rest of the stack, the hub is the right next read.

Which QuickBooks Version Stone Shops Actually Need

There are three relevant versions in 2026:

• QuickBooks Online (QBO) Plus. $99 per month, up to five users. The default answer for most shops under $5M in revenue.
• QBO Advanced. $235 per month, 25 users. Worth it for shops above $5M or shops with multiple locations.
• QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise. Stronger inventory tools, better for shops doing serious slab inventory inside QuickBooks itself. Pricing starts around $1,800 per year per user. Being sunset by Intuit on a long timeline, so new installs should pause and consider.

The honest answer for most shops: QBO Plus is enough. The slab inventory belongs in Slabwise or Moraware, not in QuickBooks. QuickBooks is for money, not material.

The Chart Of Accounts That Actually Works

Most shops set up QuickBooks with the generic small-business chart of accounts. That leads to garbage reports six months in. Here is a working stone-shop chart, simplified:

Income accounts:

• Slab Sales, Granite
• Slab Sales, Quartz
• Slab Sales, Quartzite
• Slab Sales, Marble
• Slab Sales, Porcelain
• Slab Sales, Other
• Edge Profile Upgrades
• Cutout Fees (sinks, cooktops, faucets)
• Installation Services
• Repair and Service Revenue
• Remnant Sales

Cost of Goods Sold (COGS):

• Slab Cost
• Fabrication Materials (blades, polish, glue, silicone)
• Subcontracted Labor
• Direct Labor, Templating
• Direct Labor, Fabrication
• Direct Labor, Installation
• Delivery and Crane Costs

Operating Expenses:

• Shop Rent
• Equipment Lease (CNC, saw, polisher, forklift)
• Utilities
• Software Subscriptions (broken out: Slabwise, QBO, CompanyCam, etc.)
• Insurance
• Marketing and Advertising
• Office Salaries and Owner Comp

The point of the split between material types is gross margin reporting. A shop that cannot tell you whether quartz or quartzite is more profitable per square foot is flying blind. The chart above produces that report by default.

Item And Service Setup

QuickBooks uses "items" for everything that lands on an invoice. Stone shops should build items by category, not by SKU. Trying to put every slab into QuickBooks as a unique item is a path to madness.

Working setup:

• Slab Material, Quartz Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3. Three tiers covers most price ranges. Use $/sqft pricing.
• Slab Material, Granite Tier 1, 2, 3. Same.
• Slab Material, Quartzite Tier 1, 2, 3. Same.
• Edge Profile, Standard. Included in base price.
• Edge Profile, Upgrade A (eased, beveled). $5 to $8/lf.
• Edge Profile, Upgrade B (ogee, double ogee, dupont). $10 to $18/lf.
• Sink Cutout, Undermount. Flat fee.
• Sink Cutout, Farmhouse Apron. Flat fee.
• Cooktop Cutout. Flat fee.
• Installation, Standard. Per project or per square foot.
• Templating Service. Flat fee or per square foot.

The detailed slab tracking lives in Slabwise. QuickBooks just sees the revenue category and the cost.

The Slabwise To QuickBooks Integration

When a job closes in Slabwise, the invoice can flow to QuickBooks via the connected integration. The data that moves:

• Customer record (creates new customer in QuickBooks if not present).
• Invoice line items mapped to QuickBooks items.
• Payment terms and due date.
• Sales tax (calculated by QuickBooks based on the address).

The data that stays in Slabwise:

• Slab bundle numbers and specific slab assignments.
• Templating files and CNC programs.
• Photo trail and install documentation.
• Internal job stages and crew assignments.

This is the right division of labor. QuickBooks does not need to know which specific slab went to which customer. It needs to know that the customer was invoiced $7,400, of which $5,200 was quartz revenue and $2,200 was installation.

Common QuickBooks Setup Mistakes In Stone Shops

Five mistakes that show up in shop after shop:

Tracking inventory inside QuickBooks. Stone shops that try to put every slab into QuickBooks as inventory end up with broken counts, frustrated bookkeepers, and inventory write-offs at year end. Slabs belong in slab inventory software. QuickBooks tracks the dollar value, not the physical pieces.

Lumping all revenue into one "Countertop Sales" account. Hides the gross margin differences between materials. Fix this in the chart of accounts before the year-end report makes it obvious.

Not separating direct labor by function. Templating, fabrication, and installation have different fully-loaded labor costs and different efficiency metrics. Mixing them into one bucket destroys job costing.

Using class tracking poorly. Class tracking in QuickBooks is powerful for shops with multiple locations or multiple revenue streams. Most single-location shops do not need it. Multi-location shops should use it from day one.

Skipping sales tax automation. Stone shops sell across multiple tax jurisdictions, especially for installs. The QuickBooks Online sales tax engine handles this if configured. The desktop version is weaker, which is one reason most shops have migrated.

The Integrations That Pay Off

QuickBooks Online has thousands of integrations. The ones that matter for stone shops:

• Slabwise (or Moraware). Job-to-invoice flow. The most important integration.
• CompanyCam. Photos linked to QuickBooks customer records via the Premium plan integration.
• Wisetack or Sunbit. Customer financing offers and payment receipt logged as deposits in QuickBooks.
• Gusto or ADP. Payroll integration. Direct labor flows to the right COGS accounts.
• Bill.com. AP automation for shops paying more than 30 vendors a month.
• Square or Stripe. Credit card processing receipts.
• Google Sheets via Zapier or Make. Custom reports the QuickBooks default reports do not give you.

The wrong move is connecting every possible integration on day one. Start with Slabwise, payroll, and the payment processor. Add others as the shop scales.

Job Costing That Actually Works

The point of QuickBooks for a stone shop is not bookkeeping. It is job costing. Without per-job profitability, the shop is guessing on pricing and giving away margin without knowing it.

The working setup:

• Every job gets a unique reference in Slabwise and a matching customer record in QuickBooks.
• Labor hours from time tracking (see Best Time Tracking Software for Stone Shop Labor) get coded to the job.
• Slab cost gets pulled from Slabwise.
• Edge profile and consumables get coded to the job at standard cost.
• Revenue and COGS for the job hit the same QuickBooks customer record.
• Quarterly review pulls the per-job profitability report.

Shops that run this discipline find that 15 to 25 percent of jobs are barely breakeven or losing money. The other 75 to 85 percent are subsidizing them. Once you know which jobs are which, you can stop taking the losers and double down on the winners.

Where Stone Shops Outgrow QuickBooks

Three signals that the shop has outgrown QBO:

• Revenue above $10M. The reporting capabilities get strained. NetSuite, Sage Intacct, or stone-specific ERP starts to make sense.
• Multi-location with consolidated reporting needs. QBO Advanced can do it but the friction gets real.
• Inventory complexity beyond what Slabwise plus QBO can handle. Shops doing serious slab brokering or wholesale slab distribution outgrow the simple integration pattern.

Most fabrication shops never hit these thresholds. QuickBooks Online plus Slabwise is the long-term answer for shops up to $10M and frequently beyond.

Related Reading

• The Complete Stone Shop Tech Stack: From Quote to Install
• Best CRM for Countertop Shops in 2026 (7 Options Compared)
• Best Time Tracking Software for Stone Shop Labor
• Stone Fabrication Software: A Buyer's Checklist

FAQ

Should a small stone shop start with QuickBooks Online or Desktop? Online. Desktop is being phased out and the integrations are weaker. Start on QBO Plus and upgrade to Advanced if revenue gets above $5M.

Does Slabwise integrate directly with QuickBooks? Yes. The integration handles customer creation, invoice line items, and payment recording. Slab inventory stays in Slabwise.

Can QuickBooks handle slab inventory? Technically yes, practically no. The QuickBooks inventory module was not designed for slab tracking by bundle and bin location. Use a stone-specific tool for the physical inventory and use QuickBooks for the dollar value.

What is the right monthly close routine for a stone shop? Reconcile bank accounts in week one of the next month. Code any uncategorized transactions. Run a P&L by material category. Review per-job profitability for any job above $20K closed in the prior month. Lock the period.

Do I need a stone-shop bookkeeper or will any bookkeeper do? Any competent QuickBooks bookkeeper can run the books once the chart of accounts is set up right. The shop-specific knowledge matters more for setup than for ongoing operations.

What is the right sales tax setup for stone shops? Enable QuickBooks Online's automated sales tax engine and let it use the install address for jurisdiction. Stone shops doing work across multiple counties or states must do this. Manual sales tax tracking is where most audit problems come from.

Can QuickBooks track payroll for the shop? Yes via QuickBooks Payroll, or via Gusto or ADP with the integration. Gusto integration is the most common choice for shops with under 50 employees.

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Stone fabrication generates respirable crystalline silica dust. Shops must follow OSHA 29 CFR 1926.1153 standards, which set a permissible exposure limit of 50 μg/m³ over an 8-hour shift. Wet-cutting methods, ventilation, and respiratory protection are not optional.