Best Inventory Software That Integrates With QuickBooks (2024)

Zoho takes our top spot because it is incredibly easy to use, offers a free version, and supports a two-way sync with QuickBooks Online.

Zoho Inventory software shines at keeping track of large inventories that may be distributed among many warehouses, as well as keeping tabs on older or perishable inventory. Users can also group and bundle items based on certain attributes (making them easier to market to specific customer demographics), manage stock transfers between warehouses, print shipping labels, pack and send off items, and manage vendors and purchase orders. Integrations are available for post-shipment tracking and ecommerce.

Zoho’s drawbacks include certain missing features such as item return management, rental management, Bill of Material (BOM) functions, pick lists, and bin ID support.

Integrating Zoho with QuickBooks allows users of the latter to access all sales and purchases in Zoho Inventory. This is a two-way connection, so you’ll also be able to share existing accounts and contacts between the two software and export transactions and have the corresponding contacts automatically updated in QuickBooks. The same information-sharing function applies to inventory counts and invoices (for which you can enable a multicurrency option). You can also coordinate data for tax mapping and stock transfers or movements, import contact information from QuickBooks into Zoho, and export invoices and credit notes from Zoho to QuickBooks.

Finally, QuickBooks can also integrate with Zoho’s Timesheet feature for employee management; you can use this to monitor employee login and logout and manage payroll.

• Robust and feature-rich inventory management: Monitor inventory across multiple warehouses; create custom bundles and kits; track expiration dates and perishables; manage vendors.
• Multicurrency handling: Create transactions and manage payments with more than one currency, get automatic exchange rate updating, and view reports that summarize all transactions by contact.
• Numerous integrations: Integrates with Shopify, Etsy, eBay, and Amazon for ecommerce. You can connect with multiple Shopify stores (depending on your subscription), as well as other tools for marketing, CRM, and shipping.

Zoho is available with both monthly and annual pricing plans. The monthly costs are:

• Free: $0
  • Multicurrency
  • Ecommerce integrations
• Standard: $79 (annual $59)
  • Additional warehouses and users
• Professional: $129 (annual $99)
  • Vendor portal
  • Serial number tracking
• Premium: $199 (annual $159)
  • Batch tracking
• Elite: $299 (annual $239)
  • Advanced multicurrency
• Ultimate: $399 (annual $329)
  • Analytics and custom reports

Katana Manufacturing ERP software was designed specifically for manufacturing companies. With Katana, production and scheduling are visible on one platform and updated in real time. This lets you make data-driven decisions as well as ensure that inventory levels remain optimal at all times, avoiding both overstock and shortages. You can keep track of materials along the entire manufacturing process, including items that might be expiring and those in different warehouses.

However, Katana does have a few drawbacks—the lack of a free plan, limited users, limited support, and the higher fees required for its mobile Shop Floor app.

Keeping track of manufacturing processes is complex given all the moving parts: production schedules, materials tracking, expiration dates, purchase orders, stock transfers, and more.

Syncing Katana with QuickBooks Online will help greatly with simplifying these processes, letting you automate data transfers between the accounting and manufacturing software.

With the QuickBooks integration through Katana, you can:

• Sync inventory balances between the two systems
• Convert purchase orders from Katana into bills in QuickBooks Online with a single click
• Sync customer and vendor contact information.

• All-level control of production, scheduling, and manufacturing: Keep a close eye on high-level concerns such as inventory, materials availability, and cost calculations; as well as floor-level tasks like task scheduling and time tracking.
• Granular purchase order tracking: Log supplier names, expected arrival dates, delivery locations, tax percentages, and even payment currencies. You can also automate the purchasing process.
• Custom workflows via Katana API: Use the software’s API to create make-to-order workflows and other automations that simplify and streamline your operations.

• Essential
  • Monthly: $129 per month
  • Annual: $99 per month
  • Up to 500 shipped sales
  • Integrations and API
• Advanced
  • Monthly: $349 per month
  • Annual: $299 per month
  • Up to 5,000 shipped sales
  • Unlimited warehouses
  • Expiration date tracking
  • Shop Floor app
• Professional
  • Monthly: $999 per month (First year discounted to $799 per month)
  • Annual: $799 per month (First year discounted to $599 per month)
  • Up to 25,000 shipped sales
  • Early access to new features
  • Dedicated customer success manager

Odoo takes a top spot for inventory management integrations because it is quick and simple to obtain (being an open source software), offers a ton of useful features right from the start, and is free for both inventory management and invoicing functions.

With Odoo’s free default inventory management module, you’ll be able to replenish stock via automatic quote requests to suppliers. You can set these automatic requests to go out whenever your inventory levels get low, or based on sales forecasting, or other logistics rules—it’s up to you. Odoo also has a double-entry inventory system, letting you keep a more accurate record of when and where every item moves, leading to greater accountability and fewer errors—which means more efficient transactions and happier employees and customers.

Odoo’s open source nature can be a curse as well as a blessing, however; you’ll have to do all the installation and troubleshooting yourself, as customer support is quite limited. You’ll have access to extensive online documentation to help you, though.

QuickBooks and Odoo integrate in a two-way sync, meaning you can import and export data between the two systems: purchase orders, inventory, payment and expenses, and data on customers, vendors, and employees. Odoo’s automatic stock replenishment and purchase order capability mesh well with QuickBooks, as accounting becomes more efficient when stock depletion and renewal are more predictable.

Odoo’s double-entry inventory system, in particular, works well with QuickBooks, as the former is designed specifically for greater accuracy and fewer errors when tracking stock movement—which are invaluable for someone doing business accounting.

Just keep in mind that because Odoo is open-source, integration with QuickBooks isn’t very straightforward—you’ll need to use a connector app to link the two, and these third-party apps can cost upwards of $200. Here is one example: Odoo QuickBooks Online Connector PRO by VentorTech.

• Inventory forecasting and automatic vendor request-for-quote (RFQ): You can set Odoo to automatically track your inventory and contact vendors for a price quote when stock levels go below a predetermined level.
• Double-entry inventory management: Greater transparency and accuracy of accounting and inventory movement. Inventory across all store locations is immediately updated.
• Built-in expiration date tracking: Minimizes wasted stock and helps prevent over-ordering, leading to higher efficiency and profits.

Odoo’s inventory module allows you to process receipts, delivery orders, and returns. The software is available on desktop as well as an Android or iOS app.

Odoo is open source software and is highly customizable. The inventory management features are included in the free plan, but you can choose to pay extra fees for plans that give you wider access to additional apps and modules.

• Free plan available (for one app only)
• Standard
  • Monthly: $31.10 per user monthly
  • Annual: $24.90 per user monthly
• Custom
  • Monthly: $46.80 per user monthly
  • Annual: $37.40 per user monthly

Square is a fantastic software system in general—it is our best overall POS system—its inventory management features are easy to use, sufficient for small businesses, and of great quality considering the software is free. Though, its functionality doesn’t match up to that of more robust paid software systems. The free subscription will let you edit product options and create categories and receive low-stock alerts in your inbox. However, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid subscription to unlock advanced inventory features like bulk intake and counts, stock forecasts, and vendor or purchase order management. It is also not as granular or customizable as Lightspeed.

For these reasons, we recommend Square’s inventory management system mainly for users who just need basic features or prefer a free plan. Square Inventory still works well as an integration with QuickBooks if you’re doing accounting for a smaller or new business that doesn’t need complex inventory management. If you need more detail, go with Lightspeed; if you want more flexibility, try Odoo.

Square’s reliable low-stock alerts combine well with a similar feature in QuickBooks. The latter’s real-time inventory tracking also works well with Square’s built-in online store builder, making sure that you have enough product to stock both your online and physical stores.

While third-party apps that integrate Square with QuickBooks exist, the most efficient way to do the integration is to use the free Connect to Square app. Besides giving you access to Square’s tools, including its inventory management, this can also import sales data from Square into QuickBooks. This means that whether you are using QuickBooks and want to connect it to Square or vice versa, the Connect to Square app gets the integration done for you and opens up all the benefits for both accounting and inventory management.

You can see how this process works and get started with the integration using QuickBooks’ guide.

• Automatic low-stock alerts: Square will send low-stock alerts to your inbox when inventory levels fall too low. I have tested these alerts and found them to be consistent, reliable, and persistent (until you turn them off or replenish your stock).
• Easily edit product options and variants: Square’s inventory management interface is generally easy to use, and you can quickly set up multiple product variants and options.
• Inventory reporting tools available: By upgrading to a higher plan, you can avail of several inventory reporting tools such as cost of goods sold, projected profits, inventory sell-through, and more.

Square for Retail

• Free plan available (plus one free card reader)
• Plus: $60 per month, per location
  • Discounted processing fees
  • Advanced inventory management
  • Advanced reporting
  • Vendor management
• Premium: Custom pricing (includes one-on-one onboarding support)

Square for Restaurants

• Free plan available (plus one free card reader)
• Plus: $60 per month, per location
  • Advanced reporting
• Premium: Custom pricing for high-volume sellers (>$250,000 per year)

Lightspeed’s inventory management stands out among many other systems for its level of granularity and numerous features—customizability, native purchase ordering tools, low-stock alerts, work order management, bulk pricing and editing, supplier network, and more.

As with Odoo, built-in purchase orders and low-stock alerts make it much easier to order new items as needed and prevent depleted stock that could grind your business to a halt. An integrated supplier network catalog is available, giving you access to more than 3,000 vendors from which you can choose the best options.

Lightspeed’s weak points include a potentially difficult user interface, as well as a fairly high price point that presents a barrier to very small or new businesses.

Lightspeed is built to handle high inventory and sales volumes. Even if you’re using QuickBooks to do accounting for a large and complex business, Lightspeed will be able to keep up. Lightspeed’s purchase ordering and ability to track and manage inventory in detail also align with similar features in QuickBooks.

Integration with QuickBooks Online will allow for regular syncing between the two software systems, letting you view updated accounting data, payments, quantities, and costs.

For example, you can use Lightspeed POS to pay for an invoice, and this action will automatically be updated and recorded in QuickBooks. Because this integration is a two-way sync, you can also do this in the opposite direction, performing actions in QuickBooks and having them recorded in Lightspeed. Multilocation capability is present as well.

You can use specialized apps to connect QuickBooks Online with Lightspeed; here is one option starting at $30 per month.

• Detailed inventory management: Create and track item categories, serial numbers, stock-keeping units, and product bundles and kits.
• Integrated supplier network catalog: Thousand of choices of vendors with viewable built-in catalogs.
• Returns management: Set and manage vendor returns as needed (automation available).

Lightspeed Retail

• Lean
  • Monthly: $89 per month
  • Annual: $69 per month
• Standard
  • Monthly: $149 per month
  • Annual: $119 per month
• Advanced
  • Monthly: $269 per month
  • Annual: $199 per month

Shopify is mainly known as a best-in-class ecommerce platform—it lets you track and sell items across different marketplaces and social channels. It also offers a POS system and many useful inventory management features, such as inventory tracking counts, order fulfillment, low stock alerts, and multilocation management. You can fulfill orders in-store, online, or curbside, and even manage returns or exchanges for items purchased online.

This is why Shopify is our pick as the best integration for managing inventory when it comes to omnichannel sales. No other software can quite match up when it comes to juggling both in-person buyers and online shoppers, and the software’s flexible inventory management features reflect this. Combine this with QuickBooks’ solid accounting functionality, and you’ll be able to handle even a complex business model with lots of inventory movement and shoppers both online and in your physical store.

That said, many of Shopify’s strongest inventory management features require you to subscribe to higher plans. The process for unlocking full functionality can also get complicated: you’ll need to subscribe to a Shopify ecommerce plan and upgrade to POS Pro.

This integration is a one-way push, sending your ecommerce data from Shopify to QuickBooks for accounting. As with Square, QuickBooks’ real-time inventory tracking also synergizes with Shopify to help you keep track of both online and physical store inventory; in fact, this is even more suitable for Shopify given how well this system works for ecommerce.

Both QuickBooks and Shopify also let you connect with popular apps such as Amazon to stay on top of your inventory and boost omnichannel sales.

• Omnichannel selling: The software’s centralized inventory management lets you manage items, transactions, and deliveries for just about any combination of in-store and online purchasing.
• Strong multilocation functionality: All of Shopify’s ecommerce plans let you manage inventory for up to 1,000 locations.
• Stocky app: Once you have Shopify POS Pro, you can take things further with the Stocky app. Stocky gives you rich vendor management features, including purchase orders, get product recommendations to increase profits, count stock on hand and adjust as necessary, and take advantage of stock analytics and in-depth reporting.

You’ll need to subscribe to a Shopify plan in order to use Shopify’s POS system and inventory functions. Here is the pricing for Shopify’s ecommerce plans:

• Shopify Basic
  • Monthly: $39 per month
  • Annual: $29 per month
• Shopify Advanced
  • Monthly: $399 per month
  • Annual: $299 per month
• Shopify Plus (for high-volume businesses): From $2,000 per month

Once you’ve subscribed, you can upgrade the POS from Lite to Pro for an additional monthly fee. If you then use the Stocky app with POS Pro, you’ll be at the highest level in terms of inventory management options.

• Shopify POS Pro
  • Monthly: $89 per month, per location
  • Annual: $79 per month, per location (billed yearly)

MarketMan is a heavy-duty inventory and vendor management app designed for just about any size or type of restaurant. This software always has a high place in our list of restaurant inventory management software due to its vendor management and information storage, ingredient-level inventory that gets updated in real time, tracking and logging for both food production and waste, multilocation tools, and much more.

The only real downsides of MarketMan are that it’s designed specifically for restaurants, so other business types might not find it as useful; and it’s not cheap, with no free plan available either. Though, you can be sure that you’re getting your money’s worth with this software.

Integration between QuickBooks and MarketMan is one-way; you’ll be importing data from MarketMan into QuickBooks. This includes transactions and even invoicing—with MarketMan, you can first upload a copy (or even a photo) of your business invoices, and the software will automatically update your inventory counts without any further action from you.

Then you can import the data in QuickBooks, ensuring accurate and timely logging of payments, expenses, and other crucial data. The integration performs this down to the line item level, saving you lots of time and headaches while doing accounting.

This level of granularity makes accounting much more efficient and less prone to user error that could result in unbalanced books. The more your invoicing and inventory changes are automated and updated in real time, the more accurate your overall bookkeeping will be.

• Ingredient-level inventory breakdowns: Menu items can be viewed and counted by ingredients, portions, recipes, and images. Allergen tracking is also available. All information can be accessed on any connected device.
• Easy and automatic updates of invoices and accounts payable: Automatic updating of items, quantities, and payments—all from a single uploaded invoice copy or photo.
• Automated, granular vendor management: Automatic purchasing orders with adjustable limits, budgets, and other criteria.

MarketMan inventory management software comes in three available plans. You can request a demo via the MarketMan website, but no long-term free plan is available. Note that monthly plans will be charged an additional one-time $500 setup fee. Annual plans may also be available

• Operator: $179 per month, per location
  • Inventory counting and transfers
  • Accounts payable management
  • 20 invoice scans per month
• Professional: $249 per month, per location
  • Vendor management automation
  • Inventory waste tracking
  • Advanced reporting
  • 100 invoice scans per month
• Ultimate: $399 per month, per location
  • Additional vendor integrations
  • 300 invoice scans per month