MCP servers / QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks MCP server setup for Claude, ChatGPT and Copilot
Intuit publishes an open-source QuickBooks Online MCP server with more than a hundred tools. It runs on one person's laptop, needs a registered developer app, a browser OAuth handshake and a production review that takes one to three weeks. For a company, the questions are different: who can ask it to post, from where, and who can see what it did.
What the official route requires
- Register an app on the Intuit Developer Portal; there are no per-user API keys.
- Complete the OAuth handshake against a sandbox, then apply for production keys with a security questionnaire.
- Run the server locally beside the assistant, one machine at a time.
- Grant scopes carefully: the guides warn never to let an assistant post transactions unsupervised.
Where it falls short for a company
- Local servers mean one user, one laptop, no shared log.
- Write access is a scope, not a policy: there is no approver between the assistant and the ledger.
- Each assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot) is set up separately.
What we set up
- One hosted MCP server for your QuickBooks, with the Intuit app review handled by us.
- Tools per your permissions: read invoices and bills, list payouts, create a bill, post a journal, update a customer.
- Named approvers on writes, thresholds you set, and an append-only log of every call.
- Listed in your assistants' connector settings; runbook agents use the same server.
Questions we get
Can it write to QuickBooks?
Yes, under your approvals. Read-only is the default until you switch a write tool on.
What about Xero or NetSuite?
Same design, different system. If it has an API, we can run it.
How long until it is live?
About a week for the server; Intuit's production review can add one to three weeks, which we start on day one.
Tell us which systems you run and we will scope the server on the first call.