QBO Dashboard  |  Version 0.7.5  |  By Doorways Into Your Business

About This Plugin

The QBO Dashboard is a private, internal WordPress plugin that gives bookkeepers and account managers a single wp-admin surface for running a QuickBooks Online file. It replaces a legacy desktop app and a Coda-based manual entry workflow with a focused interface that writes directly to QBO and optionally mirrors a comment into BluePM for project-level visibility.

It was built for RapidPage’s QuickBooks Online file at billing.diyb.ca, where staff need live views of recurring invoice templates, customer balances, and open invoices — plus the ability to create customers, build invoices, and record payments without leaving wp-admin. Every write is captured in a local audit log so there’s a permanent record of what this dashboard sent to QBO, who sent it, and when.

Features

  • Live Recurring view with problem highlighting for misconfigured invoice templates
  • Live Customers list with an Add Customer form that writes directly to QBO
  • Live Open Invoices table with multi-select payment allocator, per-row PDF download, and Copy Payment Link icons
  • Create Invoice form with per-line Class + Tax Code stamping (required for Canadian HST/GST to calculate correctly in QBO)
  • Record Payment form with allocator that splits a single payment across multiple open invoices; deposits to Undeposited Funds for later bank matching
  • Test Mode on both Create Invoice and Record Payment — full dry-run that exercises the BluePM mirror against a test record without writing anything to QBO
  • Optional BluePM mirror — after a successful QBO write, posts a comment to the corresponding BluePM record with the transaction details and an @mention
  • Local audit log of every invoice and payment created via the dashboard, with customer filter, credit-memo styling, and Created By tracking
  • One-shot Coda Migration tool that imports legacy Manual Payments and Manual Invoices into the local audit tables (already used to migrate 42 payments + 12 invoices)
  • QBO OAuth2 with automatic token refresh — access tokens refresh within 5 minutes of expiry on every API call
  • CSV export mirroring the QBO Outstanding Invoices report
  • In-product help — every page has a ? Help button that opens a modal with purpose, data source, how to use, Test Mode notes, what syncs where, data freshness, troubleshooting, and quirks
  • Help overview page with an index of every page, typical workflows (record a payment / add a recurring customer / create an invoice), glossary, and first-time setup checklist
  • Front-end gate that redirects non-logged-in requests on billing.diyb.ca to wp-login — this is a private admin-only tool, not a public website
  • View Details link on wp-admin → Plugins, powered by the shared DIYB_Plugin_Info class and a WP.org-format readme.txt

What’s New in Version 0.7.x

Front-end gate

Front-end requests on billing.diyb.ca now redirect to wp-login.php with a return URL back into wp-admin. The dashboard is an internal staff tool, not a public website — the front-end gate makes that explicit and removes a confusing experience for anyone who lands at the root URL.

In-product help on every page

Every admin page now has a ? Help button next to its title that opens a modal with full guidance: purpose, where the data comes from, how to use the page, Test Mode notes (where applicable), what syncs where, data freshness, troubleshooting, and quirks. A new Help menu item provides a single-page overview with typical workflows, a glossary (Undeposited Funds, Class, Tax Code, Credit Memo, BluePM mirror, Test Mode, Audit row), and a first-time setup checklist.

View Details on the Plugins page

The plugin row on wp-admin → Plugins now has a working View details link that opens a thickbox with the readme content. WordPress only auto-renders this for plugins it finds on wordpress.org — this plugin uses a shared DIYB_Plugin_Info class that forces the link to appear and parses the local readme.txt into the right shape for the thickbox.

Full Changelog

0.7.x — In-product help on every page; Help overview page with workflows, glossary, and setup checklist; WP.org-format readme.txt; View Details thickbox on wp-admin → Plugins (via shared DIYB_Plugin_Info class); refactor to canonical shared class at _shared/diyb-plugin-info/ alongside five other DIYB plugins; front-end gate that redirects non-logged-in requests to wp-login.

0.6.2 — Create Invoice form: wider panel (1100px), Invoice Date + Due Date now share a row, Class + Tax Code now share a row. Class + Tax are now applied per-line to every line item; QBO requires per-line tax for Canadian HST/GST to calculate reliably.

0.6.x — Class and Tax Code fields added to Create Invoice; payments now deposit to Undeposited Funds (account 5) by default; line-item layout fixed.

0.5.x — Test Mode — dry-run Test Mode toggle on Create Invoice and Record Payment; local audit rows for test runs flagged blue_status=test for easy cleanup.

0.5.x — Coda Migration — one-shot Coda → local audit table migration; 42 payments + 12 invoices imported and attributed to the operating user; idempotent on re-run.

0.5.x — Invoices · Open — multi-select payment allocator; per-row PDF download and Copy Payment Link icons; CSV export mirroring the QBO Outstanding Invoices report; Invoice History page (local audit).

0.4.x — Add Customer — first write path live; new customers go directly to QBO.

0.3.x — Live read views — Recurring, Customers, and Open Invoices pages now query QBO live (no caching). Click-to-sort on every column. Recurring page surfaces configuration problems (missing schedule, zero amount, missing class).

0.2.x — Phase 1 scaffold — pivoted from a Node stub to a WordPress plugin after the decision to host the dashboard at billing.diyb.ca/wp-admin.

About Doorways Into Your Business

Doorways Into Your Business (DIYB) is a digital agency based in Kingsville, Ontario, Canada. We help small businesses and non-profit organizations build and grow their digital presence through WordPress development, custom plugin solutions, API integrations, and business automation.

We specialize in practical, purpose-built tools — like this one — that solve real operational problems for the organizations we work with. The QBO Dashboard is one of several internal tools we maintain for our own bookkeeping and client billing workflows.

Support

This is a private internal plugin and is not distributed via wordpress.org. For support, feature requests, or to report a problem, contact Paul Hughes at paul@madeitin.ca or visit diyb.ca.