Track Shopify Tips in QuickBooks Online

'How to' Tips
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Overview

Shopify’s native tipping feature allows merchants to collect tips at checkout — from both the online web storefront and Shopify POS. When a tip is collected, Shopify records the amount alongside the order’s product and shipping lines.

weintegrate can set those tips directly to a dedicated income account in QuickBooks Online. When Track Tips in QuickBooks Online is enabled, weintegrate adds a single tip line to the Sales Receipt — backed by a QBO Service Item you choose — every time an order includes a tip. The tip line carries will be set as not taxable consistent with how Shopify treats tips (always non-taxable).

Why It Matters

Without this mapping, Shopify tip line items have no dedicated place within QuickBooks Online (QBO) — they either fall through to a catch-all income account or create spurious item records that clutter your QBO Items list. Enabling this setting gives you:

  • Accurate income classification — tips are income you receive on behalf of your staff or as a business supplement, distinct from product or service revenue. A dedicated account keeps them out of your product sales totals.
  • Clean reconciliation — the tip line on the Sales Receipt matches the tip portion of your Shopify payout deposit, making bank reconciliation straightforward.
  • Class tracking — optionally assign a QBO Class to every tip line for departmental or location-level reporting.
  • POS and web parity — tips collected via Shopify POS and tips collected via web checkout both flow through the same mapping; no separate configuration needed.

Before You Begin

Before enabling this setting, create a QBO Service Item to represent tip revenue:

  1. In QuickBooks Online, go to Lists → Products and Services → New → Service.
  2. Name it something descriptive, for example Tips.
  3. Set its Income Account to the account where you want tip revenue to land (typically a dedicated income account, for example Tips Received).
  4. Save the item.

weintegrate’s Tips Account dropdown is populated from your QBO Service Items. The income account backing that item is where the tip amount will be posted.

Configuration

Step 1 — Open the Sales & Deposits tab

  1. In weintegrate, navigate to your Shopify connection settings.
  2. Click the Sales & Deposits tab.
  3. Scroll to the Sales section.

Step 2 — Enable Track Tips in QuickBooks Online

Toggle Track Tips in QuickBooks Online on.

When this toggle is off (the default), weintegrate ignores tip line items entirely — no tip line appears on the Sales Receipt, and the tip amount is not routed anywhere in QBO.

Step 3 — Select a Tips Account

Once the toggle is on, the Tips Account dropdown appears. Select the QBO Service Item you created in the Before You Begin step.

The Tips Account field expects a QBO Service Item. The income account backing that item is where weintegrate will post the tip amount on every Sales Receipt that includes a tip.

Orange background fields in the Sales & Deposits tab pull data from your QuickBooks Online account. The Tips Account dropdown is one of these — it will be empty until you create a Service Item in QBO for tip revenue.

Class

Step 4 — (Optional) Assign a Class to the Tip Line Item

If you track income by department, location, or project using QBO Classes, enable Assign Class to Tip Line Item.

When this sub-toggle is on, a Tip Class dropdown appears. Select the QBO Class you want weintegrate to apply to every tip line on your Sales Receipts.

Step 5 — Save

  1. Review your selections
  2. Click Save or Next (depending on whether you’re in the setup wizard or editing an existing connection)
  3. Your tips mapping will be applied to all future transactions

What Happens After Configuration

Once saved, weintegrate applies the tip mapping to every incoming order that includes a tip. On the resulting QuickBooks Online Sales Receipt, a tip line appears after the shipping line and before any discount line. The line is labelled Tip, carries the full tip amount collected on the order, is always non-taxable, and posts to the income account backing the Service Item you selected. If you enabled class assignment, the QBO Class is applied to that line as well.

Orders with no tip are unaffected — no placeholder or zero-amount line is added.

When a tip is part of a refund, weintegrate applies the same account mapping on the Refund Receipt and Credit Memo. Tips from both web checkout and Shopify POS flow through the same mapping with no difference in behaviour.

Changes to this setting take effect on the next order processed — previously synced orders are not retroactively updated.

Troubleshooting

The Tips Account dropdown is empty.
The dropdown pulls Service Items from your connected QuickBooks Online account. If it is empty, no Service Items exist in QBO yet. Go to QuickBooks Online → Lists → Products and Services, create a new Service item backed by an income account, then return to weintegrate and refresh the dropdown.

A tip order was synced but no tip line appeared on the Sales Receipt.
Check that the Track Tips in QuickBooks Online toggle is on and that a Tips Account is selected and saved. If the toggle is on but no item is selected, weintegrate skips the tip line. Save the configuration with a Tips Account chosen and re-sync the order.

The tip amount on the Sales Receipt does not match what I see in Shopify.
weintegrate uses the order-level tip total reported by Shopify, which is the authoritative figure across all tip line items on the order. If there is still a discrepancy, confirm that the order in Shopify shows the same tip total you expect — partial refunds of the tip on the Shopify side will reduce that total.

Class is not appearing on the tip line in QBO.
Confirm that Assign Class to Tip Line Item is toggled on and that a class is selected in the Tip Class dropdown. Both must be saved for the class to be applied.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if a customer leaves a tip on a Shopify POS order?
POS tips and web checkout tips are treated identically. Both flow through the same mapping — no separate POS configuration is needed.

What if an order has no tip?
weintegrate checks the order’s tip total before adding the line. If the tip is zero or absent, no tip line is added to the Sales Receipt / Invoice — there is no placeholder or zero-amount line.

Do tip refunds appear on Refund Receipts / Credit Memo?
Yes. weintegrate applies the same tip account mapping on Refund Receipts and Credit Memos when a tip amount is part of the refund.

Can I use the same QBO Service Item I use for other income lines?
Technically yes, but it is not recommended. Using a dedicated Service Item for tips gives you a separate income account in QBO, which makes reporting and reconciliation cleaner. If tips share an item with, for example, shipping income, their amounts will be combined in that account.

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