QuickBooks MCP: connect QuickBooks to Claude or ChatGPT

An MCP server is a small program that offers an AI assistant a set of tools, such as "list overdue invoices" or "create a customer". The assistant decides when to use a tool based on what you ask, calls it, and answers from what comes back.

The protocol is the same whichever assistant you use. A server built for MCP can work with Claude, ChatGPT and other assistants that support it, though each has its own way of adding one. In Claude they are called connectors. In ChatGPT they appear as apps and plugins.

Developer servers. These wrap the QuickBooks Online API and offer a tool for most of what the API can do: customers, invoices, bills, payments, accounts and reports. You will find several on GitHub and in MCP directories. They typically run on your own computer, and you set them up with credentials from a QuickBooks developer account. They suit someone comfortable with a terminal who wants broad access, and many can write as well as read.

Hosted connectors. These run on the provider's servers and are built around one job. You add them to your assistant, sign in, and approve access, with nothing to install. They offer fewer tools, chosen for that job, and the provider decides what the assistant may change.

Xero has the same split. Xero publishes its own MCP server on GitHub, which runs locally with Node.js and Xero developer credentials and can create invoices, contacts and payments as well as read them. For more on connecting Xero, see our page on ChatGPT with Xero and QuickBooks.

Use these questions on any server, hosted or local.

1. Can it write? List the tools and look for ones that create, update or delete. A chat that can create invoices can create the wrong one.
2. Is there an approval step? If it can act, does anything wait for a person before it reaches a customer or your ledger?
3. Whose credentials does it use? A local server holds your API keys on your computer. A hosted connector holds a sign-in token on its servers. Either way, know where they are and how to revoke them.
4. What does the assistant's provider receive? Data the assistant reads is handled by its provider under that provider's terms. Check those against your company's rules.
5. How do you disconnect? You should be able to remove it from the assistant's settings and revoke access in QuickBooks.

A developer server, in outline:

1. Create an app in the QuickBooks developer portal and note the client ID and secret.
2. Install the server by following its README, usually with Node.js or Python.
3. Add it to your assistant's configuration with those credentials, then authorize it against your QuickBooks company.
4. Start with a sandbox company until you trust what each tool does.

A hosted connector:

1. In Claude, open Settings, then Connectors, and find the connector, or add a custom connector with the address the provider gives you. In ChatGPT, open Plugins and search for it.
2. Sign in to the provider and press Allow.
3. Ask a question to check it works.

Once your books are connected, the useful questions are the ones you would otherwise answer with a report and your inbox side by side.

• Who owes me money, and how late is each invoice?
• Which customers have more than one overdue invoice?
• Why hasn't [Customer] paid? What did they last say?
• Who has promised to pay this week, and did last week's promises arrive?

A developer server can answer the first two from the ledger. The last two need the conversation with each customer, which lives in your inbox rather than in QuickBooks. That is the gap a connector built for collections fills. Our guide to an AI collections agent explains what to automate and what to keep with a person.