Integrate CRM with QuickBooks or Xero

20 June 2025

In this blog, we explore why integrating your CRM with financial tools like Xero or QuickBooks is not just helpful, it’s essential for modern consultancies. We’ll show why your consultancy needs this integration and why Flight CRM is the ideal solution.

In today’s data-driven world, consultancies cannot afford to work in silos. Financial information is critical for business decision-making, but financial data alone does not tell the whole story.

That’s why integrating your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system with financial tools like Xero or QuickBooks is more than a technical upgrade; it’s a strategic move that provides over-arching visibility into your operations.

Let’s explore why this integration is essential, how it empowers consultancies to make evidence-based decisions, and why Flight CRM offers the most agile, future-proof, and cost-effective solution for achieving this.

The role of financial packages like Xero and QuickBooks

Xero and QuickBooks are two of the most popular cloud-based financial platforms used by consultancies today. Known for their ease of use, they help businesses manage core financial activities such as cash flow, profit and loss, balance sheets, and management reporting.

These insights are fundamental to the successful operation of a business. But while they answer the “What”, they often fall short on the “Why” or “How”. For example:

• Why is a particular project unprofitable?
• How is consultant time being used?
• Which types of clients generate the most value?

Why CRM integration matters

A CRM system helps you manage relationships with clients, track communications, measure engagement, and monitor the progress of jobs and projects. But when CRM is integrated with financial systems, the value multiplies.

Here’s how:

1. See financial performance by customer, project, or consultant

Instead of just viewing total revenue or monthly profits, a CRM integrated with your financial system allows you to zoom in:

• Which customer contracts are most profitable?
• Are certain consultants consistently working on high-return projects?
• Are specific project types generating better margins?

By linking CRM data to Xero or QuickBooks, you can tag income and expenses to individual jobs or people helping you prioritise what works and refine or retire what doesn’t.

2. Real-time tracking of work-in-progress (WIP)

In many consultancies, especially those managing multiple ongoing contracts, Work in Progress (WIP) is a critical but often underreported figure. A CRM that tracks WIP and syncs with financials enables:

• Real-time job costing: How much has been billed vs. how much is in progress?
• Better cashflow forecasting: What revenue is expected in the next billing cycle?
• Resource reallocation: Should you move staff from low-margin projects to high-impact ones?

3. Time tracking and consultant performance

Time is a consultancy’s most valuable resource. When consultant time is recorded, either in the CRM or in tools like QuickBooks Tim, and linked back to projects, it allows you to:

Compare time spent vs. revenue generated
Understand efficiency and project burn rates
Recognise top-performing team members or identify training needs
This visibility gives you control and confidence to make evidence-based decisions in real time.

Scenario: An Ecological Consultancy in action 

Let’s take the example of an ecological consultancy managing a portfolio of field surveys, impact assessments, and mitigation projects.

They use QuickBooks for their finances and QuickBooks Time to track consultant hours in the field.

Without integration, they might only see:

• How much revenue was generated last quarter
• Which invoices are overdue

But with an integrated CRM, they can answer deeper, more valuable questions:

• Which type of ecological survey (e.g., bat, water vole, botanical) delivers the highest ROI?
• Which clients are consistently late payers or generate low-margin work?
• How much billable time did each consultant spend last month, and on what projects?
• Are there any projects at risk of overrunning budget or scope?

In this scenario, the CRM serves as the operational brain of the business, with the financial software acting as the financial backbone.

Introducing Flight CRM – the ideal integration solution

So how do you achieve this level of business intelligence without custom-coding or piecing together fragmented tools?

Enter Flight CRM, a powerful, highly configurable software platform that seamlessly integrates with both Xero and QuickBooks, offering everything a consultancy needs to link operations with financials.

Here’s why Flight CRM stands out:

1. Seamless integration with financial tools

Flight comes with a fully documented RESTful API and dedicated integration modules that connect directly to many 3rd party applications and websites including Xero, QuickBooks and QuickBooks Time.

This means consultant hours logged in QuickBooks Time can be automatically linked to projects within Flight CRM. In turn, this data can be used to calculate real-time costs, show utilisation rates, and trigger workflows (e.g., sending alerts when a project hits 80% of budget).

Invoices created in Xero or QuickBooks can also be matched with CRM records, giving visibility of financial performance within the same system where your team is managing tasks, relationships, and job progress.

2. Custom CRM built around your workflow

Flight isn’t a one-size-fits-all CRM. It’s a platform of modular components that can be configured to match your specific workflows:

• Track contact details, sales history, and communications
• Use decision trees to automate processes like job approvals or client onboarding
• Create custom outputs (PDFs, CSVs) with your branding and logic
• Visualise data through bespoke dashboards tailored to teams or job types

Want to track performance of surveyors in different ecological regions? Done.

Need a custom workflow for habitat mitigation licensing? No problem.

Flight moulds to your processes, not the other way around.

3. Built for the future (and the real world)

Flight is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), offering scalability, security, and reliability. Each client’s application is deployed with:

• A dedicated server and database
• A UAT (User Acceptance Testing) environment for safely trying updates
• Daily backups and optional point-in-time recovery
• A full Data Protection Impact Assessment with each configuration

Best of all, ongoing enhancements and updates are included at no additional cost. So as your business evolves, your CRM evolves with it, without surprise invoices or development delays.

4. Powerful features that go beyond CRM

Flight includes enterprise-level features you’d expect to find in far more expensive platforms:

• Events module for managing training and workshops
• Portals to allow secure login for clients or suppliers
• Online forms for external data collection
• Calculation engines to process WIP, margins, and other KPIs live

And because these features are modular, they’re only included if you need them, keeping your interface lean and relevant.

Conclusion: Integrated CRM is no longer optional

For consultancies looking to grow profitably, integration between CRM and financial software is essential.

It turns isolated data points into meaningful insight and transforms gut-based decision making into data-backed strategy.

With Flight CRM, your consultancy can:

• Accurately link every hour and invoice to the right project or team member
• Identify which clients and services deliver the most value
• Make real-time adjustments to keep projects on track
• Future-proof your operations with a flexible platform tailored to your unique workflow

Flight CRM is affordable, adaptable, and fully integrated — built for consultancies that want sharper insights, greater control, and better business outcomes.

Contact us