How does AP automation work with BuildOps?

AP automation works with BuildOps through MakersHub's direct BuildOps integration: open purchase orders, jobs, projects, departments, suppliers and items are pulled from BuildOps by API.

Each incoming supplier invoice is read line by line and matched to the BuildOps PO lines it bills; and on approval MakersHub marks the PO fulfilled, writes the receipt and the bill into BuildOps, and BuildOps' own accounting sync carries the bill to QuickBooks Online. The accounting team never re-keys a bill into BuildOps, and the project manager approves from email or phone.

BuildOps is the field service and project platform used by commercial HVAC, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and refrigeration contractors. In BuildOps a cost reaches a job through a purchase order: the PO is created, received against, and the receipt becomes the bill that syncs to accounting. MakersHub sits in front of that chain and does the capture, matching, approval and payment work.

When this applies

You run a commercial trades business on BuildOps with QuickBooks Online behind it. Technicians and PMs buy material by phone or at the counter and the PO is written after the fact so the invoice can be entered. Supplier statements arrive as sixteen-page PDFs holding ten invoices. Someone in the office opens each one, finds or creates the PO in BuildOps, types the vendor document number on the receipt, posts it, exports it to QuickBooks, and then emails three PMs to ask whether the charges are right.

The fractional CFO for a commercial HVAC and mechanical contractor on BuildOps and QuickBooks Online, processing 1,000 to 2,000 vendor invoices a month, described the purchase pattern:

"A lot of times we're just calling up and saying, I need 400 feet of pipe. Can you send this? And then we don't necessarily have a PO for it. But then we got to put a PO in the system."

The owner of an electrical contractor that moved to BuildOps in 2026, on pricing:

"There's no real check for that today. All the purchasing in the field is done without pricing knowledge."

How the PO-to-bill flow works in BuildOps on its own

BuildOps requires a purchase order behind every job cost: a PO carries a department and an item on each line, is received against, and the receipt posts the bill, which is then exported to QuickBooks through BuildOps' accounting sync. The item on the PO line drives the QuickBooks item and therefore the GL account; the department maps to the QuickBooks Class. BuildOps tracks committed cost by job and project well.

It does not read a supplier PDF, compare billed price to PO price, split a multi-invoice statement, route the bill to a PM for approval, or track whether the vendor has been paid; those steps are done by hand or in email.

The result at most BuildOps shops is a two-screen workflow: the invoice in one window, BuildOps in the other, and QuickBooks after that. MakersHub collapses it to one review, with the PO, the bill and the difference between them on one screen.

How MakersHub automates AP for a BuildOps contractor

1. BuildOps and QuickBooks connect as two entities under one MakersHub account. The BuildOps entity holds POs, jobs, projects, departments, suppliers and items pulled by API with a one-time set of BuildOps API credentials. The QuickBooks Online entity holds the chart of accounts, Classes and the vendor list. Keeping them separate avoids the name and ID conflicts that come from pointing two integrations at one company, and lets overhead bills skip BuildOps entirely.
2. Every bill lands in one inbox and is pre-sorted. Suppliers email the MakersHub address or the AP inbox auto-forwards. A 68-page supplier statement is split into 62 individual bills and credits. An Integration Mapping rule assigns each bill to the BuildOps entity (job-cost vendors) or the QuickBooks entity (rent, utilities, software, insurance) from the vendor, so the reviewer sees the bill already in the right place.
3. Lines are matched to open BuildOps POs. MakersHub's extraction model, WiseVision, reads SKU, description, quantity, unit price and the PO number on the bill, then shows the open BuildOps POs for that vendor and pairs bill lines to PO lines. One bill can draw on several POs and one PO can be billed across several invoices; matched lines are fulfilled at the line level and the PO stays open until it is fully billed. Coding, meaning job or project, department and item, is copied from the PO line.
4. Price and quantity differences stop the bill. A PO line at $25.00 billed at $32.75 is highlighted. The reviewer either accepts the invoice price, so the bill carries actual cost while the BuildOps PO keeps the committed cost, or overwrites the bill with the PO price in one click and disputes the balance with the supplier. The PO itself is not edited, which preserves the committed-versus-actual record on every job.
5. The PM approves from the field. Approval rules route on job, project, department, PO number, vendor or amount, so a bill for a given project reaches that project's PM by email and is approved from a phone. Bill approval is separate from payment authorization: the PM confirms the bill is real and correctly coded; the controller or owner decides when the money leaves. How rules stack and escalate is covered on the approval-routing page linked below.
6. On final approval MakersHub writes back to BuildOps. The matched PO is marked fulfilled, an item receipt is created and closed, and a bill is created in BuildOps against that PO with the supplier's invoice number in BuildOps' Vendor Document Number field. The write happens once, at final approval, so BuildOps never sees a half-approved bill.
7. BuildOps posts the bill to QuickBooks, and MakersHub picks it up for payment. BuildOps' accounting sync sends the bill to QuickBooks Online with the item, Class and Customer:Job from the PO. MakersHub imports that QuickBooks bill into the QuickBooks entity, where it is paid by ACH, check or e-check from the contractor's bank account, with the payment record written back to QuickBooks. Vendor balances and paid status live in MakersHub and QuickBooks, which BuildOps does not track.
8. Job bills with no PO still cost the job. When a technician buys material without a PO, the PM assigns the BuildOps job and item in MakersHub during approval; on approval MakersHub creates the PO in BuildOps, fulfills it and closes it, so the cost reaches the job in BuildOps and the bill reaches QuickBooks by the same path. Overhead bills never touch BuildOps; they post straight from the QuickBooks entity.

System specifics

Department and item. BuildOps requires a department on every PO and an item on every PO line, and the item is what sets the QuickBooks account. A bill matched to a PO inherits both, so the accounting team does not code job-cost lines by hand. Department maps to the QuickBooks Class used for service versus construction.

Committed cost stays intact. Because the PO line is never overwritten with the billed price, a report of PO price against invoice price by job, vendor or PM is available for the first time at most shops.

Proof

A commercial HVAC and mechanical contractor on BuildOps and QuickBooks Online, 1,000 to 2,000 vendor invoices a month across about 100 vendors, ran AP in MakersHub for several months before the direct BuildOps integration was switched on, re-keying approved bills into BuildOps in the interim. Roughly 90 percent of its POs had been written after the fact so the bill could be entered.

Shown the live integration, where a PM's approval fulfilled two POs, created the receipt and bill in BuildOps, and landed the bill in QuickBooks, the fractional CFO: "We're ready to turn this thing on, basically." On the payment side, which the firm had already been using:

"I love MakersHub on the payment side. It's so easy to get payments out the door and get people paid. Once you've had electricity, you can't go back."

An electrical contractor that adopted BuildOps in mid-2026 and turned on POs two months later, about 50 bills a month with most material from a few wholesalers, saw a 16-page supplier statement split into its ten invoices and matched against three open POs in one review:

"This is great. I know exactly what you're talking about. This is how all of our invoices come in, 16 pages, and there's like 10 invoices in there."

A commercial refrigeration contractor on BuildOps, with no inventory and every purchase a job cost, described its AP as

"too many manual emails and folders and tracking people down for the BuildOps piece,"

with an AP specialist matching each invoice to open POs by hand and stalling on lines with no PO or no receipt.

What it doesn't do

MakersHub writes bills, receipts and PO fulfillment to BuildOps; vendor credits, payments and bill attachments live in MakersHub and QuickBooks today rather than in BuildOps, and payment runs from the QuickBooks entity.

Three-way matching against a separately recorded BuildOps item receipt is not yet part of the flow; the receipt is created by MakersHub at approval. BuildOps issues the API credentials, so the connection starts with a request to BuildOps support that MakersHub templates for you. And the PO line price in BuildOps is left as committed; if you would rather the PO be updated to the billed price, that is an option, with the trade-off that the variance record is lost.

Frequently asked questions