Design Flex to QuickBooks. No code. No retyping.
KitchenAPI reads every line item from your Design Flex XML export — cabinets, appliances, countertops, premiums, upcharges, finished sides, pricing groups, vendor codes — and converts them into a QuickBooks-ready file in about 30 seconds.
Note: not your .kit project file — KitchenAPI reads the XML export you run from inside Design Flex.
What we read from your XML
Design Flex exports are rich, structured documents. KitchenAPI understands every element — not just the obvious ones.
BOM structures
Design Flex's bill-of-materials format includes both individual items and their parent-child relationships. A kitchen island includes its base cabinets, doors, hardware, and countertop as nested components. KitchenAPI preserves this hierarchy and translates it into QuickBooks line items appropriately — maintaining the logical groupings that make your invoices readable for customers and your team alike.
Catalog references
Design Flex designs reference specific catalog items by SKU and manufacturer. A Shaker door in maple from Brand X has a unique identifier in the Design Flex catalog system. KitchenAPI uses your QuickBooks Item List crosswalk to translate these catalog-specific identifiers to your QB item names — so "KCB-SHK-MPL-36" in Design Flex becomes "36in Shaker Maple Base" in your QuickBooks, exactly as you've set it up.
Pricing tiers and groups
Design Flex supports nested pricing groups, designer pricing, list pricing, and custom premium tiers. If you've configured a "builder tier" that's 15% below retail, or a "preferred customer" rate that adjusts cabinet lines but not countertops, all of it carries through unchanged to your final QB output. KitchenAPI never modifies your prices — it preserves them exactly as specified in the design.
Customer information
Customer name, address, phone, email, and project details from the Design Flex export populate the corresponding QuickBooks invoice fields. No need to manually create the customer record first — the data from your design becomes the data in your accounting system. Project name becomes the invoice memo. Site address flows to the shipping address field.
Designer attribution via TimeTracker
The Design Flex TimeTracker field — which records who created the design and how long they worked on it — is preserved as a designer attribution field. This means you can run reports in QuickBooks on "quotes by designer" or "revenue by designer" without maintaining a separate tracking system. Attribution flows through automatically with every conversion.
Vendor part numbers
When your dealer-side items are sourced from specific manufacturers, vendor SKUs are preserved in the line item description. This means when it's time to reorder materials, your purchasing team can look at the QuickBooks line item and immediately identify the correct manufacturer part number — no cross-referencing back to the original design required.
Finished sides flags
Design Flex marks which sides of cabinets need to be finished — left side, right side, both, or none. This critical installation detail flows to QuickBooks as line item notes so your install team knows exactly what was specified in the design. No more calling the designer to ask "did they want that island finished on both sides?"
Premium and upcharge handling
Design Flex's "premium" mechanism — where glass doors add 20% to the door price, soft-close hinges add $8 per door, or a custom paint finish adds 35% — carries through to QuickBooks as separate line items with descriptive labels. Your customer sees exactly what they're paying for. Your accounting matches the design quote line-by-line.
What we output
Three output paths, one source. All mapped from the same Design Flex XML.
QuickBooks Desktop (IIF)
!HDR PROD VER REL IIFVER DATE HDR KitchenAPI 1.0 1 1 5/15/2026 !TRNS TRNSID TRNSTYPE DATE ACCNT NAME TRNS INVOICE 5/15/2026 Accounts Receivable Smith Kitchen !SPL SPLID TRNSTYPE DATE ACCNT NAME AMOUNT SPL INVOICE 5/15/2026 Sales Smith Kitchen -1240.00 SPL INVOICE 5/15/2026 Sales Smith Kitchen -890.00
Native IIF format. Import via File > Utilities > Import > IIF Files.
QuickBooks Online (CSV)
InvoiceNo,Customer,Item,Description,Qty,Rate,Amount 1001,Smith Kitchen,Base36-CH,Base Cabinet 36" Cherry,1,1240.00,1240.00 1001,Smith Kitchen,Wall30-OAK,Wall Cabinet 30" Oak,1,890.00,890.00 1001,Smith Kitchen,CT-GRAN,Granite Countertop L-Shape,1,2100.00,2100.00 1001,Smith Kitchen,HW-PULL,Brass Pulls (x12),12,18.50,222.00
QBO-compatible CSV. Map columns once, future imports remember.
QuickBooks Online (Direct API Push)
POST /v1/company/123/estimate
{
"CustomerRef": "Smith Kitchen",
"Line": [
{ "Amount": 1240.00,
"Description": "Base Cabinet 36" Cherry",
"ItemRef": "Base36-CH" },
{ "Amount": 890.00,
"Description": "Wall Cabinet 30" Oak",
"ItemRef": "Wall30-OAK" }
]
}Estimates and invoices post straight into QuickBooks Online. No file download or import step.
Edge cases we handle
Real-world Design Flex exports are messy. We've seen it all and built for it.
- Multi-vendor designs (different manufacturers in the same quote)
- Custom (non-catalog) items entered manually in Design Flex
- Designer notes preserved in line item descriptions
- Pricing group inheritance from parent items
- Multiple tax handling for QB Desktop, tax-free pass-through for QBO
- Discount lines correctly applied as negative amounts
- Long descriptions truncated to QuickBooks field limits without data loss
- Special characters in customer names and descriptions properly escaped
What about 2020 Design Live?
2020 Design Live compatibility is being validated with early customers — contact us with a sample export and we'll confirm yours works.
Real-world tested
Validated against $1M+ in real Design Flex exports during platform development. Every edge case we found in production data is covered by our test suite. We know your designs work.
What QuickBooks versions are supported
QuickBooks Desktop Pro / Premier / Enterprise
2018 and newer. Native IIF import via File > Utilities > Import.
QuickBooks Online
All subscription tiers (Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, Advanced). Direct API push available today (CSV export also available for third-party tools).
QuickBooks for Mac
Not currently planned.
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