QuickBooks Online Route Optimization with SuiteFleet

1. Start with the QuickBooks Online order

Open the source order SO-2086 for Oak & Pine Home Goods and inspect its delivery destination, line quantities, and configured SuiteFleet relationship. The example contains two lines with quantities 4 and 6 in the units shown.

Confirm the US company has Sales Orders enabled in a supported plan and that its products are inventory items. Review the customer, shipping address, quantities, and readiness before releasing a shipment allocation. Use the QuickBooks Online sales-order workflow for the selected company and subscription.

Intuit’s current help documents sales orders in QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced. This UI capability does not prove that every connector or public Accounting API exposes the same sales-order operations. Validate read, update, shipping, and attachment support before promising automated round-trip sync; use an explicit connector-side shipment allocation when needed. Intuit: create and manage sales orders.

2. Configure the planning mapping

Preserve this relationship before exporting delivery work:

Use a confirmed receiving date and a custom delivery window. Do not route against the invoice due date or mistake a customer’s billing address for the stop address.

3. Select eligible stops and available drivers

Open Workbench for the intended date and filters. Inspect task, driver, and hub layers; resolve tasks without a location before optimization. Use geographic selection to choose the intended area, then confirm the selected task set contains only released work.

Choose Plan & Optimize when assigning eligible tasks across drivers, or Optimize Existing Routes when retaining assignments and improving stop sequence. Review enabled drivers, shift windows, departure hubs, and the displayed task-capacity limits. Do not assume those limits represent weight or volume.

Intuit’s current help documents sales orders in QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced. This UI capability does not prove that every connector or public Accounting API exposes the same sales-order operations. Validate read, update, shipping, and attachment support before promising automated round-trip sync; use an explicit connector-side shipment allocation when needed.

4. Review objectives, constraints, and results

Choose the supported objective: Fastest Completion, Shortest Distance, Fewest Vehicles, or Balanced Workload. Review Respect Time Windows, Reassign Assigned Tasks, and Time Per Stop before running the preview. Select the objective that matches the dispatch plan and confirm which routing constraints are enabled.

Inspect the returned driver assignments, stop sequence, projected completion, and every unassigned task. Check stop times against driver shifts as well as customer windows; confirm that the proposed schedule is feasible. Missing locations and conflicting requirements need explicit resolution.

Review the Dallas–Fort Worth planning example, with distances in miles and local receiving times. Dispatchers should check stop sequence, road access, and unresolved work before applying a plan.

5. Execute the route and process actual outcomes

Keep assignment and planned arrival separate from customer delivery. Monitor failed, rescheduled, and completed stops during execution. A route application must not post inventory, close an order, or trigger billing by itself.

Keep a connector-side allocation for each partial shipment. Converting an order to an invoice and recording a payment are accounting steps; neither establishes that all products were handed to the recipient.

After a stop completes, match its task ID to the source shipment, review required proof, and reconcile accepted quantities. Record actual event time and a separate sync outcome. If the source changes after planning, compare the change with the dispatched allocation before overwriting operational data.

6. Verify the result in QuickBooks Online

Where supported, reconcile the shipment against the sales order’s Mark as shipped workflow. Store customer-receipt evidence in a supported field, attachment, or connector record with a link back to the order. Do not mark the order Paid or create a payment because a driver completed a delivery. Intuit: create and manage sales orders.

Read back the linked record and review every outstanding allocation before marking the full order delivered. Test partial shipment, partial acceptance, failed delivery, duplicate completion, and delayed writeback. Keep inventory posting, receipt evidence, and payment reconciliation under their respective configured rules.