Keelway
Broker TMS · Native QuickBooks Online integration

The freight broker TMS that closes the loop with QuickBooks.

The most common back-office failure mode at freight brokerages under 50 brokers: a coordinator closes a load in the TMS, an accounting person opens QuickBooks the next morning, retypes the invoice, and reconciles by hand at month-end. Keelway closes that loop from the TMS side. It runs invoicing, four-bucket AR/AP aging and per-load margin off live load data, then hands QuickBooks Online a QBO-ready invoice and bill export today — with native two-way QBO push on the roadmap. One set of numbers, far less double-entry.

Request accessFull TMS feature set
QBO-ready
Invoice and bill export
QBO supported; native push on the roadmap
4-bucket
AR and AP aging in the TMS
current, 1-30, 31-60, 60+
Per-load
Margin reporting, live
Off live load and settlement data

What syncs with QuickBooks Online

Keelway is the freight broker TMS — load entry, carriers, dispatch, AI carrier-email triage. QuickBooks stays your general ledger. The job of the integration is to keep one set of numbers between them, so the invoices and bills your operators generate all week reconcile to the GL your controller closes at month-end.

Invoices

Shipper invoices, QBO-ready

When a load is invoiced in Keelway, the invoice generates with line-item detail (linehaul, fuel surcharge, accessorials, detention if applicable) and a customer reference that maps to the QBO customer. Today it lands in QuickBooks Online via a QBO-ready export; native push of the invoice object is on the roadmap.
Bills

Carrier pay as a QBO bill

Carrier pay maps to a bill with the carrier as the vendor. Factor company arrangements (NOA flagged, payee redirected to the factor) carry through on the bill. Carrier-pay AP aging surfaces in the Keelway dashboard alongside AR aging.
AR / AP

Four-bucket aging in the TMS

AR aging by customer and carrier-pay AP aging, both in four buckets (current, 1-30, 31-60, 60+), run off live load data inside Keelway. Your controller works the past-due list every morning; the same numbers reconcile to QuickBooks.
Classes

Class and COA mapping

Chart-of-accounts mapping configured once and re-used per line item, plus the dimensions that map to a QuickBooks Class — lane, agent, business line — carried on every load so your class-based P&L survives into QBO.

Class-based P&L: tag every load to a QuickBooks Class

QuickBooks Classes are how a brokerage splits one P&L into many — by lane, by agent, by business line — without running separate company files. Keelway tags every load with the same dimensions: customer, lane, coordinator, equipment type. Per-load and per-broker margin already run live inside the TMS off load and settlement data (see financial reporting). When that detail reaches QuickBooks it carries the class mapping, so the class-based P&L your accountant builds in QBO reconciles to the margin report your operators read in Keelway — same numbers, same buckets. The QBO-ready export carries the class column today; class assignment on native QBO push is on the roadmap.

AR and AP, reconciled once

Carrier AR aging is where money goes to die — invoices sent late, disputes nobody worked, 60+ day balances that become write-offs. Keelway runs four-bucket aging on both the AR and the carrier-pay AP side, inside the TMS, off live load data; the invoicing and AR module is where that lives. Your accountant closes the books in QuickBooks; Keelway hands over a QBO-ready export so the AR and AP your operators work all week reconcile to the GL your controller closes at month-end — one reconciliation, not a parallel set on a spreadsheet. Native QBO push is on the roadmap; the export keeps the two systems aligned today.

The QuickBooks workflow is one corner of the broader freight broker TMS — load entry, carriers, dispatch and AI carrier-email triage live in the same place the invoices come from, which is why the numbers line up in the first place.

Frequently asked questions

How does Keelway's QuickBooks integration work?+
Keelway runs your invoicing, carrier-pay and AR/AP inside the TMS off live load data, then keeps QuickBooks Online aligned. Today that means a QBO-ready export: invoices and bills in QuickBooks-friendly format with line-item detail (linehaul, fuel surcharge, accessorials), customer and vendor columns, and chart-of-accounts mapping — so the books land in QBO without re-keying. Native two-way QBO push (invoices, bills, customer and vendor sync) is on the platform roadmap. We support QuickBooks Online; on-prem QuickBooks Desktop is not in scope.
Does Keelway replace QuickBooks?+
No. Keelway is the freight broker TMS — load entry, carrier records, dispatch, rate confirmations, AI carrier-email triage. QuickBooks remains the general ledger, the source of truth for tax, and the system where you actually close the books. Keelway pushes the broker-specific accounting events (invoices, bills, payments) into QuickBooks so the accountant runs reports the way they always have.
What about factoring? Carrier pay through factor companies?+
Yes. When a carrier uses a factor company (Triumph, Apex, RTS), Keelway routes the carrier pay through the factor's required workflow — sometimes a NOA-flagged bill in QBO with the factor as the payee, sometimes a direct factor integration where the factor publishes an API. The most common factors are wired up; the long tail uses the manual NOA workflow inside QBO. Carrier-pay tracking and AP aging both surface in the Keelway dashboard.
What if we use NetSuite or Sage instead of QuickBooks?+
NetSuite integration is on the roadmap and prioritized by mid-market 3PL pipeline. Sage is not currently on the roadmap. For enterprise tenants that need NetSuite specifically, talk to sales — we have done custom NetSuite integrations on enterprise contracts. SMB and growing mid-market brokerages on QuickBooks are the day-one supported pattern.
Why bundle TMS and accounting integration?+
The number-one back-office failure mode at small and mid-market brokerages is double-entry between the TMS and QuickBooks. Coordinators close a load in the TMS; an accounting person opens QuickBooks and types the invoice. Different people, different timing, different reconciliation work at month-end. Keeping the TMS and QuickBooks aligned removes that parallel data-entry job. Keelway's invoicing and export workflow is built against that exact failure mode.
Doing double-entry with QuickBooks?

Close the loop. One bill, no reconciliation.

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Related

Freight broker TMS →

The full TMS feature set — load entry, carriers, dispatch, AI triage.

Invoicing and AR →

Bill brokers, run four-bucket AR aging, work the past-due list, export QBO-ready.

Financial reporting →

Revenue KPIs and per-broker margin off live data — the numbers that map to QBO classes.

Tailwind TMS alternative →

Tailwind is QuickBooks-native too — honest side-by-side with Keelway on broker focus.