What SideQuest connects to today (and what's coming)
Honest list. We're early. Two direct integrations are live and battle-tested. Many more order sources work today through an email workaround. Direct API integrations are on the roadmap with rough dates. If something you need isn't here, tell us — we prioritize by request count.
Live and direct
These are wired through the SideQuest connector via OAuth. No email forwarding, no workarounds. Set up once during install, then they just work.
QuickBooks Online
Reads your item catalog, creates draft Estimates, optionally creates customers. Uses Intuit's official OAuth. US and Canadian editions.
Gmail · Outlook · cPanel
Reads labeled emails including PDF and scanned-image attachments. Bordered-table POs that used to confuse the OCR fall through to Claude's vision passthrough automatically: the trust gate rejects garbled Tesseract output and Claude reads the page images natively. Optional Azure Document Intelligence primary path can be enabled with one env var for around $0.01/page list pricing. Creates draft replies to the buyer on the original PO thread, citing the QuickBooks Estimate number. Uses Google's official OAuth with gmail.modify scope, never gmail.send. Personal Gmail and Google Workspace work natively. Microsoft 365 / Outlook and cPanel-hosted (GoDaddy, Bluehost, Namecheap, etc.) work via a 10-minute forwarding setup; buyers still see replies from your real domain. Outlook guide → · cPanel guide →
Claude Desktop
The connector runs as a Model Context Protocol server inside Claude Desktop. Anthropic's free desktop app — no API key, no paid plan.
Insights
Eight built-in reports answer plain-English questions about your POs: top SKUs, top customers, automation health, time saved. Reads your local PO history and pulls live from QuickBooks. See the catalog →
AR Assistant
SideQuest reads every open Invoice from QuickBooks Online, buckets them by aging (due_soon → overdue_90_plus), drafts one follow-up email per customer in your Gmail Drafts folder. Multi-invoice customers get one consolidated email with each invoice listed. Tone scales gentle-to-firm with severity. Drafts only; never sends. Same OAuth scope as the order-confirmation reply. Open the AR Assistant page →
Field-order capture (outside sales)
Outside reps capture orders during customer visits by sending a templated email from their phone to your order desk. Same SideQuest pipeline — the draft Estimate lands in QuickBooks before the rep leaves the parking lot. No mobile app to install. Setup + phone template →
Try the parser on your own PO
Before buying, paste a real customer PO email or drop a PDF into the live parser playground. Same heuristics SideQuest runs in production, only without the QuickBooks matching layer. Confidence subscores included. No signup, no install, runs in your browser. Open the playground →
QuickBooks Desktop
Same connector, same Claude prompts, against QBD instead of QBO. A small local Flask bridge translates REST to QBXML over COM. Set QB_BACKEND=desktop in your .env, double-click start-bridge.bat, click Yes, always allow on the one-time trust dialog, and the catalog, customers, estimates, and price updates all work the same as on QBO. Items, customers, estimates, price updates covered. Reports stay on the local report_* tools. Beta because we're still validating against real customer installs.
Apply for the QBD beta → Free for up to 200 POs/month for 12 months in exchange for honest feedback.
Built around your vertical
Every distributor vertical writes a PO a little differently. The catalog quirks differ (thread specs vs NEMA codes vs case packs), the customer mix differs, the seasonal pattern differs. SideQuest's matcher handles the catalog quirks per vertical. The pages below cover the specifics for each one.
HVAC distributors
Compressors, refrigerant lines, condenser coils. Tonnage and BTU specs in line descriptions. Contractors on net-30 plus COD walk-ins. Open the HVAC page →
Plumbing wholesalers
PEX, copper fittings, water heaters, valves. NPT, MIP, FIP thread specs in PN suffixes. Job-site ship-to addresses different from billing. Open the plumbing page →
Electrical distributors
Conduit, breakers, panels, EMT. NEMA configurations and UL listings in line text. 40-line residential rough-in POs stop costing typing time. Open the electrical page →
Jan-San distributors
Case packs, gallons, dispenser refills. Same chemical, five pack sizes, five SKUs. BSC reorders match the learned-rules path. Open the Jan-San page →
Industrial MRO
Bearings, fasteners, belts, abrasives, cutting tools. OEM-to-house cross-reference tables read on every match. 50,000-SKU catalogs handled. Open the MRO page →
Works today via email forwarding
Anything that emails your team an order, RFQ, or PO can be processed by SideQuest. You add a Gmail label to the email (or set up an auto-forward filter), and the connector picks it up. The match accuracy depends on the format — clean structured emails work better than scanned PDFs, scanned PDFs work better than handwritten faxes — but the pipeline is the same.
Shopify
Shopify sends an order confirmation email to your team for every order. Label those emails and SideQuest parses them into draft Estimates in QuickBooks. Cleaner output than a typical scanned PO since the data is structured.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce sends a "New order" email to the configured admin address. Same flow as Shopify — label and process.
BigCommerce
Order confirmation emails go to the store admin by default. Label and process.
Amazon Seller Central
Amazon sends order notifications to the seller's registered email. Lower-priority because Amazon is highly structured (a direct API integration is usually better), but works for low volume.
EDI (via translator)
If your EDI provider (SPS Commerce, DiCentral, TrueCommerce, etc.) emails you human-readable copies of incoming POs, SideQuest can process those.
Anything else that emails
The pattern is: order arrives by email → label it → SideQuest reads it → builds the draft. If a system emails your team, it works.
On the roadmap (direct API)
These are the direct integrations we're building. Dates are honest estimates, not promises. If a customer prepays for one we'll prioritize that quarter.
Shopify (direct API)
Skip the email step. Read orders directly from the Shopify Admin API as they're created, write Estimates straight to QuickBooks. Reduces latency from minutes to seconds.
WooCommerce (direct REST)
Direct WooCommerce REST API for stores that prefer that to the email path.
NetSuite
For distributors who outgrew QuickBooks. Lower priority because most NetSuite shops have built-in order automation already, but on the list.
Microsoft Outlook / Exchange
For teams whose inbox isn't Gmail. Outlook with Microsoft 365 has an API equivalent to Gmail's — same pattern, different provider.
SAP, Oracle, Acumatica, Sage Intacct
Open to building these but we prioritize by request count. Tell us if you'd buy with one of these as a requirement.
What we won't build (and what to use instead)
Some things look like SideQuest territory but really aren't. We're sharing this so you don't waste time evaluating us for the wrong problem.
Outbound POs to your suppliers
SideQuest reads orders coming INTO your business. For controlling outbound spend, use Bill.com or ProcureDesk.
Multi-warehouse inventory
Use SOS Inventory or Cin7 for that. QuickBooks Online's native inventory is enough for most SideQuest customers.
True EDI exchange
For real-time EDI with retail chains, use SPS Commerce or DiCentral. SideQuest can read the email copies they send your team, but the structured EDI exchange stays where it is.
How "email workaround" actually works
Three steps:
- Configure the source to email your Gmail. Shopify, WooCommerce, etc. all let you set the recipient. Most are already sending these emails — you just don't process them yet.
- Set up a Gmail filter to auto-label. One filter rule per source. Example:
from:[email protected]→ apply labelshopify-orders. - Ask Claude to process the labeled emails. Same flow as any PO. SideQuest reads, parses, matches against your QuickBooks catalog, builds the draft.
The trade-off versus a direct API: latency (an email arrives after the order is placed, not at the instant it's placed) and parsing accuracy (each platform's email format is slightly different, so the first few orders may need a human to confirm matches). For most distributors processing under 200 orders a day, the email workaround is enough until we ship the direct API integration.
Want a specific integration?
The fastest way to move an integration up the roadmap is to email us with: which system, your monthly volume, and whether you'd buy SideQuest if it shipped. We prioritize by paying-customer demand.