# Best CRM for QuickBooks: 7 Compared (2026)

> The best CRM for QuickBooks for most small service businesses is Method if QuickBooks depth matters most, Zoho CRM or Nutshell if price matters most, and HubSpot if marketing matters most. All seven here connect to QuickBooks Online. The integration design matters more than the logo: one-way sync at quote acceptance avoids the duplicate customers that two-way sync creates.

- Canonical URL: https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/best-crm-that-integrates-with-quickbooks
- Author: Om Patel
- Published: 2026-08-28 | Updated: 2026-09-25
- Topic: Custom CRM

The best CRM for QuickBooks is the one whose integration matches who should own the customer record, and for most small service businesses that means a one-way push into QuickBooks when a quote is accepted. Every product below connects to QuickBooks Online. What separates them is price, sync direction and how they handle a customer that already exists on the other side.

Most lists stop at the logos. This one ranks seven CRMs on the same fields, then spends the rest of the page on the part that actually goes wrong: **the integration**, and the real-time two-way sync that every vendor leads with and you should usually refuse. If you are not yet sure you need one at all, start with [do I need QuickBooks if I have a CRM](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/do-i-need-quickbooks-if-i-have-a-crm).

- **Method** is the QuickBooks-first choice, with its sync engine on every plan from $35 per user per month.
- **Nutshell ($13) and Zoho CRM ($14)** are the cheapest confirmed paid plans with native QuickBooks Online integrations, billed annually.
- **HubSpot** fits if you also need marketing automation; its QuickBooks workflow will not create an invoice if a line item has no matching QuickBooks product.
- **Two-way sync is a marketing feature.** It is the main cause of duplicate customers.
- **"Integrates with QuickBooks" spans four very different levels.** Establish which you are buying.
- **Field service platforms are a different category.** If scheduling is your bottleneck, a CRM is the wrong purchase.

## What is the best CRM for QuickBooks?

**Short answer: Method for QuickBooks depth, Nutshell or Zoho for price, HubSpot for marketing.** The shortlist:

1. **Method CRM**: best for businesses that want the CRM built around QuickBooks, including Desktop.
2. **Zoho CRM**: best for low cost plus heavy customisation, with a native QuickBooks Online sync.
3. **Nutshell**: best for small sales teams that want to send leads and invoices into QuickBooks from one screen.
4. **HubSpot**: best if you need email marketing and sequences alongside the pipeline.
5. **Insightly**: best middle ground for teams that also manage delivery projects after the sale.

Capsule and Pipedrive round out the seven. Prices below are each vendor's own published list price, checked on 25 September 2026.

## Quick comparison

| CRM | Best for | Starting price (checked 25 Sep 2026) | QuickBooks integration | Deal-breaker to check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Method CRM** | QuickBooks-first businesses | $35/user/mo monthly, 10% off annual ([Method](https://www.method.me/pricing/)) | Included on every plan, Online and Desktop | Configure sync direction deliberately; it is sold as two-way |
| **Zoho CRM** | Price plus customisation | $14/user/mo billed annually; free for 3 users ([Zoho](https://www.zoho.com/en-us/crm/zohocrm-pricing.html)) | Native QuickBooks Online | Estimates and invoices flow one way, from QuickBooks into Zoho |
| **Nutshell** | Small sales teams | $13/user/mo annual, $19 monthly ([Nutshell](https://www.nutshell.com/pricing)) | Native QuickBooks Online, all plans | Online only |
| **HubSpot** | Marketing plus CRM | Free for 2 users; Starter $20/seat/mo monthly ([HubSpot](https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/crm)) | Native QuickBooks Online data sync | Invoices fail if line items do not match QuickBooks products |
| **Insightly** | Sales plus delivery projects | $29/user/mo billed annually ([Insightly](https://www.insightly.com/pricing/)) | Listed among its finance integrations | Confirm what syncs before buying |
| **Capsule** | Very simple pipelines | Not shown on the page we loaded ([Capsule](https://capsulecrm.com/pricing/)) | Listed integration | Integrations sit on paid plans |
| **Pipedrive** | Pipeline-first sales teams | Check [Pipedrive](https://www.pipedrive.com/en/pricing); page blocked our check | QuickBooks app creates invoices from a deal | Confirm the plan that includes it |

## The 7 best CRMs for QuickBooks, ranked

### 1. Method CRM

**Best for:** businesses that want QuickBooks at the centre and may still be on Desktop.

**Pricing:** CRM Quick Start $35, CRM Pro $59 and CRM Enterprise $97 per user per month on monthly billing, with 10% off for paying 12 months upfront and a 10-day trial, per [Method's pricing page](https://www.method.me/pricing/).

Method is built around QuickBooks rather than adding it later. Every plan lists "QuickBooks integration (Via our patented sync engine)" as standard, and it is the only CRM here that also syncs with Desktop: Method's [supported editions page](https://help.method.me/en/articles/2137281-supported-editions-of-quickbooks) covers Pro, Premier and Enterprise on Windows in the US and Canada, though not the Mac edition. Customers, invoices, payments, estimates and sales orders sync both ways.

**Pros:** deepest QuickBooks focus of the group; sync included on the entry plan; Online and Windows Desktop both supported.

**Cons:** the highest entry price here; its selling point is two-way real-time sync, which needs the ownership rules below to avoid duplicates.

**Our verdict:** the default pick when QuickBooks is the system everything else must agree with. Set the sync direction on purpose rather than accepting the default.

### 2. Zoho CRM

**Best for:** owners who want a low per-user price and will spend time configuring.

**Pricing:** Standard from $14 per user per month billed annually, with a free edition for up to three users, per [Zoho's pricing page](https://www.zoho.com/en-us/crm/zohocrm-pricing.html).

Zoho now has a [native QuickBooks Online integration](https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/native-quickbooks-integration-for-zoho-crm-connecting-sales-and-finance). Contacts, accounts, vendors and products sync both ways, while estimates, invoices and purchase orders flow one way from QuickBooks into Zoho, and Zoho says the sync is instant rather than scheduled.

**Pros:** cheapest serious option; deep automation and custom modules; QuickBooks financial documents visible on the CRM record.

**Cons:** setup takes real time; until the native integration, users relied on marketplace extensions, and older advice online still assumes that.

**Our verdict:** the best value if someone on the team enjoys configuring software. If nobody does, the savings disappear into an unfinished setup.

### 3. Nutshell

**Best for:** small sales teams that want to push a won lead into QuickBooks without leaving the CRM.

**Pricing:** Foundation $13 per user per month billed annually or $19 monthly, with higher tiers at $42, $59 and $79 annually, per [Nutshell's pricing page](https://www.nutshell.com/pricing).

Nutshell's [QuickBooks Online integration](https://www.nutshell.com/integrations/quickbooks-online) is on every plan. From a lead page you can send people, companies and leads into QuickBooks and create the QuickBooks invoice there, which is close to the one-way handoff we recommend below.

**Pros:** low entry price; integration not locked to a premium tier; simple enough that a small team keeps using it.

**Cons:** QuickBooks Online only; lighter automation than Zoho or HubSpot.

**Our verdict:** the best fit for a two to ten person team whose main need is a clean pipeline and invoices that land in QuickBooks once.

### 4. HubSpot

**Best for:** businesses that want marketing email, sequences and a CRM in one place.

**Pricing:** free for up to two users; Starter from $20 per seat per month on monthly billing, with lower annual and promotional rates shown, per [HubSpot's pricing page](https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/crm).

HubSpot's [QuickBooks Online data sync](https://knowledge.hubspot.com/integrations/connect-hubspot-and-quickbooks-online) aligns customers, products, invoices and payments, and a workflow can create a QuickBooks invoice or estimate when a deal reaches a stage. The catch is in HubSpot's own documentation: if a line item does not match a QuickBooks product, the invoice is not created, and invoices synced from QuickBooks are not automatically associated with a deal.

**Pros:** strongest marketing tools here; generous free tier; large app ecosystem.

**Cons:** heavier than a contractor with fifteen open quotes needs; product catalogue must be kept identical in both systems.

**Our verdict:** worth it if marketing automation is part of the plan. If you only need a pipeline and invoices, it is more system than the job requires.

### 5. Insightly

**Best for:** teams that sell and then manage delivery projects for the same customer.

**Pricing:** Plus $29, Professional $49 and Enterprise $99 per user per month billed annually, per [Insightly's pricing page](https://www.insightly.com/pricing/).

Insightly's pricing page lists QuickBooks alongside Xero and PandaDoc among its finance integrations. Its difference from the rest of this list is that project records sit next to the sales pipeline.

**Pros:** projects after the sale in the same tool; mid-range price.

**Cons:** less QuickBooks-specific than Method; confirm exactly which records sync before you buy.

**Our verdict:** a sensible middle ground if you run projects after the sale and do not want a separate tool for them.

### 6. Capsule

A deliberately simple CRM. Its pricing page lists QuickBooks and Xero among integrations and places direct integrations on paid plans; the page we loaded did not display per-user prices, so confirm them on [Capsule's pricing page](https://capsulecrm.com/pricing/).

### 7. Pipedrive

A pipeline-first CRM. Pipedrive's [QuickBooks integration](https://support.pipedrive.com/en/article/pipedrive-integration-quickbooks) adds an Invoice tab to each deal, sends invoices to QuickBooks and shows when they are paid or overdue. Pipedrive's pricing page blocked our check, so confirm the current plan price directly.

**Not ranked: field service platforms.** Jobber, Housecall Pro and ServiceTitan are not CRMs; they are operations systems with CRM-shaped parts, built around scheduling and dispatch, and they connect to QuickBooks. If your bottleneck is technicians rather than a sales pipeline, compare them in [QuickBooks alternatives for contractors](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/quickbooks-alternatives-for-contractors) and [the best CRM for field service businesses](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/best-crm-for-field-service-and-blue-collar-businesses) instead.

## How we ranked these

Five criteria, weighted for a 1 to 30 person service business:

1. **Who built the QuickBooks integration.** A native integration maintained by the CRM vendor breaks less often than a third-party connector, and someone owns the fix when it does.
2. **Sync direction and trigger.** Whether you can make the handoff one-way at quote acceptance decides how many duplicates you will clean up.
3. **Published price at small team size.** A price you can see beats a sales call, and per-user pricing compounds quickly at five seats.
4. **Setup effort.** A CRM nobody finishes configuring produces worse data than a spreadsheet someone maintains.
5. **Exit.** Whether you can export leads, quotes and notes, not just contacts, if you leave.

## What owners on Reddit say about CRM and QuickBooks

**The complaint is rarely the CRM. It is the glue between the two systems.** A small business owner on r/smallbusiness running HubSpot for the CRM and QuickBooks Online for the books described using a third-party connector to push contacts and deals across: "It's not seamless; I have to bounce between programs, and each app costs me over $100 CDN per month" ([thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/1p7cdit/switching_from_quickbooks_online_to_zoho_books/)).

An office manager at a welding and fencing shop, building their first CRM in Zoho, put the uncertainty plainly: "I have no idea how the quickbooks extension will work or which one to choose" ([thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/1rfhbev/crm_for_small_welding_powder_coating_business/)). And a technical contractor with 8 field technicians who had forced QuickBooks Desktop to act as a CRM for 19 years listed the three jobs he needed covered, bookkeeping, CRM and field service, and asked the question most buyers skip: how to get them integrated "so no double entry or disjointed data" ([thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/1oue0e4/i_think_im_done_with_my_stockholm_syndrome/)).

That is the right question, and it is why the rest of this page is about the integration rather than the feature list.

## Why two-way sync is the wrong default

The pitch is intuitive: change something in either system and it appears in the other. In practice it means **both systems can create and edit the same record**, and that is a data-ownership problem dressed up as a convenience.

What actually happens:

**Duplicates.** A customer is created in the CRM as "Smith Plumbing Ltd." and already exists in QuickBooks as "Smith Plumbing." Matching is done on name, no match is found, and you now have two records. Multiply by a few hundred over a year.

**Field ping-pong.** Someone corrects an address in QuickBooks. The CRM's copy is older, syncs back, and overwrites the correction. Nobody notices until an invoice goes to the wrong place.

**Deletion ambiguity.** A record is deleted in one system. Should it delete in the other, or return on the next sync as a new record? Vendors answer this differently and rarely document it prominently.

**Formatting drift.** Phone numbers written three ways, trailing whitespace, "and" versus "&". Matching logic is only as good as the least consistent person entering data.

The reason two-way sync sounds essential is that it removes a problem you should not have: needing to edit the same customer in two places. Fix the ownership boundary instead, and the need for bidirectional sync mostly disappears along with the failure modes it introduces.

The boundary that works, and the reasoning behind it, is in [is QuickBooks a CRM](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/is-quickbooks-a-crm). In short: the CRM owns the record from enquiry to quote acceptance, QuickBooks owns it from invoice onward, and it passes **one way, once**. The specific failure modes and how to recover from them are in [QuickBooks CRM sync problems](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/quickbooks-crm-sync-problems).

## The four levels of "integrates with QuickBooks"

Vendors use one phrase for four very different things. Establish which one you are being sold, in writing.

| Level | What it is | Right when |
|---|---|---|
| **0. Manual export** | CSV out, CSV in | Very low volume, or you only need periodic reporting |
| **1. One-way push at trigger** | CRM creates a QuickBooks customer and invoice when a quote is accepted | **Most businesses.** Clean ownership, minimal failure surface |
| **2. Scheduled two-way** | Both systems reconcile on a timer | Multiple people editing in both systems, and you accept the reconciliation cost |
| **3. Real-time two-way** | Continuous bidirectional | Rarely necessary; highest duplicate risk; usually sold as premium |

Level 1 is the right answer far more often than it is chosen, because it is the least impressive to demonstrate.

Worth knowing before those conversations: "two-way" is a marketing phrase rather than a technical standard, and vendors apply it to everything from a read-only balance mirror to real field-level bidirectional sync. The tests that tell them apart are in [CRM that syncs with QuickBooks two way](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/crm-that-syncs-with-quickbooks-two-way).

A useful test during a sales call: ask what happens if the same customer is created in both systems within the same hour. A vendor with a well-designed integration answers immediately and specifically. A vendor selling sync as a feature rather than an architecture will describe the merge tool they built to clean up afterwards.

## Seven questions to ask any vendor

Take these to every demo. They separate real integrations from checkbox ones faster than any feature matrix.

1. **What field do you match customer records on?** Answers involving name alone are a warning. Email or a stored QuickBooks ID are good answers.
2. **Which direction does data flow, and what triggers it?** "Both, continuously" is a description of a risk, not a feature.
3. **What happens on delete?** In each direction.
4. **What happens when the sync fails?** Is there a queue, a retry, an alert, or does it fail silently?
5. **Can I test on a copy of my QuickBooks file first?** If not, that is a significant problem.
6. **Which QuickBooks products are supported?** Online and Desktop are different integrations with different limits, and Desktop is being wound down, which matters for anything you are buying for the next five years.
7. **What happens if I leave?** Can you export leads, quotes, notes and history in a usable format, or only contacts.

Question seven is the one people skip and regret. A CRM holding two years of pipeline history you cannot extract is a considerably larger switching cost than the monthly fee suggests.

## Online versus Desktop changes the shortlist

One practical constraint that reshapes this decision in 2026, and that most comparison articles have not caught up with.

QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop are different products with different integration surfaces. Online has a modern, well-documented API that most CRMs connect to directly. Desktop integrations typically require a connector application running on the machine or server holding the company file, which introduces a second piece of software, a second failure point, and a dependency on that machine being on.

The Desktop picture changed in August 2026. Intuit stopped selling new Pro Plus, Premier Plus and Mac Plus subscriptions in the US on **30 September 2024**, Desktop 2023 lost support after **31 May 2026**, and Desktop 2024 is the last annual release. But Intuit has withdrawn the May 2027 end date for 2024 and says there is no sunset deadline for it.

So Desktop is no longer on a countdown, but it is a closed platform: no new Pro or Premier customers, which means fewer new integrations will be built for it. The practical rule still holds: **do not choose a CRM for the strength of its Desktop connector alone.** If you are staying on Desktop 2024, Method is the realistic option on this list; if you might move, choose a CRM whose Online integration is strong so the CRM survives the switch.

The current dates, including Canada, are in [QuickBooks Desktop discontinued](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/quickbooks-desktop-discontinued-what-to-do), and the migration sequencing in [migrating off QuickBooks](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/migrating-off-quickbooks-checklist).

## What integration failure actually costs

It is worth being concrete about the downside, because the subscription price dominates these decisions and it is rarely the largest number.

**Duplicate cleanup.** A few hundred duplicates across a year, at a couple of minutes each to identify, verify and merge, is several days of somebody's time. It also degrades every report drawn from the file until it is done.

**Wrong invoices.** An overwritten address or an outdated contact sends an invoice somewhere it will not be paid. The cost is not the correction, it is the additional days in receivables and the conversation with the customer.

**Lost trust in the numbers.** This is the expensive one and the hardest to reverse. Once a team suspects the customer data is unreliable, they stop using reports to make decisions and go back to instinct. At that point you are paying for two systems and getting the benefit of neither.

**Abandonment.** The end state of the above. The CRM becomes a place quotes are occasionally typed, the real state of the business lives in someone's phone and a whiteboard, and the close rate is once again uncomputable.

None of these appear on a pricing page, and all four are more expensive than the difference between any two products on your shortlist. Which is why the integration architecture, not the feature list, deserves most of the evaluation time.

## When off-the-shelf stops fitting

Standard CRMs assume a standard sales process: lead, opportunity, stages, close. Plenty of businesses do not work that way, and forcing the shape produces a system people quietly abandon.

Signs that the shape is wrong rather than the product:

- **Your work arrives through channels the CRM has no concept of.** Phone, text, a form, a referral from another trade, and a repeat customer messaging a technician directly.
- **The unit of work is not a deal.** It is a property, a piece of equipment with a service history, or a recurring contract.
- **Scheduling is the constraint**, not selling, so a pipeline board is solving a problem you do not have.
- **You have already bought a CRM and nobody uses it.** This is the clearest signal, and it is almost always a workflow mismatch rather than a discipline failure.

That last point is worth taking seriously rather than treating as a training issue. If entering data into the system is slower than the way people already work, they will keep working the way they already do, and you will pay a subscription for an empty database.

A [custom build](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/custom-crm-vs-off-the-shelf-crm) makes sense when the workflow is genuinely unusual and the cost of distorting it exceeds the cost of software. It does not make sense simply because a standard product is imperfect, and anyone selling you a custom CRM should be willing to tell you when to buy off the shelf instead.

If you have already tried an off-the-shelf CRM and it did not survive contact with how your team actually works, that is the problem a [custom CRM](https://www.pavadotech.com/crm) solves. We build it around your real workflow and keep QuickBooks doing the accounting, with a one-way handoff at quote acceptance so duplicates never start.

## Before you connect anything

A short pre-flight list that prevents most of the disasters:

1. **Back up the QuickBooks file.** Separately, not relying on the vendor.
2. **Clean the customer list first.** Merge existing duplicates, standardise names and phone formats. Syncing a messy list multiplies the mess.
3. **Test on a copy or sandbox.** If the vendor cannot support this, weigh that heavily.
4. **Sync a batch of ten records**, then inspect both systems manually before doing more.
5. **Write down the ownership rule** and share it with everyone who touches either system. Most duplicate problems are people problems with a technical symptom.
6. **Decide the trigger explicitly.** Quote accepted is usually right. Lead created is usually wrong, because it fills your accounting file with people who never bought.
7. **Check the first month's reconciliation** rather than assuming silence means success.

Point six causes more avoidable mess than any other. Pushing every lead into QuickBooks turns your accounting file into a marketing list, which makes reports slower, reconciliation harder, and your accountant less patient.

## How to actually choose

Order the decision like this:

1. **Confirm you need a CRM at all**, using the five-question test in the ownership section above.
2. **Describe your real workflow** on one page, including how work arrives and who touches it.
3. **Shortlist on workflow fit**, not features.
4. **Interrogate the integration** using the seven questions.
5. **Insist on level 1**, one-way at quote acceptance, unless you have a specific reason for more.
6. **Run a trial with real data on a copy**, with the people who will actually use it.
7. **Check the exit** before signing.

Step two is the one that decides the outcome and the one most often skipped. Businesses that write down their workflow first tend to pick well and keep using what they picked. Businesses that start with a comparison table tend to buy on features, and end up back here in eighteen months, which is why so many of these articles exist in the first place.

If the reason you are reading this is that your QuickBooks bill went up, [the QuickBooks 2026 price increase](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/quickbooks-price-increase-2026) has the numbers, and a CRM is sometimes cheaper than moving up a QuickBooks tier.

## Go deeper

- **[How to build a custom CRM for a small business](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/how-to-build-a-custom-crm-for-a-small-business):** if none of the seven fit how you take work.
- **[How to reconcile CRM invoices with QuickBooks](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/how-to-reconcile-crm-invoices-with-quickbooks):** the monthly check once the integration is live.
- **[Cheapest CRM for a small contracting business](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/cheapest-crm-for-a-small-contracting-business):** if price is the first filter.
- **[The QuickBooks topic hub](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/topic/quickbooks):** every guide we have on Intuit's products.

## How to pick

If QuickBooks is the system everything must agree with, start with Method. If cost is the constraint, trial Nutshell and Zoho side by side on a copy of your file. If marketing is half the job, HubSpot. Whichever you choose, set the handoff to one-way at quote acceptance before the first sync, because that decision matters more than the brand.

## FAQ

### What is the best CRM for QuickBooks?

For QuickBooks depth, Method, which is built around QuickBooks and includes its sync engine on every plan from $35 per user per month. For the lowest cost with a native QuickBooks Online integration, Nutshell from $13 or Zoho CRM from $14 per user per month billed annually. For marketing automation alongside the CRM, HubSpot. Choose on integration design and workflow fit rather than feature count.

### Which CRM works best with QuickBooks Online?

Method, Zoho CRM, Nutshell and HubSpot all have native QuickBooks Online integrations, built by the CRM vendor rather than a third party. They differ in direction: Zoho syncs contacts and products both ways but pulls estimates and invoices one way from QuickBooks, while Nutshell and HubSpot can push invoices into QuickBooks from a lead or deal. Pick the direction that matches who should own the record.

### What is the best CRM with QuickBooks Desktop?

Method is the one most associated with QuickBooks Desktop sync. Most others connect only to QuickBooks Online or need a third-party connector running on the machine that holds the company file. With Desktop now closed to new Pro and Premier subscribers, choosing a CRM for the strength of its Desktop connector is building on a shrinking platform.

### Is two-way sync between a CRM and QuickBooks a good thing?

Usually not, despite being the headline feature. Two-way sync means both systems can create and edit the same customer record, and when two systems both believe they own a record you get duplicates, overwritten fields and reconciliation work. One-way sync at a defined trigger, typically when a quote is accepted, avoids nearly all of it.

### Why does my CRM create duplicate customers in QuickBooks?

Almost always because matching is done on a field that is not unique or not stable, such as company name or a differently formatted phone number. Two-way sync compounds it, since a record edited in one system can return as a new record in the other. Ask any vendor what field they match on before you connect anything.

### What is the cheapest CRM that integrates with QuickBooks?

Of the vendors whose prices we could confirm on 25 September 2026, Nutshell's Foundation plan at $13 per user per month billed annually and Zoho CRM Standard at $14 are the cheapest paid options with a native QuickBooks Online integration. HubSpot and Zoho also have free tiers for two and three users, but check which QuickBooks features those tiers include before relying on them.

### Should the CRM or QuickBooks own the customer record?

Split it by stage. The CRM owns the lead through to quote acceptance, QuickBooks owns everything from invoice onward, and the record passes one way at acceptance. That single decision prevents most integration problems, and it is worth agreeing before any software is configured.

### Do I need a CRM if QuickBooks already has my customers?

QuickBooks holds people who paid you and nothing about people who did not, so it cannot produce a close rate, lead source performance or cost per booked job. If you can answer those three questions today, you may not need a CRM. If you cannot, the records that would answer them do not exist anywhere yet.

### What should I check before connecting a CRM to QuickBooks?

Back up the QuickBooks file, test on a sandbox or copy first, confirm which field records are matched on, confirm sync direction and trigger, check what happens when a record is deleted, and run a small batch before a full sync. Most integration disasters are discovered after a full first sync rather than during a test.