OFAC and sanctions screening for QuickBooks Online
Connect QuickBooks Online and every active vendor and customer is checked against eight sanctions sources, OFAC included. New and edited records are checked within minutes, bills and invoices trigger a recheck once the lists change, and the result is noted on the vendor or customer in QuickBooks.
Opening to QuickBooks Online and Xero users at the same time. The first 50 customers get founder pricing.
Northwind Trading Ltd
- OFAC SDN
- No match
- UK Sanctions List
- Review0.88 name similarity
- EU Consolidated
- No match
- UN Security Council
- No match
When a name is checked
- Every active vendor and customer when you connect
- A vendor or customer within minutes of being added or edited
- The contact on a bill, invoice, expense or payment, if the lists have changed since its last check
- Every vendor and customer again each month
- Any contact, any time you press Screen now
Against these lists
Why US businesses screen against OFAC
OFAC can fine a business for dealing with a sanctioned party even if the business did not know, because civil liability is strict. When OFAC sets a penalty, it looks at whether the business had a sanctions compliance program and how good it was.
Since April 2024, OFAC has had 10 years to bring a case for most sanctions violations, up from 5. Its recordkeeping rule now asks for 10 years too, so the record of what you checked, and when, needs to last that long.
How it works with QuickBooks Online
01
Connect QuickBooks Online
Sign in with Intuit and approve access. Your trial starts straight away, with no card needed.
02
Names are checked as things change
Every active vendor and customer is screened when you connect. After that, a contact is checked again when it is edited, when it turns up on a bill or invoice after a list update, and in a full rescreen every month.
03
Possible matches come to you
You get an email and the contact gets a note. Open the review, see why it scored, then clear it with a reason or confirm it. Each decision goes on a dated certificate.
What you see in QuickBooks Online
The result goes where you already work. Sanctions Clear adds to the contact record and never edits or deletes what is there.
A note on the vendor or customer
The first check adds a note to the record with the date, the list versions and the result. Another note follows only when the status changes, so the record stays readable.
The certificate, attached
From the Growth plan up, the certificate PDF is attached to the vendor or customer, ready when an auditor opens the record.
Review decisions, copied across
When someone clears or confirms a possible match, a note records who decided, when and why. QuickBooks lets users edit notes, so the Sanctions Clear audit trail remains the record that counts.
What's included
Lists straight from the source
Eight official sources, downloaded from the governments that publish them. OFAC, UK, EU and UN are fetched every 6 hours, the rest daily. Every file is archived, and each certificate names the version it was checked against.
Matching built for messy names
Catches typos, transliterated names, swapped word order and legal forms such as Ltd, LLC or GmbH. Country, date of birth and registration numbers help tell a real match from a namesake.
Every score explained
A possible match shows why it scored as it did: how close the name is, which alias it hit, and whether the country and identifiers agree or conflict.
A plain-English second opinion
An AI summary explains each possible match and suggests whether it looks like a false positive. It is labelled as AI and never clears anything. A person always makes the call.
Alerts only when there is a match
You get an email when a possible match turns up and again if one is confirmed. Clean results stay quiet and show on the dashboard.
Certificates anyone can verify
Each certificate has a QR code and a link to sanctionsclear.com/verify, where a bank or auditor can confirm it is genuine and see whether a newer one has replaced it.
Keeps as little as it can
For a clean contact we keep its ID and a one-way fingerprint, not its name. Names are stored only for possible matches. Invoices, amounts and bank details are never stored.
Tests itself every 6 hours
Known sanctioned names, misspelled on purpose, are screened after every list update and every 6 hours. If one stops matching, screening is marked degraded and we are alerted straight away.
Sanctions Clear for QuickBooks Online: questions
Which QuickBooks plans does it work with?
QuickBooks Online Simple Start, Essentials, Plus and Advanced, and Intuit Enterprise Suite. QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Free are not supported: Intuit does not allow third-party apps on the free plan.
Do I need a card to start?
No. Sign in with Intuit and the trial starts without choosing a plan or entering payment details.
Does Sanctions Clear change anything in my books?
It adds to them and never edits them. It reads your contacts, reads bills and invoices only to see which contact they belong to, and adds a note to the contact (plus the certificate PDF from the Growth plan up). It never edits or deletes your records, notes or transactions, and it adds no custom fields. You can switch the notes off.
What happens when a name looks like a match?
You get an email and the contact gets a note. In Sanctions Clear you see the list entry it resembles, why it scored and a plain-English summary. You clear it with a reason or confirm it. Both decisions record who made them and when, and a confirmed match cannot be deleted.
How quickly is a newly sanctioned vendor caught?
OFAC, UK, EU and UN lists are fetched every 6 hours and the others daily. A contact is checked against the new version the next time it is edited or appears on a bill or invoice, and at the monthly rescreen at the latest, so a vendor with no activity waits for that monthly run. Sanctions Clear alerts you; it cannot stop a payment at your bank.
What does Sanctions Clear store about my contacts?
For a contact with no match: its ID in your accounting file, a one-way fingerprint and the date it was checked. Names and details are kept only for possible matches, because you need them to review. We never store invoices, amounts or bank details. Screening records and certificate details are kept for 10 years, the period OFAC can bring a case.
Does it screen politically exposed persons (PEPs)?
Not at launch. Sanctions Clear screens sanctions and export lists. PEP screening is planned as a paid add-on.
Is this legal advice?
No. Sanctions Clear screens names and keeps records of the checks. What to do about a confirmed match is a decision for you and, where needed, your lawyer.
Get Sanctions Clear for QuickBooks Online
Opening to QuickBooks Online and Xero users at the same time. The first 50 customers get founder pricing.