The final step to integrating QuickBooks into the iPoint process is to populate your customer, vendor, and Items lists. If you are setting up QuickBooks for the first time or are bringing these lists from another piece of software, you can skip this step.
However, if you have been using QuickBooks to track business before installing iPoint, the fastest way to import your data is by syncing it directly from your QB file. Let’s look at each of these processes on their own.
Customers
- Make sure that your QuickBooks file is open on the same computer you are using iPoint.
- Ensure that old or inactive customers are marked inactive in QuickBooks. iPoint will only import active customers.
- In iPoint, go to Settings > QuickBooks > Customers
- Click the blue Get Contacts from QuickBooks button
- iPoint will begin pulling your customer records from QuickBooks and place them into a temporary holding space. Keep in mind this may take a while, depending on the size of your customer list in QB.
- Once complete, the import wizard will present you with a screen showing all the customers imported.
- Select the customers you want to pull into the permanent iPoint database. The easiest way is to click the Select All button at the top of the screen and click the Import Selected QuickBooks Contacts button at the bottom of the page.
- Alternatively, you can go through every contact and place a check in the Select for Import column on every customer you want to be imported into iPoint.
- At this time, you can also Sync Customer Types and Sync Job Types. Either of these buttons will automatically pull the data directly into iPoint.
Push Address Name as First Last – by default, iPoint syncs contact names as Last Name, First Name. If you prefer to sync First Last, check this box.
Disable pushing notes to QuickBooks Online – the first 4,000 characters of the customer notes (in CRM > Contact > Notes when viewing the Note Details) are pushed to QuickBooks by default into the customer notes field. Some Community Members have reported an error when pushing to QuickBooks Online. Checking this box will cause those notes Not to push to QBO.
Updating Customers
When you did your initial sync from QuickBooks, you may have excluded some customers from importing into the active contact database. If the contact was previously in QB and synced to iPoint, all you have to do is:
- Click the Get Contacts from QuickBooks button
- A pop-over window will ask if you want to update the list of contacts from your QuickBooks file. Respond No
- Alternatively, you could answer Yes, which will cause iPoint to resync contacts from QuickBooks. You might use this option if you’ve added new contacts in your QB file and need to pull them into iPoint for the first time.
- This will not break the link between existing synced contacts
- Now, the import wizard opens the previously imported list, where you will see the imported list
- Find the customer you want to pull into the active contact database and place a check in the Select for Import box
- Click the Import Selected QuickBooks Contact
- Viola! that contact is now available in iPoint
Vendors
- Make sure that your QuickBooks file is open on the same computer you are using iPoint.
- Ensure that old or inactive vendors are marked inactive in QuickBooks. iPoint will only import active vendors.
- In iPoint, go to Settings > QuickBooks > Vendors
- Click the blue Get Vendors from QuickBooks button
- iPoint will begin pulling your vendor records from QuickBooks and place them into a temporary holding space. This may take some time, depending on the size of your vendor list in QB.
- Once complete, the import wizard will present you with a screen showing all the vendors imported.
- Select the vendors you want to pull into the permanent iPoint database by placing a checkmark in the Select for import column.
- Notice: You only need to pull in vendors where you buy products you sell to your customers. For example, you don’t need utilities, restaurants, or other business vendors in the iPoint database. Those payable transactions will continue to be made in QuickBooks. iPoint only needs the vendors where you will be issuing Purchase Orders for products associated with iPoint jobs.
- Click the Import Selected QuickBooks Vendors button at the bottom of the page.
Updating Vendors
There may be vendors in your initial QB sync list that you did not pull into iPoint initially. You can add those to the permanent vendor list by following these steps:
- Click the Get Vendors from QuickBooks button
- A pop-over window will ask if you want to update the list of Vendors from your QuickBooks file. Respond No
- Alternatively, you could answer Yes, which will cause iPoint to resync vendors from QuickBooks. You might use this option if you’ve added new vendors in your QB file and need to pull them into iPoint for the first time.
- This will not break the link between existing synced vendors
- Now, you are taken to the previously imported list, where you will see the imported list
- Find the vendor you want to pull into the active vendor list and place a check in the Select for Import box
- Click the Import Selected QuickBooks Vendors
- Viola! that vendor is now available in iPoint
Items
Push all Items as Non-Inventory – by default, inventory and non-inventory items in iPoint are reflected in QuickBooks. That way, the available inventory count in iPoint should match the count in QB. However, some community members prefer to let iPoint maintain inventory counts and not worry about the accuracy of the counts in QB. By checking this box, all inventory and non-inventory items will be pushed to QB as non-inventory, meaning there are no inventory counts in QuickBooks. If you use this method, you will need to do a manual journal entry in QuickBooks at the end of each period to adjust the Inventory Asset value on the financials accurately. Please speak to your accounting professional to discuss this option further.
Push all Items as Labor – Similarly, some community members track all items as labor in QuickBooks. We’re not sure why they ask for this, but we can oblige by checking this box. All items pushed to QB will be entered as Service items (because QuickBooks doesn’t have a Labor item type).
Push iPoint Manufacturer Part Number as QB Item Name – iPoint has two name fields for each item; the Item Name and the Manufacturer Part Number. The Item name is usually the customer-friendly part name where the Manufacturer part # is the reference used on Purchase Orders for your vendor. By default, the Item Name is synced to the QuickBooks item list. Some community members prefer to have the Manufacturer Part Number displayed in QuickBooks, so this check box makes that happen.
Do Not auto close items sync window when opened from syncing an invoice – When an invoice is synced to QuickBooks, iPoint first checks to ensure that the items on the invoice are in QuickBooks. If they are not, a window pops up, allowing you first to sync the items so that the invoice will push across correctly. Once that sync is complete, the parts sync window closes. A checkmark in this box will keep the Item Sync window open so that you can review the results of the parts sync before actually pushing the invoice to QuickBooks.
- Make sure that your QuickBooks file is open on the same computer you are using iPoint.
- Ensure that old or discontinued items are marked inactive in QuickBooks. iPoint will only import active items.
- In iPoint, go to Settings > QuickBooks > Items
- Click the blue Get Items from QuickBooks button
- iPoint will begin pulling your item records from QuickBooks and place them into a temporary holding space. This may take some time, depending on the size of your item list in QB.
- Once complete, the import wizard will present you with a screen showing all the items imported.
- Select the items you want to pull into the permanent iPoint database by placing a checkmark in the Select column.
- Alternatively, you can click the Select All Items button at the bottom of the page.
- Click the Import Selected Items From QuickBooks button at the bottom of the page.
Updating Items
The process for pulling previously synced items from QuickBooks into the permanent iPoint item list is the same as described for customers and vendors:
- Click the Get Items from QuickBooks button
- A pop-over window will ask if you want to update the list of items from your QuickBooks file. Respond No
- Alternatively, you could answer Yes, which will cause iPoint to resync items from QuickBooks. You might use this option if you’ve added new products in your QB file and need to pull them into iPoint for the first time.
- This will not break the link between existing synced items
- Now, you are taken to the previously imported list, where you will see the imported list
- Find the item you want to pull into the active item database and place a check in the Select box
- Click the Import Selected Items from QuickBooks
- Or you can Update Selected Items from QuickBooks to adjust the various item fields to match what was stored in QB.
- Viola! that item is now available in iPoint