| For the typical scaffold company with hundreds or thousands of billable jobs, integration with accounting software is often a chore. The sheer volume of data creates a tedious, error-prone, and often expensive task in even the most efficient accounting department. Quantify and QuickBooks communicate with each other seamlessly, eliminating the burden of manual data entry. Invoices that are created by Quantify are automatically added to QuickBooks in a single step. What’s more, the jobs and customers associated with the invoices are linked to these items in QuickBooks, giving you instant and accurate job costing, receivables, commission tracking, posting of taxes due, and other vital financial data. Quantify does this by 'synchronizing' data with QuickBooks. Synchronization is a two-way process in which information is linked between QuickBooks and Quantify. Invoices in Quantify are updated with payment status and other data as they change in QuickBooks. This synchronization occurs automatically with new invoices and continues until the invoices are paid and jobs are closed. |  |
Setup
| To set up the communication link between Quantify and QuickBooks, first start both programs. From within Quantify, open Global Options from the Tools menu. On the Accounting tab under Accounting Integration, select QuickBooks and your QuickBooks company file. Then test the connection by clicking the Test Settings button. QuickBooks will display a certificate dialog box and ask you if you’d like to allow Quantify to connect. Select the item 'Yes, whenever this QuickBooks company file is open' and then press the Continue button. |  |
Rental and Additional Charges
| When an invoice is created in QuickBooks a single invoice line item is added for the total of the rental on the Quantify invoice, as well as for each additional charge. These line items are matched by name and can be renamed after the linkage occurs. Rental is mapped through the 'Rent item name' in Global Options (on the Accounting tab, under Rent invoice options), while additional charges are mapped by the name of the additional charge. When you attempt to synchronize an invoice you will be notified if an additional charge cannot be found. The invoice won’t synchronize and you’ll be able to correct the issue by adding the item in QuickBooks and resynchronizing in Quantify. |  |
Quantify Invoice Line Items
Corresponding QuickBooks Invoice Line Items
Synchronizing Invoices and Credit Memos
Sychronization is easy and accomplished in a single button click. Once you have created invoices in Quantify click the ‘Synchronize Invoices’ menu item from the QuickBooks toolbar button on the Invoices tab. After synchronization is complete you will see a summary dialog box that shows you the details of what was added and updated.
Quantify invoices are now linked to the newly created invoices in QuickBooks and their details are updated upon all subsequent synchronizations. Columns in the grid that are related to QuickBooks will appear once synchronization has started. The invoice due date, total in QuickBooks, and status (paid, not paid, etc), are displayed in blue text. The invoice status, payment date, and other details are updated with QuickBooks values until they’re fully paid in QuickBooks (note that a partially paid invoice will display a ‘Not Paid’ status in Quantify).
| You can filter the list of displayed invoices by status by clicking on an item in the Filter menu. The Quantify invoice number will be updated to the number that is auto-assigned by QuickBooks when the invoice or credit memo is added to QuickBooks. In Quantify this number is required to be unique and a case can arise in which QuickBooks assigns a number that is in use by another Quantify invoice. If this occurs then the invoice is saved in QuickBooks but the Quantify invoice will be assigned a new number. You can change the invoice number in Quantify and QuickBooks but the invoice number must be unique. This behavior also occurs for credit memos. |  |
Rental credits are created in Quantify when they are due for early returns and other situations. These rental credits are created with a single rental item and should not contain any additional charges. If a credit memo contains additional charges you will receive a warning to remove them. To issue a credit for previously invoiced additional charges, create a credit memo within QuickBooks.
The status for a credit memo will display the text 'Not Paid' when it has any unapplied amounts in QuickBooks. When the amount of the credit in QuickBooks has been fully applied to customer payments the credit will display a status of 'Paid'.
To remove the link between QuickBooks and Quantify for an invoice, highlight the invoice in Quantify and select the ‘Reset Synchronization’ menu item. If there is an invoice (such as a zero invoice) in Quantify that you don’t wish to import into QuickBooks, highlight the invoice and select the ‘Do Not Sync’ item prior to synchronizing. Invoices with a status of ‘Do Not Sync’ are ignored.
After an invoice is synchronized with QuickBooks it cannot be changed in Quantify. If needed, changes must be made in QuickBooks. You can, however, reset the synchronization in Quantify, void or delete the invoice in QuickBooks, then edit the invoice in Quantify and synchronize again. Doing these steps will re-add the invoice in QuickBooks. Keep in mind that the invoice number in QuickBooks may change.
Customers
Customers are required on invoices in both QuickBooks and Quantify. Once synchronization occurs Quantify will match customers by name and ‘link’ them. Unlike most other data, a customer is required to be set up in QuickBooks first and invoicing won’t proceed without a matching customer. This is so that you can maintain the QuickBooks relationship with other software, such as CRM and Point Of Sale. If you attempt to synchronize and a customer name isn’t matched you will receive a warning similar to the one below.
If a matching customer is found, Quantify will 'link' the customer with an underlying ID that is stored and reused in later synchronizations. This link is established so that you can rename the customer in Quantify or QuickBooks and maintain the relationship. Although the link will still work, it is recommended to keep these names similar at all times.
If for some reason a customer cannot be found in a later synchronization (such as if it was deleted in QuickBooks), Quantify will detect this condition and remove the link so that it can be reestablished. You will see a warning similar to the one below when this happens.
Job Sites
Unlike customers, Jobs are automatically added to QuickBooks if a matching job (by name) isn’t found. By default, in QuickBooks, the sales rep from the customer is added to the job so that you can track commissions.
If Quantify attempts to fetch a job in QuickBooks and it’s not found for some reason (due to deletion, for example) then Quantify will remove the link so that it can be reestablished. You will be notified of this condition when it happens as shown below.
The billing address on the Quantify job site is added to the QuickBooks job.
Quantify Job Site
Corresponding QuickBooks Job Site
Taxes
If using Quantify and QuickBooks for taxes, only the first tax code is used in Quantify. Once a tax code is matched between Quantify and QuickBooks it is linked. The taxes on an invoice are posted to tax agencies in QuickBooks from a Quantify invoice. For items that have multiple tax agencies (such as state and county) set up a tax ‘group’ in QuickBooks and associate multiple tax rates per that group. Use a single tax code in Quantify with the combined rates (add them together) and name it the same as the QuickBooks tax group. Quantify expects your QuickBooks installation to have two tax codes: taxable and non-taxable. Upon synchronization Quantify will use the first taxable and non-taxable codes that it finds. Please contact Avontus if you’re using more than one taxable or non-taxable code and would like to use the non-default one.