Synchronize your QuickBooks company file with VolunteerMatters

After the initial setup, VolunteerMatters is ready to use with your QuickBooks company file. There are a few ways in which the QuickBooks customers in your local QuickBooks company file will be updated with information from the Closerware system:

1. During the initial "sync" of contacts to customer records, we will run an update on all of the customer records that match contacts in the system. 
2. When generating invoices for a requirement or creating payments for a fulfillment in the Closerware system, the QuickBooks Integration product will check to see if the contact you are creating the invoice or payment for is currently matched to a customer in your QuickBooks company file. If not, it will create a new customer with only the basic required information for a QuickBooks customer. You will have to run a "QuickBooks Customer Bulk Update Tool" to have the full contact's information seeded to the customer. The basic information sent when a customer is added during an invoice or payment creation is:
1. Customer Name
2. First Name
3. Last Name
3. The only way to specifically update QuickBooks customer records with Closerware contact data is to use the "QuickBooks Customer Bulk Update Tool" in the Setup section of VolunteerMatters. This tool is designed to allow an administrator to send member information from Closerware to your local QuickBooks customer file in order to update customer records. The following fields will be filled with contact information during the update:
1. Customer Name 
2. Salutation (using Title from member record)
3. First Name
4. Middle Name
5. Last Name 
6. Suffix
7. Email Address (using member's primary e-mail address)
8. Bill-to Address (using member's primary postal address)
9. Telephone (using member's primary phone number)
   

To run an update:

1. A QuickBooks Administrator navigates to the "Setup" section off of the main menu after logging in, and then to the "Cust Upd" in the "Customize Financial Integration" section bringing you to the "QuickBooks Customer Bulk Update Tool".
2. Either choose a saved filter from the drop down list, or leave "None" selected. Choosing a filter will mean that a specific group of contacts will have their information updated, rather than the full list of contacts shown in the table below. Any contacts who do not have a customer record in QuickBooks, will have one created for them. If no filter is chosen, the tool will use the contacts that are already matched with QuickBooks customer records (those contacts shown in the table below) and update those customer records. 
3. Click the "Update QB Customers with Member Info" button. Allow the request to be sent. There is no need to repeatedly push the button.
4. You can now click the "Refresh" link on the page to see when the "Last Successful Update" column is updated with a new date/time. However, you must be patient to allow the process to run. The process is not an instantaneous update of customer information. The process involves:
1. The update requests will be queued up to be sent to your QuickBooks company file in sequence.
2. The next time your Web Connector on your local QuickBooks machine connects, it will bring down those update requests in groups of 25.
3. If everything is fine, it will update each customer record and send back a response saying it was successful. Otherwise it will send back a message, that may require further action. Due to QuickBooks's method of versioning customers, sometimes a new update request will need to be added to the queue (this happens automatically behind the scenes) in order to properly update an individual customer record. So while most customers seem to be updating, some will take more time to finally receive their update.
4. The responses received from your Web Connector are queued up to be handled by the Closerware system in sequence. 
5. Finally the Closerware system updates our records to indicate that the customer update was successful.
5. As mentioned, there may be delays in the process that can cause it to take hours or more than a day, all depending on the size of the update and the frequency in which your Web Connector is connecting to the Closerware QuickBooks Web Service. Note that if a customer is removed from your local QuickBooks company file, it will not be updated.

These are the only times in which a contact's information in the Closerware system is sent down to the QuickBooks company file to update their matching customer record. Also keep in mind that the QuickBooks Web Connector must be run from your local machine containing the QuickBooks company file in order for those changes to be reflected on your local QuickBooks file.

Click here for more information on QuickBooks invoicing