We are pleased to announce a major feature for accounting departments.  It is now possible to batch export customer invoices to Quickbooks, saving a considerable amount of time taking and error prone manual work.

One of the most complex issues accountants struggle with when it comes to integrating Quickbooks with our system is the handling of taxes.  Shipping taxes in Canada are not flat applications of local provincial law which makes it impossible for Quickbooks to apply its own automatic taxation rules.  Using our export system makes this trivial as taxes are pre-calculated and entered directly into the appropriate tax accounts.

This tutorial will introduce the Quickbooks Export feature and guide you through configuration.

Configuring Quickbooks

When invoices are created in Quickbooks there are two elements to consider.  We will not be itemizing the contents of the Noviship invoice, just the total amount and the taxes.  The pre-tax total on the invoice will be associated with a single Quickbooks account and invoice item.

Invoice Account

You will need to know which account invoices will be posted to.  Typically this is “Accounts Receivable” but your configuration may differ.  Check your Chart of Accounts for the name.

Sales Account

Next you will need to have a suitable Account for the sales portion of the invoices.  Typically the Account would be labelled something like “Sales”.  To set up a sales account, go to Lists | Chart of Accounts and find a suitable account or create a new one.

You should use an “Income” type account to represent sales but the rest of the configuration is up to you.

Sales Item

Next you should ensure you have a suitable item to match to the sales part of the invoice.  You can do this by viewing your item list (Lists | Item List) and determining which one to use or if you need to create a new item.

The item type should be “Service” but that’s not critical, and you should associate it with the sales account you selected earlier.

Quickbooks Tax Setup

Because Noviship will enter the sales tax items directly (rather than have Quickbooks calculate them) you will need to be familiar with the tax items and accounts.

You can view your tax setup by going to Sales Tax | Manage Sales Tax.

For each tax line item in an invoice, Noviship will need to match it to three things in Quickbooks: the Agency, the Tax Account and the Tax Item.

Note in the screenshot that the Agency, Accounts and the Sales Tax Item Names are highlighted.  The Agency determines the format of the sales tax return and your choice will depend on your province.  In Quebec, for example, sales tax is remitted to the Ministère du Revenu for both federal and provincial tax.

Setting up Noviship

To configure Noviship to export Quickbooks data, log in to your operating account (ensure you are not impersonating a customer) and go to Home | Preferences | Quickbooks.

The Quickbooks configuration comprises a number of rules, one per currency.  If you operate a single currency business then you can use only one rule and leave the currency as “Any Currency”.

In the “Invoice Account”, “Sales Account” and “Sales Invoice Item” fields enter the Invoice Account, Sales Account and Sales Item you selected in Quickbooks earlier.  Ensure the spelling and formatting is exactly the same.

Next you will need to match each Sales Tax to the appropriate account in Quickbooks.

For each Sales Tax, match the “Tax Account”, “Tax Agency” and “Tax Item” to the names you selected in Quickbooks earlier.  Again ensure the spelling is an exact match (copy and paste if you can).

Once you have completed this form, submit the changes to activate the Quickbooks Export feature.

Customer Names

When exporting an invoice, Noviship will include the customer data necessary to create a Customer Account in Quickbooks if one does not exist.  If you already have customer accounts in Quickbooks, it is possible that you have different names compared to the accounts in Noviship.  In Noviship you can (optionally) enter an Accounting Name (Administration | Customers | Edit and set the Accounting Name field.

If this field is blank, the system will simply use the regular customer name.

Exporting an Invoice

Go to Administration | Invoices and simply select (check) the invoices you wish to export.  Then click the button named “Export to Quickbooks” to produce a Quickbooks IIF file.

This file can be imported into Quickbooks via File | Utilities | Import | IIF Files…

This process will import the selected invoices and also, if necessary, create the matching customer accounts using Noviship customer data.

Notice

Important: You must disable “Use account numbers” in the Quickbooks Company Preferences.  Quickbooks will be unable to match our data to existing accounts otherwise due to a limitation in the Quickbooks importer.

Important: Quickbooks allows you to have accounts that are sub-accounts of other accounts.  You cannot do this for any of the accounts in this guide.  The Invoice Account, Sales Account, Sales Item and Tax Accounts must all be at the root – i.e. they cannot be sub-accounts.