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QuickBooks Integration

QuickBooks Integration Introduction

ServiceSidekick is the perfect complement to QuickBooks. Our entire feature set is available for running your service business efficiently and smoothly AND at the end of the day your completed jobs can be pushed to QuickBooks as invoices with one click. No double-entry!

How does the integration work?

QuickBooks is a great accounting system. Yet QuickBooks does not offer many of the features required to run a successful service business such as scheduling and dispatching, mobile access, task management and calendaring, and more. This is not a fault with QuickBooks. Rather QuickBooks simply focuses on what it does best - accounting. Because of this many service businesses search for a software solution that will bridge the gap between what QuickBooks provides and what is needed to run the daily work in the company.

The major drawback with most is that now you have two systems - one to manage your scheduling and dispatching and field work and then QuickBooks for accounting. This leads to the dreaded double-entry scenario where customer and job information is entered twice into both systems.

Thankfully, with ServiceSidekick's QuickBooks integration double-entry is a thing of the past.

What is the QuickBooks Web Connector?

According to Intuit's best practices we run our integration through the QuickBooks Web Connector.

In a nutshell, the Web Connector facilitates communication between your QuickBooks file and your ServiceSidekick account in a safe and secure manner.

The Web Connector ships with QuickBooks 2008 or later and can be downloaded free of charge for previous versions of QuickBooks.

How do I setup the integration?

  1. Login to QuickBooks as the administrator
  2. On the menubar click File. If you see the option Update Web Services then you already have the Web Connector installed and can skip the next step
  3. Download and install the QuickBooks Web Connector
  4. Download and open your QWC configuration file from the QuickBooks setup page in ServiceSidekick. A listing for ServiceSidekick will appear on the Web Connector. If the listing does not appear close the Web Connector and repeat this step
  5. Enter your Web Connector password (listed on your ServiceSidekick QuickBooks setup page) into the Web Connector in the password box and save the password when prompted
  6. Check the box to the left of the ServiceSidekick listing
  7. Click the Update Selected button in the Web Connector to start the integration

Important note: The initial integration can take a very long time to complete. Later syncs will run much faster.

What exactly happens during a synchronization?

On each synchronization occurs the following steps are taken:

  1. Update sales tax codes
  2. Update products and services list (QuickBooks calls this the Item list)
  3. Import new QuickBooks customers into ServiceSidekick
  4. Import new QuickBooks invoices into ServiceSidekick as completed jobs (for historical purposes)
  5. Export completed and approved jobs from ServiceSidekick to QuickBooks and create invoices. If the customer does not exist in QuickBooks we also create the customer record at this time

Note: ServiceSidekick keeps track of the last sync time so each sync refreshes only new information from QuickBooks — this keeps the syncs speedy!

Troubleshooting - The QWC file doesn't open in Web Connector

Close the Web Connector by clicking the Exit button in the lower right. Then reopen the Web Connector via the Windows start menu => Program Files => QuickBooks => Web Connector. Sometimes reopening the Web Connector will show the listing. If not, open the QWC file again and it should appear.

Troubleshooting - Invalid username/password

There are two scenarios that will give this error: an invalid password or a mismatch between the company name in QuickBooks and ServiceSidekick. First try to reenter your Web Connector password as listed in the QuickBooks setup page. If that doesn't work, go to QuickBooks and on the menubar click Company => Company Information ind check that this name matches the company name in ServiceSidekick.