QuickBooks Online
Connect ScheduleInterpreter® and Intuit QuickBooks Online to seamlessly track your operational and financial records across two platforms.
- Before you begin using ScheduleInterpreter with QBO
- Best practices
- Connect to QBO
- QBO checklist
- QBO limitations
- Synchronizing ScheduleInterpreter® and QBO
Before you begin using ScheduleInterpreter with QBO
Relationships between two platforms
Both, ScheduleInterpreter® and QuickBooks Online (QBO) store and process financial data. As a more advanced platform, ScheduleInterpreter® allows setting up dynamic rates for vendors and clients, provides tools for users alter corporate and personal records of the customer accounts and vendors in real time, and many more features not available in QBO. As a result, ScheduleInterpreter® is designated as a parent platform, a term used to describe the source of the most accurate and up to date data. Unless specified, QBO is set a child platform.
In this relationship, data stored in ScheduleInterpreter® will always override data stored in QBO.
Chart of accounts and invoice items are two, most often utilized data sets, that are maintained by QBO and are linked to ScheduleInterpreter® transactions.
Advanced subscription
Make sure your QuickBooks online is configured as Advanced. Without using Advanced subscription number of classes is limited to 40.
Login to your QuickBooks account and use gear icon located in the top right corner of the screen.
Locate and click on the Account and settings option under YOUR COMPANY menu.
When screen changes to Account and Settings, select Billing & Subscription and make sure QuickBooks Advanced is selected. ScheduleInterpreter automatically attaches classes to transactions, helping your accounting and management teams produce various reports.
Track classes
Continue to Advanced option. Under Categories > Track classes use pencil icon, located on the right side of the screen, to change settings.
Activate Track classes option using the switch on the right side and click Save button to complete your configuration.
Best practices
ScheduleInterpreter® and Intuit QuickBooks online can work as a single environment sharing operational and financial data. This best practices will help you to simplify and streamline your use of both platforms.
Accounts
Intuit QuickBooks online uses chart of accounts COA to centralize management and reporting. Dividing financial data between multiple accounts helps to produce better reporting and manage the financial records with more accuracy.
All accounts divided into several categories. ScheduleInterpreter® usually operates with revenue, expense and liability accounts.
Classes
To further improve quality of data, ScheduleInterpreter® provides option to classify transactions using type of account and name of the service. When activated, classification of transactions takes place automatically and does not require additional steps. It is recommended to utilize services as classes.
Revenue, expense and liability accounts
ScheduleInterpreter® supports COA with two or more hierarchical levels of revenue accounts. Below is a recommended structure of the revenue and expense accounts for language service providers.
QuickBooks limitation on using the same name applies to income and revenue accounts. To avoid conflict, use the word cost after all expense accounts.
Consider to download coa - best practices.csv file to use for import into QBO.
Income accounts structure
Create structure for income accounts starting with the Interpreting account. If you already have an account under which all income is being grouped, add sub-account, using Is sub-account option and selecting income account already configured in QBO.
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When it is important, continue building structure by adding more accounts associated with billable items. Use Is sub-account option and selecting Interpreting from income account.
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When all entries are completed, the income accounts structure should look similar to the one below.
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Cost of Goods Sold accounts structure
Create structure for Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) accounts starting with the Interpreting cost account. If you already have a COGS account under which all expenses are being grouped, add sub-account, using Is sub-account option and selecting COGS account already configured in QBO.
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When it is important, continue building structure by adding more accounts associated with expense items. Use Is sub-account option and selecting Interpreting cost from COGS account.
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When all entries are completed, the COGS accounts structure should look similar to the one below.
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Accounts payable
Accounts Payable or A/P does not require itemization. It is recommended to separate all vendor bills into an Interpreting sub-account of A/P.
Proceed with adding Interpreting sub-account under Accounts Payable (A/P) or A/P account in QBO.
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Items
To track revenue and expenses, QBO is using items. Items can be linked to both, expense and revenue accounts. ScheduleInterpreter® will make an attempt to collect all items from your QBO account, to enable easy integration of two products.
Consider to download items - best practices.csv file to use for import into QBO.
Use gear icon in the top right corner
Select LISTS > Products and services from the next screen
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Continue with selecting Service from the list of Product/Service information menu. Click on New button in the top right corner to add new service item
Start with Interpreting as a an item that will allow to group all other items.
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Complete entries for all items you would like to track within ScheduleInterpreter® and QBO. Consider to use the same structure for better tracking and reporting as income and COGS accounts. This can be done using Is sub-product/service option.
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When all items are configured, the structure should look similar to the one below.
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Using items in QBO enables access to the structure of ScheduleInterpreter® and allows advanced reporting and cross reference.
Complete entries for all items. As of May 2021, ScheduleInterpreter® offers the following item synchronization.
On-site interpreting, over the phone interpreting (OPI), video remote interpreting (VRI), remote interpreting service (RIS), travel time, mileage, parking, fees, tolls, per diem and adjustments.
Account type
Account type in ScheduleInterpreter® and Customer type in QBO are two identical options. QBO does not allow to automatically populate Customer types. If you plan to use this feature, please make sure to copy all account types from ScheduleInterpreter® to QBO.
Using another tab or window of the browser, open and login to your account in QBO. Navigate to SALES > Customers and click on Customer types button.
When screen changes, click on New customer type button.
Using the pop-up window, preserving the lower and upper case of the letters, copy all account types from ScheduleInterpreter to QBO.
Connect to QBO
Establishing connection
Click on button to begin authentication process.
You will be presented with a Sign In window from Intuit, asking for your e-mail or user ID and password, associated with your account.
When multiple companies are using QBO, an option to select which QBO account will be used to connect to ScheduleInterpreter® will be shown. Select the company of your choice and click on Next button.
QBO will provide new window to confirm your selection and for security purpose will display ScheduleInterpreter® logo, informing you that you are allowing ScheduleInterpreter to update your QuickBooks Online data. Click on Connect button to proceed.
The content of the window will change and show the following message. Click on Close Window button to complete the connection.
Returning to control center will also show a pop-up message confirming successful connection.
Manage QBO connection
When connection between ScheduleInterpreter® and QBO is established, new options to manage connection between two platforms become available.
- button allowing selected QBO account to be disconnected from ScheduleInterpreter®.
- button initiates the process of removing connection details for all accounts. No records or transactions are removed in ScheduleInterpreter® or QBO. All connection details can be restored when QBO sync option is used, or when the account is configured with scheduled or live updates.
- button initiates the process of removing connection details for all customer invoices. No records or transactions are removed in ScheduleInterpreter® or QBO. All connection details can be restored when QBO sync option is used, or when the account is configured with scheduled or live updates.
- button initiates the process of removing connection details for all vendors. No records or transactions are removed in ScheduleInterpreter® or QBO. All connection details can be restored when QBO sync option is used, or when the account is configured with scheduled or live updates.
Vendor bills in QBO are the equivalent of vendor payments in ScheduleInterpreter®.
Configure global data exchange settings
For better reporting, use the following options to enhance how data is being populated in QBO.
Client invoice line item class instructs QBO to apply specific class to each line item of the customer invoice. For example, assignment billed for services rendered in Spanish will allow to classify all items on the invoice associated with the assignment as Spanish. Using this option enables QBO to produce reports identifying revenue associated with each service. For example, QBO will be able to report items such as parking or tolls billed under Spanish services. To activate this option, select Service name from the drop down menu.
Similarly to the customer accounts, vendor bills line items can also be classified, using services. To activate this option check use language/service as line item class in vendor invoices.
Update account your vendor bills will be filed under. This and other liability accounts will be enlisted under vendor bill qbo account selection. Open the menu and select account of your choice.
Do not change other settings in the quickbooks tab. These options control export to desktop edition of QuickBooks and should be used for backward compatibility only.
Configure accounts and items exchange settings
There are 3 tabs to be configured: invoice items, income accounts and cost of services (cost of goods sold). Settings within each tab are linked to the organization's QBO account.
Starting with invoice items, use drop down menus to select corresponding invoice item from QBO.
Continue with Income accounts, use drop down menus to select corresponding income accounts configured under COA in QBO.
Continue with cost of services (cost of goods sold), use drop down menus to select corresponding COGS accounts configured under COA in QBO.
QBO checklist
Use the following checklist to ensure all items are addressed during integration of ScheduleInterpreter® and Intuit QuickBooks Online.
| Task | Completed |
|---|---|
| Backup your account. VERY IMPORTANT |  |
| Review Before you begin using ScheduleInterpreter® with QBO | |
| Switch to Advanced subscription | |
| Configure Track classes | |
| Review Best practices | |
| Configure Chart of accounts | |
| Configure Items | |
| Configure Account types in QBO | |
| Review QBO limitations | |
| Check Account duplicates | |
| Connect ScheduleInterpreter® and QuickBooks Online | |
| Configure Global settings | |
| Configure COA and items | |
| Synchronize Customers' accounts | |
| Synchronize Vendors' profiles | |
| Synchronize Vendors' bills | |
| Synchronize Customers' invoices | |
Print or use screen capture to create an electronic copy of the check list. Make sure to check off all tasks.
The process of integration between ScheduleInterpreter® and QBO has been reviewed by QuickBooks Online expert and ScheduleInterpreter® staff. It is highly effective, low maintenance process making your operational and financial data from ScheduleInterpreter® platform be fully integrated with Intuit QuickBooks Online.
QBO limitations
It is important to know limitations imposed by Intuit QuickBooks Online (QBO). Migrating to or setting up new account in QBO implies these limitation may affect your workflow and require detailed planning.
Account types
ScheduleInterpreter® is using account types to classify revenue and expenses related to the services of your organization. QBO also provides option to classify customer accounts, however, this option is available as a read only feature. If you are planning to utilize account types, practice recommended by ScheduleInterpreter®, you need to manually populate Customer types in QBO. More details on how to complete this task can be found here.
Name of the accounts
Similarly to desktop edition of QuickBooks, QBO requires all items, accounts, customers, customers' contacts, vendors and employees to use unique names and be no longer than 100 characters. QB desktop edition is limited to 41 character.
ScheduleInterpreter® does not have such restriction. When migrating from desktop edition of QB, ScheduleInterpreter® will continue to use name used under account name quickbooks.
After connection and synchronization of the customer accounts between ScheduleInterpreter® and QBO, you can remove legacy names and use the actual name of the account.
Check duplicate names
Navigate to tools and settings > data export and use Accounts as MS Excel file menu to download all your accounts.
Save and then open MS Excel file on the computer. Under any tab with QB in its name, for example QB Items, select first row and apply filters. Select the entire column QB account name and use Conditional Formatting to highlight all duplicate names. Use filter to reduce the number of rows to show only duplicate names. Review and update account name quickbooks in ScheduleInterpreter to avoid conflicts and wrong data synchronization.
The video below demonstrates how this can be done in MS Excel.
Field length
To ensure your financial records in both platforms look the same, review limitations set by QBO for all data fields.
| QuickBooks Field | Max Text Length |
|---|---|
| Line Item Description or Product/Service Description | 4000 |
| Expense Description | 4000 |
| Reference No ( Invoice No, Estimate No, Bill No) | 21 |
| Customer Notes | 1000 |
| Memo | 4000 |
| Address Line 1 | 500 |
| Address Line 2 | 2000 |
| Address Line 3 | 2000 |
| Address Line 4 | 2000 |
| Name (Customer, Vendor, Product, Employee, Class, Location) | 100 |
Real time data
Most of the time Intuit QuickBooks Online displays synchronized data as soon as ScheduleInterpreter® confirms synchronization process as completed. It is known delays of up to 30 seconds in displaying the data are possible.
QuickBooks Online does not update information on the screen. To see the updates use refresh button of the browser or combination of CTRL and R keys on the keyboard.
Inactive accounts and vendors
QuickBooks Online does not allow to post transactions for inactive accounts and vendors. Before making account Inactive in QuickBooks Online, make sure all customer invoices and vendor payments have been processed in ScheduleInterpreter®.
Synchronizing ScheduleInterpreter® and QBO
Description
ScheduleInterpreter® offers 3 ways to synchronize your data. Each mode allows various levels of control how data is being synchronized between two platforms.
| Synchronization mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Manual (default) |
All transactions and records are synchronized separately. Confirmation of the synchronization must be completed manually using vendors center, account center, invoice history and payment history. The mode provides maximum control over data flow from ScheduleInterpreter® to QBO. Recommended for migration from desktop edition of QuickBooks or when new account is created in QBO. |
| Scheduled |
Time based synchronization provides options to schedule daily and hourly automatic synchronization process. The mode enables automated data exchange without human intervention. Recommended for medium size organizations with highly organized workflow. |
| Live |
Data from ScheduleInterpreter® is instantly synchronized with QBO. The mode is recommended for large scale organizations operating in real time with multiple branches or teams. |
As of May 15, 2021 Scheduled and Live options are only available when requested.
Synchronize clients accounts
ScheduleInterpreter® will update all customer accounts in QBO. Billing address and contact name are selected from the user list of the customer account. ScheduleInterpreter® will check if a user with Accounting manger profile exists, and if present, populate billing details in QBO with user's profile details. When Accounting manager profile is absent, ScheduleInterpreter® will check if user with Administrator profile exists, and if present, populate billing details in QBO with user's profile details.
A message confirming synchronization is shown when process is completed.
Open QBO account to review the results of synchronization process.
ScheduleInterpreter® synchronizes inactive accounts. QBO shows inactive accounts by adding word (deleted) after the account name.
Selecting account and using Edit button will provide access to information compiled by ScheduleInterpreter® during synchronization process. If account types are populated in QBO, Additional Info tab will feature Customer Type.
Synchronize vendors
ScheduleInterpreter® will update all vendors profiles in QBO, including SSN or EIN numbers. When vendor is registered in ScheduleInterpreter® as a business, the name of the business is populated under Display name as field..
A message confirming synchronization is shown when process is completed.
Open QBO account to review the results of synchronization process.
ScheduleInterpreter® synchronizes inactive vendors. QBO shows inactive vendors by adding word (deleted) after the name.
Synchronize vendor payments
QBO processes vendor payments after vendor bill has been added to vendor's profile. ScheduleInterpreter® creates vendor bills converting processed payments.
Use button to synchronize all transactions.
A message confirming synchronization is shown when process is completed.
Open QBO account to review the results of synchronization process. All vendor payments are converted into QBO vendor bills and will appear under Expenses > Vendors.
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Selecting a vendor and a specific bill, will provide detailed outline according to the settings and configuration of the accounts and items.
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Synchronize customer invoices
Use button to synchronize all transactions.
A message confirming synchronization is shown when process is completed.
Open QBO account to review the results of synchronization process. All customer invoices will appear under Sales > Customers.
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Selecting any customer from the list will provide access to the invoices and their content.
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