To export transactions from Operate to Quickbooks Desktop Pro, please first make sure that you have configured both applications for the export.
Please conduct exports with caution, as configuration errors or multiple exports can cause your accounting to become inaccurate.
What can you export?
Operate exports the following directly to Quickbooks, using the Essensys Financial Connector desktop app.
Accounts.
Invoices and Credit Notes.
Payments.
Limitations
1. Journal Exports are not supported
The export does not support Journal transactions, neither credit nor debit. If you are using journals within Operate, these will need to be added manually to Quickbooks.
Some versions of Quickbooks Desktop Pro may not export journals at all (e.g. the 2020 version); while older versions might export the journal and add it to the correct Quickbooks account but without assigning it to the customer. Sometimes Quickbooks shows an error message in your Financial Connector, stating that the transaction must have a customer. Despite this error, the transaction might still export in some versions of Quickbooks.
Many versions of Quickbooks are inaccessible to integrators such as essensys, which is why we are unable to conduct proper testing. For this reason, we cannot guarantee a specific outcome when it comes to exporting Journals.
Recommendation
If you use Journals within Operate's Accounts Receivable module, we recommend that you track them on a monthly basis, as follows:
Create an Operate report that lists your Journal transactions. Here is how to do this in the standard and advanced report writers. Feel free to customize the report as per your needs, but make sure to add the following filter:
Transaction Name contains 'Journal'. This will make sure that only Journal transactions are listed. Using this report, you can add these transactions to Quickbooks.
Before you conduct your export from Operate, check the Quickbooks Chart of Accounts and find the Account that corresponds to the GL Code that you assign Journals to in Operate. Depending on your Quickbooks version, you may or may not find your Journals here. If they appear here, they may not be assigned to the appropriate customer, so you will need to match each transaction to the Operate report. If the Chart of Accounts does not contain your journals at all, then they will need to be added manually.
2. Quickbooks has character length limits
Please ensure that your team is aware of the field character length limits listed here. If any field exceeds Quickbooks' limits, then the transaction in question will fail to export.
Conducting your Export
1. Open Quickbooks and run a Trial Balances Report
This will give you the balances prior to the export. Email this to yourself and keep for potential post export reconciliation.
In Quickbooks go to the Report Centre > Accountant & Taxes, click on the Trial Balance report and make a note of your pre-export balances.
2. Back up your Quickbooks!
Prior to any export please always back up your Quickbooks database (in the event that the export might fail or an error is made, the database can be restored from this back up).
Go to File and Create a Backup.
3. Keep Quickbooks open
4. Check Product GL Codes and Account IDs in Operate
This needs to be done every month, as you add Accounts and/or Products to Operate.
Before exporting, check the list in Member > Accounts and ensure that all accounts have Accounts IDs.
Next, go to Space > Products and make sure that all of your products have a GL code, by checking the corresponding column. If you have added new products within the current month, please select them in the list and click Export to download a CSV file containing all the information shown on your Operate list. Please either import this into Quickbooks or add the products manually under Lists > Item List.
5. Run the Un-booked Invoice Summary Report in Operate
Go to Reports, in Operate, then look for the 'Un-Booked Invoice Summary' Report and open it.
Run the report for invoices issued this month.
This report will show you all the invoices available for export. Email to yourself and keep for reconciliation post export. Remember to record the Gross figure including VAT as this will be the total sum exported.
6. Prevent Invoices from Being Raised during Export
It is important to prevent invoices from being raised during your export otherwise this could make reconciliation difficult because invoices with the same date as exported invoices could be raised but not exported.
To do this, go to the Operate Settings > Organizations > then select your organization. You can also search for 'Organizations' in the global search box next to the Operate logo to find your list of configured organizations.
Once you edit your organization, you will find a field called 'Disable Transactions on or Before', where you can set the current date. This will ensure that no invoice will be generated while you are working on the export and after it has been completed. When you are ready, save the change you made to the organization record.
7. Conduct the export
Exports to Quickbooks Desktop take place using the essensys Financial Connector application (eFC). Read more.
The following screen will be presented, displaying your Organizations and export options:
Select the Organization that you want to conduct the export for.
Choose what to export: either Unbooked or Booked transactions. Choosing "Unbooked" will export transactions that would not have been exported before. "Booked" Transactions may have already been exported. Exporting booked transactions may lead to duplicates in your financial accounts, therefore we recommend caution when choosing this option.
Click on the Configure button and select what you are going to export. The eFC exports the following directly to Quickbooks Desktop: Invoices Credit Notes and Accounts. Save your setting once you're ready to return to the main export screen. Everything else which is not exported should be configured during the setup process mentioned above and available here.
Click Export - Operate will then export all the transactions to Quickbooks.
8. View Log Files to look for failures or non exported items
Click the Logs tab in the eFC to check for any failed transactions. The reason for the failure will be stated on the Log Entry.
9. Correct any failed Items and re-export
If an invoice has failed, correct the data within Operate and then re-export the invoice. You can choose to only export those specific transactions.
The cause is likely to be:
The Account ID is missing or not matching,
The Item Description or Revenue Account are not matching
To re-export the failed transaction:
Launch the eFC.
Select 'Booked'.
Click on the 'Select Transactions' button to find the individual transactions.
To find the transactions that you want to re-export, select the Site, the month and year, then tick the box next to the relevant transactions. Click OK when you are done.
Then click on Export. once again.
10. Reconcile balances
In Quickbooks run the Trial Balance report again.
The balance of the debtor account balance should now be the sum of the starting Trial Balance and the Unbooked Invoice Summary Report total.
If it is not, investigate the failures in the log to see which transaction is causing the difference and repeat from Step 9 again.