Ask the Accountant…
Question: I am integrating SAGE Online with QuickBooks Premier. I am getting duplicate customers and vendors. Why is that happening?
Answer: When integrating two software packages, if any data in the receiving system is not identical to that being exported, it will be identified as a new and different entry.
For instance, if you have a customer set up in QB as “ABC Company,” and in SAGE Online (or any other system) the customer is labeled as “ABC Company, Inc,” a second company of “ABC Company, Inc” will be created in QB when the data from SAGE is imported into QB.
One solution is to synchronize one list to the other so that the lists in both systems are identical, but that can be a massive amount of work. The other way is to merge the dual records in QB.
In the above example, for instance, I would want the QB customer to be “ABC Company, Inc,” because that’s what it is in SAGE. I will be writing additional orders in SAGE for this customer (we hope), so that name will be brought into QB again.
To merge the records, edit the customer “ABC Company,” change it to “ABC Company, Inc,” and save the change. QB will not permit the same identical name to be in lists twice. You will get a warning that the name already exists, and you will be asked if you want to merge the records. If you answer yes, the name will be changed, all the history of both names (ABC Company and ABC Company, Inc) will be merged, and you will be left with only “ABC Company, Inc.”
Be careful with merging records, however. Once merged, you cannot undo the merge.
Please email your questions to Harriet at Ask The Accountant.
QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise can be modified to better serve ad specialty distributors. Harriet Gatter is a QuickBooks ProAdvisor, a former accounting professor and a former ad specialty distributor. She advises ad specialty distributors to use QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise, often in conjunction with other industry-specific software, to manage the complexities of the ad specialty business, with the results being time saved, errors eliminated and an overall accurate accounting of your business. Contact her at [email protected].
