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4.186. How do I setup the QuickBooks export for varying types of sign work?

When I set up export to the export to QuickBooks option, I want to set up different income accounts. Large signs, Small signs, Service Labor and Purchase Signs. What do I need to know and how do I do this?

Overview:

In order to achieve your goal you will want to understand your objective: getting QuickBooks and EstiMate on the same page when it comes to account and item specifics.

Achieving this objective involves two tasks:
1. Determining what accounts and items are needed and setting them up in QuickBooks.
2. Informing EstiMate of these account assignments.
Results you can expect to see:
1. After exporting your finished jobs and importing them into QuickBooks all the components of the quote will go automatically into the accounts and items you specified.
2. You will be able to pull-up your invoice or cash sale in QuickBooks as if you had typed it in manually with full detail.

Preliminary Steps:

You will want to determine what you mean by ?Purchase signs?; ?small signs?, ?large signs? and where you price these in EstiMate. This will determine what type of account and item you create in QuickBooks.

If ?Purchase signs?; ?small signs?, ?large signs? are signs you sell that have a set size and price you may consider using the retail items plugin in EstiMate to enter these items.


1. Review the account assignments screen in EstiMate. To reach this screen click management > QuickBooks Link > Configure QuickBooks Export.
2. Click the plus sign to the left of the pricing plugins entry.
3. Review the list of plugins and decide what you would like to call the account and item for each of these categories and notate it on a separate sheet of paper.
4. If desired you can have separate account assignments for substrates and retail items as well, so if desired you can repeat step 3 for these entries also.
5. Press the red cancel symbol to exit the account assignments screen for now.

Setup procedure:

The best setup procedure is in the EstiMate help files. To reach this procedure click Help > Help contents. Click the contents button in the upper left of the new screen that appears. Double-Click on the purple book icon called ?QuickBooks Link?. Highlight the entry entitled ?setting up items & accounts? and press the display button. Review and or print the instructions. Alternatively, you can also print the .pdf users guide on your EstiMate CD and review the instructions there.

After reviewing the tutorial you will then do two things:

1. Setup accounts and items in Quickbooks. Here you will want to review the account and item names you notated in step 3 above and create those in QuickBooks.
2. Inform EstiMate of these accounts and items using the Configure QuickBooks Export utility.

Example:

In QuickBooks setup an income account called ?Sign Income?, for example and an associated inventory part item called ?retail items?. In addition you may wish to create additional inventory or non-inventory part items under the ?Sign Income? account that reflect the diverse range of retail items you sell. I.e. ?Small signs ? Coroplast? ?Large Signs ? MDO? etc.

In EstiMate then assign the retail items plugin to the account of ?Sign Income? and the item of ?Retail Items?.

Furthermore you would then assign each retail item to a different QuickBooks item until all the retail items in your database had the correct account and item designations.