How many times has someone asked you, "Just Imagine"? Typically they are trying to get you to envision something in your mind using only the words they speak. No visual reference, no previous exposure to a concept, just your imagination guided by their words.
Imagine
Well that's what I am going to do right now, ask you to 'just imagine' with me.
Just imagine being able to send almost any information, in any format, from any source into QuickBooks Online.
Just imagine not having to try to figure out how you should configure or map data in some 3rd party application so that it ends up correct, most of the time.
Just imagine an easy way in which you can see incoming data when it arrives and confirm that it's ready to post before it can possibly mess-up your accounting.
Just imagine that the information you need ends up within your accounting in exactly the way you want the information to appear.
Now just imagine that all of this is coming soon to the QuickBooks Online you know and love.
If you have a clear image in your mind of all I have just ask you to 'imagine', then you have a picture of 'staged transactions' for QuickBooks Online.
Intuit is in the process of working on a new API which I will be writing about in another article within a few days. As part of the new API, Intuit will be implementing the availability of 'staged transactions'.
Rather than App developers building a complex application that takes information and configures it so that it will post directly into QBO data tables as specific transaction types, you will get to decide how the data gets posted, and I'm not talking about configuring the App with a bunch of mapping information.
A few years back Intuit began working on this staged-method of data import with American Express. Because that data was 'financial institution' based, even though it reflected the direct capture of receipts, it was passed through the Bankfeeds process in QBO in the same way as other bank data.
But imagine (once again) that you have a transaction center, somewhat like Bankfeeds where simple information (like name, number, date, amount) arrives in such a way that you can easily decide 'vendor bill, equipment expense' or 'invoice payment', or 'reimbursable expense, gasoline'. With just a few clicks each line of data becomes the correct transaction type and gets assigned to the correct accounting.
Now carry your imagination one step further. Like Bankfeeds, the power of artificial intelligence is ready and waiting for these staged transactions, continually learning the patterns of your manual classifications so that before long the data is automatically posted to the proper transaction type and account(s).
From an App developer standpoint the availability of staged transactions greatly reduces the amount of work, the number of API calls, and the cost of development to give you an App that puts the control in your hands at the staged transaction control center.
Over the next few months, staged transactions will become available in work that is going on between Intuit and Pay Pal. By the time that project is completed, API V4 should be well into implementation and staged transactions will be available to those developers who believe the best choice for their App is to give QBO (or QBOA) users the ability to turn imagination into reality.