QuickBooks Online is expanding in popularity because it affords 'ease of use and access' via the cloud and because it 'connects' to a variety of applications. At the recent QuickBooks Connect conference we were told that more than 1300 Apps now work with QuickBooks Online.
Last spring, prior to Scaling New Heights, Insightful Accountant (then Intuitive Accountant) published short article on the fact that NumberCruncher's product, All Orders, a leading inventory and order management application had implemented a connection alternative that allowed their product to work with QuickBooks Online. This article affords a little more information as to this solution.
All Orders by NumberCruncher is still a desktop application and the fact that it connects to QuickBooks Online is one of the things that makes this software unique. For years, 'cloud' (internet) applications have connected to QuickBooks Desktop solutions, first via the WebConnector and then via Intuit's SyncManager (which is being phased out). While there have been hundreds, even in the thousands, of Apps that are cloud based and work with the cloud-based version of QuickBooks, aka: QuickBooks Online, you don't really see many desktop applications that work with QBO.
All Orders is obviously an exception. In addition to providing solutions to manage inventory control, production management, order processing and fulfillment, Number Cruncher can now turn the numbers it tracks and processes into meaningful information that flows into QuickBooks Online. NumberCruncher realized that many of their potential customers are looking for cloud accounting, but the complexities of advanced inventory functionality has not eliminated the need of a local (desktop/server) based application to deal with the day-in, day-out tasks that All Orders is so well designed to perform.
At the same time NumberCruncher recognizes the differences in capabilities and functionality that separate QuickBooks Online from QuickBooks Desktop products, so they incorporated those differences into their synchronization process. The biggest difference is in the way that Inventory Items are synchronized. In order to deal with the inherit differences, All Orders makes use of a proxy item in QuickBooks online that serves as a placeholder item for transactions processed via All Orders.Inventory postings which are accomplished by creating journal entries in QuickBooks Online. The following table, courtesy of NumberCruncher, provides a comparison of how data syncs with both the Desktop and Online QuickBooks products.
The actual process of setting up the connection between All Orders and QuickBooks Online is a fairly simple one. Once you have QuickBooks Online set-up and you have All Orders set-up, then you simply download, install and run the specialized QBO Sync Tool that NumberCruncher has created. This tool is available from the QuickBooks Setup page of the application. After installation, navigate to Company Preferences in All Orders and set the desired values for QuickBooks Online, the settings and configuration will take effect and then begin running based upon the configuration you created in the QuickBooks Sync Tool. It literally is that easy and your sophisticate All Orders inventory management system is chatting it up with QuickBooks Online.
Thanks to Ian Benoliel and the folks from NumberCruncher for taking the time to visit with me at their Vendor Booth in the QuickBooks Connect Exhibit Hall. In a future article we will examine some of the additional benefits of using All Orders coupled with QuickBooks Online.