Accounting Integration Overview

Job Manager has been integrated with three leading accounting software systems (Intuit's QuickBooks Pro 2001, MYOB's Accounting Plus Version 10, and Best Software's Peachtree Complete Accounting 2003). This accounting integration feature offers you the possibility of sharing Job Manager customer and invoice information with your accounting software without re-keying.

If the Job Manager Administrator has enabled and set up this Accounting Integration feature, you will be able to:

Transfer invoice information from Job Manager to your accounting system without re-keying,

Automate the distribution of an invoiced amount among several general ledger accounts based on the invoice information available to the Job Manager system, and

Transfer customer information for customers created in Job Manager to your accounting software without re-keying. This allows one-way synchronization of Job Manager and accounting system customer information.

For information on setting up Accounting Integration, please consult the Job Manager Setup & Administration Guide.

The transfer of customer and invoice information from Job Manager to the accounting system proceeds through an intermediate text file (formatted so that it can be read by the target accounting system). First, Job Manager exports the information for the customer(s)/invoice(s) selected by a user to a formatted text file. Second, a user imports the file into the accounting system, using the importing mechanism supported by that system.

While both customers and invoices are exported through the Accounting Export page, there are significant differences between the export of customer and invoice information.

A customer will usually be exported each time the customer's information changes. Any customer object in the Job Manager system is always available for export in the Accounting Export window.

When a formatted file containing customer information is imported into the accounting system, the customer information for each customer in the file is matched with the customer records stored in the accounting system based on the customer code. For each Job Manager customer included in the file:

If a customer with the same customer code exists in the accounting system, that object is updated with the information from the file.

If no customer with the same customer code can be found in the accounting system, a new customer is created in the accounting system based on the information in the file.

An invoice object will normally be transferred to the accounting system only once. Invoice information can only be transferred to the accounting system in the form of a valid accounting transaction. For a Job Manager invoice to constitute such a transaction, the invoiced amount must be assigned to a set of general ledger (GL) accounts in the Invoice Distribution window and the invoice must be designated as "approved" for export. For more information on the "approved" invoice status and the effect of the Accounting Integration feature on the invoice workflow, please consult the "Invoices" section in the "Management Functions" chapter of this guide.

It is assumed that all invoices are created and printed in Job Manager. The only invoice information exported from Job Manager is the information required by the accounting system to:

Post the invoice to the proper general ledger accounts (i.e. distribution items are exported; line items are not exported).

Age accounts receivable (e.g. term information and date invoiced).

Invoice and customer information may be transferred to the accounting system as often (or as rarely) as you like; however, since each invoice in both Job Manager and the accounting system refers to a customer, it is recommended that you transfer an updated customer list whenever invoice information is exported.

note: It is important to establish a periodic procedure to check that all invoices created in Job Manager are being transferred to the accounting system.

To check that all invoices that have been exported from Job Manager have been imported into the accounting system, we suggest that a summary of A/R activity over some period in the accounting system is compared to the total of Job Manager invoices created during the same period. To obtain an invoice summary in Job Manager, generate an Invoice List with the following search criteria:

Status - check the checkboxes next to 'Exported' and 'Posted'

Date Invoiced - enter a date range corresponding to the comparison period.

For more information on generating invoice lists, please refer to the "Generating An Invoice List (Invoice Find)" section of the "Management Functions" chapter of this guide.

If some invoicing is done directly in the accounting system (in addition to the invoices transferred from Job Manager), then this comparison will not be accurate. For this reason, we recommend that Job Manager be used for all invoicing purposes.

note: Throughout the rest of this chapter, QuickBooks Pro 2001, MYOB Accounting Plus Version 10, and Peachtree Complete Accounting 2003 will be referred to as QuickBooks, Accounting Plus, and Peachtree, respectively.