Setting Up QuickBooks Desktop Connector

QBench offers the QuickBooks Desktop Connector application (“QDC”). Customers can use QDC to unidirectionally sync their Customer, Assay, Panel, Invoice, and Payment data from QBench to their QuickBooks Desktop file. QDC can be configured to sync on command or automatically. Customers looking to set up an automatic sync can customize their syncing interval, and can set QDC to sync as frequently as every 10 minutes.

Just select a date and time you want to start syncing from. After the initial sync, QDC will sync changes to supported fields made after the last recorded sync.

This article is the first in the QuickBooks Desktop Connector series, and will walk you through Before You Start, Setting Up Your QBench Instance, Setting Up QuickBooks, and Performing the Initial Sync, as well as some basic Troubleshooting.

Before You Start

Once running, QDC is designed to be an easy-to-use tool to sync from QBench to QuickBooks. However, QBench recommends that the initial setup be performed by someone with IT or similar experience.

Before setting up QDC:

1. Have access to an account on your QuickBooks company file with sufficient permissions to edit Customers, Invoices, Service Items, and Payments
2. Create an account in your company file called “Sales”
3. IMPORTANT: Create a backup of your QuickBooks company file before performing your first sync
4. IMPORTANT: Link any of your existing QuickBooks data with your QBench data. If you need assistance, QBench support is here to help

Setting Up Your QBench Instance

1. Login to your QBench instance as an administrator
2. Go to Configuration > Application > Developer > Settings
3. Enter a Unix “Initial Sync Timestamp”. This timestamp will tell QDC when to start syncing changes when you perform your first sync. For example, if you enter a timestamp for last Monday at 12:00 PM,  QDC will sync all changes made after that time on the initial sync. Many free Unix date/time converters are available online
4. Enter a sync frequency in minutes, if desired. E.g. 30 minutes, 60 minutes
5. Click “Save and Download QWC File”, then click yes on the confirmation popup. An obfuscated API Client Secret will appear -- DO NOT REFRESH THE PAGE UNTIL YOU REVEAL AND COPY THIS SECRET

Setting Up QuickBooks

1. If not already installed, download the QuickBooks Web Connector
2. Load your company file
3. Open the QuickBooks Web Connector
4. Click the “Add an Application” button
5. Locate and open the .QWC file downloaded from QBench
6. When the “Authorize New Web Service” window opens, click “OK” to grant the QBench QuickBooks web connector access to QuickBooks
7. When the “QuickBooks - Application Certificate” window opens, select when you want the application to read and modify the company file. QDC will work with any Yes answer. If you select opt to always allow QDC to access QuickBooks, click yes on window confirming you want to all access to QB data even when QB isn’t running
8. Uncheck allowing web connector access to personal data such as Social Security Numbers and customer credit card information (QDC does not have any functionality that would require this information)
9. Click “Continue”
10. Click “Done” on the “Access Confirmation” window
11. “QuickBooks Integrator” will appear in the QuickBooks Web Connector application list

Performing the Initial Sync

1. In QBench, click the crossed out eye icon in the “API Client Secret” to display the one-time API Client Secret. Select and copy the secret
2. In QuickBooks Web Connector, paste the secret into the “Password” field for the QuickBooks Integrator. For optimum performance, we recommend allowing the QuickBooks Web Connector to save this password
3. By default, Auto-Run will be checked. If you entered a “Sync Frequency” in QBench, the minutes you specified will be listed under “Every-Min”. If you left this field blank, the default Sync Frequency will be set to 10 minutes
4. To test QDC, click the checkbox next to “QuickBooks Integrator”
5. Click “Update Selected”. Remember that this will sync any Customers, Assays, Panels, Invoices, and Payments created or updated in QBench since the initial sync timestamp. If you need to modify your initial timestamp before uploading, repeat the steps in Setting Up Your QuickBooks Instance and Setting Up QuickBooks.
6. Wait for the update to complete. Depending on the amount of data that has been modified in your instance after the timestamp, the sync may take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes to complete
7. Sync Complete! If you check your Customers, Invoices, Payments, service items, you should see any created/updated items after the timestamp

Troubleshooting

If your sync fails (which will generally display a "ReceiveResponseXML failed" error in the QuickBooks Web Connector) or an error message appears in the QuickBooks Desktop Response Log for one of your Customers, Assays, Panels, Invoices, or Payments (“objects”), the QBench support team is available to help. However, some issues can be resolved with the troubleshooting guidance below.

NOTE: In order to troubleshoot sync failures, you will need to display the QuickBooks Desktop fields for affected data types in Fields and Data Types. More information about the QuickBooks Desktop fields can be found in the General Information section of the Using QuickBooks Desktop Connector article.

• "ReceiveResponseXML failed" message in QuickBooks Web Connector, but no error message in the QuickBooks Desktop Response Log for any QBench objects
  • If this occurs on your first sync, verify that you have an account named "Sales" in QuickBooks. If you have a "Sales" account and the error persists, contact QBench support
  • Check if you have any Customers with duplicate names. We encourage QDC users to turn on Enforce Unique Customer Name in the QBench General Settings while using QDC
• 3070 -- The string "[X]" in the field "[Field_Name]" is too long.--Error
  • The QuickBooks Web Connector can only sync up to 30 characters at a time. While data should truncate after 30 characters, if you receive this message, shortening the data in the field to 30 characters or less should result in a successful next sync attempt
• 3100 -- The name "[X]" of the list element is already in use.--Error
  • This error appears when QDC tries to sync a duplicate object, such as an Assay, or Panel. For example, if this error appears after trying to sync a new Assay, check that a Service Item with the same name does not already exist in QuickBooks
• 3200 -- The provided edit sequence "[X]" is out-of-date. --Error
  • This error can appear after an error from a previous sync or because data was modified directly in QuickBooks since the last sync. Clear all the QuickBooks fields on the object and retry the sync. However, this will sync a new object. If the object had previously been synced to QuickBooks, a brand new, duplicate version of the object will be synced