Quickbooks Integration

Under Organization Settings > Accounting, select “QuickBooks Online”. Then click on Connect with QuickBooks Online to connect to your QuickBooks Online account.

A new page will appear and you will be prompted to enter your QuickBooks online account credentials, then confirm that you are authorizing MembershipWorks to connect to your QuickBooks Online account.

Note: QuickBooks Online does not support Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge browsers for authorization. Please use a different browser if you encounter issues authorizing MembershipWorks to connect to your QuickBooks Online account.

Once you have authorized the connection, you will then setup the accounts and items to be used for the invoices, payments and taxes (if applicable). Please consult with your accountant if you are unsure about these settings.

Once you have configured your export settings, click on Save & Continue at the bottom of the page.

You can export transactions to QuickBooks from several places:

1. From the Dashboard > Financial page, you can select a date range (at the top left corner), and click on Export QuickBooks to export transactions in that date range to QuickBooks. You will be prompted to select the types of transactions (membership, events, cart, donation, other) to export.

2. From each event’s Dashboard, you can click on Export QuickBooks to export the event payments for just this event.

3. From each form under Forms Carts Donations, you can click on Export QuickBooks to export the payments for just this form.

Each financial transaction – membership payment, event payment and forms/carts/donations payment – generates:

1. An Invoice
2. A Payment for the gross payment
3. A Journal Entry for the transaction fee

Note that the transaction fee entry is not created if there is no transaction fee recorded for the payment.

The invoice will reflect the name and address, and the items on the transaction. For membership payments, the invoice will list the membership level, membership add-ons, and any discount or adjustment. For event payments, the invoice will list the event tickets purchased. For forms/carts/donation payments, the invoice will list the items purchased.

Each type of transaction – membership, events, donations, cart and other – is exported as a different QuickBooks item that you selected under the export settings. It is not possible to have a different QuickBooks item for each specific membership level, event ticket, or cart item. However the description for each line in the invoice will reflect the specific membership level, event ticket name, or cart item.

Any changes made directly in QuickBooks Online does not update our system, so certain changes will cause issues.

• Deleting or merging Customer records in QuickBooks Online created for your members. The Customer record is linked to the member account, so when the Customer is deleted or merged that will cause errors when exporting future transactions for that member.
• Deleting or recording payment against open Invoices. Doing so will cause errors when our system attempts to update the Invoice in a future export, such as recording a payment against that Invoice.
• Deleting any Invoices, Credits, Payments or Journal Entries that may need to be updated in a future export. This will not trigger a re-export of the transaction, instead this will trigger an error when the system tries to update the transaction in QuickBooks (since it has been deleted).
• Changing the Customer associated with or the total for Invoices, Credits or Payments that may need to be updated in a future export.

The following changes are safe to make directly in QuickBooks Online:

• Altering Invoices, Credits, Payments or Journal Entries without affecting the associated Customer or total. For example, changing the description of the line items or adding classes to Invoices.
• Altering (but not deleting or merging) Customer records.
• Deleting or merging Customer records of accounts that have been deleted from MembershipWorks.
• Altering or deleting Invoices, Credits, Payments or Journal Entries of transactions which are fully finalized and exported from our system – ie. no future adjustments or refunds are expected for the transaction.
• Deleting Invoices, Credits, Payments or Journal Entries of transactions that have been deleted from MembershipWorks.

When in doubt of whether certain changes will affect future exports, please contact us.

Common Error: Invalid Auth/Bad Request

This error could mean that the authorization with QuickBooks Online has expired (it expires every 180 days). To reconnect, go to Organization Settings > Accounting and click Update QuickBooks Online Settings, and follow the prompts to re-authorize the connection to your QuickBooks Online account.

Common Error: The Name Supplied Already Exists

This error indicates that you have another entity in QuickBooks – a vendor, other name, sales rep, etc – with the same name as the customer the invoice refers to. QuickBooks does not allow a customer to have the same name as a vendor, other name or sales rep. You will need to rename the vendor, other name or sales rep to resolve the conflict.

Under Organization Settings > Accounting, select “QuickBooks IIF” to customize the accounts and items used to generate the invoices and payments in QuickBooks.

Our default settings match the typical default settings in QuickBooks. However your accountant may have setup your accounts differently, so please consult with your accountant if you are unsure about these settings. Any account or item in these settings that does not exist in QuickBooks would be automatically created by QuickBooks when the IIF file is imported; no error will be reported by QuickBooks.

Once you have configured your settings, remember to click on Save & Continue at the bottom of the page.

You can export an IIF file from several places:

1. From the Dashboard > Financial page, you can select a date range (at the top left corner) of transactions to export, and click on Export QuickBooks to download the IIF file. You will be prompted to select the types of transactions (membership, events, cart, donation, other) to export.

2. From each event’s Dashboard, you can click on Export QuickBooks to export the event payments for just this event.

3. From each form under Forms Carts Donations, you can click on Export QuickBooks to export the payments for just this form.

IMPORTANT: Do not import the same transaction twice into QuickBooks – this will create duplicate transactions. There is no way for QuickBooks Desktop to determine if the transaction has previously been imported. There is also no way to update an existing transaction in QuickBooks Desktop, for example to reflect a subsequent refund.

To prevent duplicate transactions, we recommend exporting in such a way that you would not overlap any transactions from one export to the next. Some simple rules:

1. If you export by dates from the Dashboard > Financial, once you have imported transactions for a certain date make sure you do not overlap that date in the future. For example, only export once a month for the previous month from Dashboard > Financial.

2. If you export from each event, make sure you do not also export event transactions from the Dashboard > Financial. Also only export after the event is closed and all transactions have been finalized.

3. If you export from each form, make sure you do not also export cart and donation transactions from the Dashboard > Financial. Also only export after the form is closed and all transactions have been finalized.

From QuickBooks, go to File > Utilities > Import > IIF Files, and select the IIF file you downloaded.

During the import note any error messages reported by QuickBooks.

Each financial transaction – membership payment, event payment and forms/carts/donations payment – generates:

1. An Invoice (from QuickBooks – Customer > Create Invoices)
2. A Customer Payment for the gross payment (Customer > Receive Payments)
3. A General Journal Entry for the transaction fee (Company > Make General Journal Entries)

Note that the transaction fee entry is not created if there is no transaction fee recorded for the payment.

The invoice will reflect the name and address, and the items on the transaction. For membership payments, the invoice will list the membership level, membership add-ons, and any discount or adjustment. For event payments, the invoice will list the event tickets purchased. For forms/carts/donation payments, the invoice will list the items purchased.

Each type of transaction – membership, events, donations, cart and other – is exported as a different QuickBooks item (under Lists > Item List in QuickBooks) that you setup under the IIF export settings. It is not possible to have a different QuickBooks item for each specific membership level, event ticket, or cart item. However the description for each line in the invoice will reflect the specific membership level, event ticket name, or cart item.

One limitation of the IIF format is that payments cannot be attributed or applied to an invoice. By generating the invoice and payment, we ensure your Customer balance, Accounts Receivables, balance sheet and P&L are correct. However it will appear in QuickBooks that the invoices are not paid. You can manually apply the payment to the invoice by clicking on the “Apply Credit” button from the invoice screen.

Common Error: Cannot Add Customer – Name Already Exists

This error indicates that you have another entity in QuickBooks – a vendor, other name, sales rep, etc – with the same name as the customer the invoice refers to. QuickBooks does not allow a customer to have the same name as a vendor, other name or sales rep. You will need to rename the vendor, other name or sales rep to resolve the conflict.

Common Error: Invalid transaction

This error indicates that one or more of your export settings under Organization Settings > Accounting is invalid. Please check the following:

1. From your QuickBooks program go to Chart of Accounts:
   • Make sure all accounts listed in Organization Settings > Accounting match existing accounts in QuickBooks. The names must match exactly. Do not include account numbers in the settings if account numbers are not actually part of the “Account Name” under the account settings in QuickBooks.
   • The Invoice Account setting must match an “Accounts Receivable” type account in QuickBooks
   • The Deposit Account (credit card and other) settings must match a “Bank” or “Other Current Assets” type accounts in QuickBooks
   • The Tax Account setting must match a “Other Current Liabilities” type account in QuickBooks
   • The Fee Account setting must match a “Expense” type account in QuickBooks
   • The Sales Account (Membership, Event, Donation, Cart, Handling and Other) settings must match “Income” type accounts in QuickBooks
2. From QuickBooks go to Item List:
   • Again make sure that all the Invoice Items listed in Organization Settings > Accounting match existing items in the QuickBooks Item List.  The names must match exactly.
   • For each item in QuickBooks, go to the item settings. Each item should have the “Account” setting  set to the Income account in QuickBooks that matches the corresponding Sales Accounts you listed under Organization Settings > Accounting
3. Finally in QuickBooks, go to the Vendors and Other Names list, and make sure none of your member or event registrant names are on those lists. If they are, you will need to delete or rename the existing Vendor or Other Name entry so there is no conflict. QuickBooks does not allow a Customer to have the same name as a Vendor or Other Name.

Common Error: Sales Tax Error Importing IIF To QuickBooks 2019+

If you receive an error “There is an invalid reference to QuickBooks Item Sales Tax … in the Invoice” when importing the IIF file with 2019+ versions of QuickBooks, this is due to a bug in the QuickBooks IIF review system for invoices that report a sales tax amount of 0. To bypass this error, click on the “Import it for me. I’ll fix it later” link at the bottom of the import dialog box:

Note: make sure these are the only errors reported by QuickBooks. Other errors should be resolved/fixed first before using the “Import it for me” link.

MembershipWorks works well with both versions of Quickbooks, however Quickbooks Online does have some advantages:

• With QuickBooks Desktop, it is important to be careful not import the same transaction twice; this will create duplicate transactions. There is no way for QuickBooks Desktop to determine if the transaction has previously been imported. So if you export by dates from the Dashboard > Financial, once you have imported transactions for a certain date, make sure you do not overlap that date in the future. 
• For QuickBooks Desktop, exports should only be done after all transactions are finalized. For example, there is no way to update transactions such as a subsequent refund in Quickbooks Desktop. However with Quickbooks Online, MembershipWorks can update these types of transactions with changes that occur later.

In Organization Settings > Accounting, you control:

• The accounts where the payments are deposited into
• The Sales tax account
• Invoice item and sales account for each category of transaction – membership, events, donations, cart and other

You can not have a separate item for each event or membership level. MembershipWorks is there to help you get the information into Quickbooks, but not to synchronize everything.

No it is not. When you receive/record payments and export to QuickBooks, it generates both an invoice and payment in QuickBooks. Note that this is a one-way integration with QuickBooks. MembershipWorks sends information to QuickBooks, but QuickBooks doesn’t send information back to MembershipWorks. Transactions related to activity that is tracked in MembershipWorks should be entered directly into MembershipWorks, not Quickbooks.