Automatic Creation of Customers and Items in WeIntegrate from Accounting - General Settings

marc · May 20, 2023, 6:25pm

Overview

Automatically Create Customers and Items in WeIntegrate from Accounting keeps weintegrate up to date with your QuickBooks Online lists. When you add, edit, make inactive or merge a customer or item directly in QuickBooks, weintegrate picks up the change automatically.

This matters because weintegrate matches each Shopify order against its copy of your QuickBooks customers and items. With the setting on, a customer or item you add in QuickBooks is found on later orders, just like the ones that were there when you connected.

The setting is on unless you turn it off. It applies to your whole account (every connected Shopify store) and is available on every plan.

Please consult your accounting professional before changing this setting. Most stores should leave it on.

Quick setup

Click the gear icon in the top menu and choose Preferences.
Under Accounting Integration, click General.
In General (system wide), make sure Automatically Create Customers and Items in WeIntegrate from Accounting is ticked. It is ticked unless someone turned it off.
If you changed it, click Save.

That’s it. Changes you make in QuickBooks Online from then on are picked up by weintegrate.

What it keeps in sync

Despite its name, the setting covers more than customers and items. With it on, weintegrate picks up changes made in QuickBooks Online to your:

customers and items (products and services)
income, expense, bank, inventory asset, other current asset and other current liability accounts
classes and locations
payment methods and terms

That’s why a customer, item, account or class you add in QuickBooks appears in weintegrate’s dropdowns (for example in Edit Settings on your Connections page) without reconnecting.

Customers and items that weintegrate creates for you (with Create New) are added to its lists straight away, whether this setting is on or off.

For your accountant / bookkeeper: weintegrate loads all of these lists in full when QuickBooks Online is connected. After that, this setting decides whether changes made in QuickBooks reach weintegrate: new records, edits (name, email, phone, SKU and so on), records made inactive or deleted, and customer or item merges. Tax codes are not part of it.

When to turn it off

Leave it on unless your accounting professional has a specific reason to stop changes made in QuickBooks Online from reaching weintegrate.

Using Bulk for both customers and items? With Bulk, use one default catch-all customer and Bulk, use one default catch-all item, orders are not matched customer by customer or item by item, so matching doesn’t depend on this setting. It still keeps your accounts, classes and other dropdowns current, so leaving it on is the simpler choice. See Select bulk or unique customer matching and Select bulk or unique item matching.

What happens when it’s off

Changes you make in QuickBooks Online while it’s off are not seen by weintegrate. With Match each customer or Match each item, that can mean:

A customer or item you added in QuickBooks isn’t found. weintegrate then does what If Customer is not found then or If Product is not found then says: it uses your default customer or item, or tries to create one.
Duplicates in QuickBooks. With Create New, the attempt to create a customer or item that already exists in QuickBooks can succeed under a different name. Example: you match Email ↔ Email, and you added Jane Doe with the email jane@example.com in QuickBooks. The next order from jane@example.com doesn’t find her, so a second customer can be created for the same person.
Sales recorded under your fallback customer or item. When QuickBooks refuses the record because one with the same name already exists, the sale uses the customer or item in If Create New failed, Select Default from QBO. Example: you added Blue Coffee Mug in QuickBooks with SKU MUG-100; an order for MUG-100 doesn’t find it, QuickBooks won’t create a second Blue Coffee Mug, so the line goes to your fallback item.
Out-of-date details. If you rename, make inactive or merge a customer or item in QuickBooks, weintegrate keeps using what it had. A sale that points to a customer or item you made inactive or merged away may be refused by QuickBooks and appear as not synced.
Missing dropdown options. Accounts, classes, locations, payment methods and terms you add in QuickBooks don’t appear in weintegrate’s settings.

Turning it back on

Tick the setting and click Save. Changes made while it was off are not caught up automatically: a record you added or changed in QuickBooks during that time is picked up the next time you edit and save it in QuickBooks Online.

Troubleshooting

A customer or item I added in QuickBooks isn’t being matched.
Check that this setting is ticked. If it was off when you added the record, make a small edit to the customer or item in QuickBooks Online and save it. Then check your Match on fields in Set unique customer matching or Set unique item matching: the same value has to be on both sides.

An account or class I added in QuickBooks isn’t in the dropdown.
Same fix: make sure the setting is ticked, then make a small edit to the account or class in QuickBooks Online and save it.

The setting is ticked again, but I turned it off.
Disconnecting QuickBooks Online from weintegrate turns this setting back on. If you still want it off after reconnecting, untick it and click Save again.

I can’t click Save.
Save is greyed out while the page loads your settings. It also stays greyed out while Override Accounting Transactions with Sales Channel Taxes is on and Override Accounting System Ship From with Sales Channel Ship From is off; the page shows a message explaining how to fix that pair. See Override Accounting Transactions with Sales Channel Taxes.