Commission Manager, integrated with QuickBooks

Sales commission is extra pay that a salesperson receives for successfully making a sale. The more sales the salesperson completes, the more commissions he earns. All commissions involve paying a salesperson for making a sale, but how commission is calculated varies. Commission is calculated on one or many factors like percentage of sales, percentage of monthly target, revenue, gross margin, quarterly bonuses, salary, annual bonuses etc. Depending upon the size of the company and number of sales people, commission plans vary. Calculating commissions and their payout can become a hassle to companies on a monthly basis. Automated solutions for commission management vary from simple spreadsheet solutions to comprehensive solutions integrated with accounting packages.

Commission Manager, is an automatic commission calculation tool integrated with different accounting packages. Some of the salient features include:

• Multiple commission plans
• Customizable commission plans based on salesperson / products / categories / customers
• Commission calculation based on invoice or payment
• Recover commission based on ‘returned’ sale
• Track commissions with ease
• Integrated with Intuit QuickBooks

To know more about Commission Manager contact us at sales@ciglobalsolutions.com.

 

Integrating software solutions with QuickBooks

Product integration has become a key factor in the success of a product. For example: On Apple iOS devices, built-in iTunes and App Store own the music and software franchises. On Android devices, Gmail and Google search are tightly integrated. Similarly integrating software with another software has been seen as an added value.

At CI, we have been involved in several integration projects. We have done several 3^rd party add-on integrations with QuickBooks. The two most important questions that we always consider in integration projects are:

• Define how the 3^rd party add-on accesses QuickBooks
• Define how much information needs to be shared between add-on and QuickBooks

One of the projects we were involved in was integrating a business portal with QuickBooks. We considered the following functionalities in addition to the main functionality of the business portal:

• Real time two-way synchronization between QuickBooks and the portal
• Features like user personalization, license management, user/data allowances
• Secured SSL integration with timed login / lockout
• Integration with payment gateways

Are you looking to integrate your solution to QuickBooks? Contact us with your requirements at sales@ciindia.com

 

Import data into QuickBooks

Excel is one of the most common spreadsheets. Many companies use excel for storing sales orders. The challenge arises when the data needs to be entered or imported into QuickBooks. Data entry will be a challenge if there are variations in orders or if there is a large volume of data involved. Importing data from excel avoids the time and errors involved with data entry.

CI worked on a project involving importing sales orders from excel files. The input was the excel file consisting of sales order data. The excel template was defined initially. If the customer number was not available in QuickBooks then a new customer was created.  An invoice was created based on the imported sales order. The relevant group items were added into the invoice to ensure that the invoice did not print individual line items. This helped avoid multiple pages of invoice.

Contact us with your custom import/export into QuickBooks requests at sales@ciindia.com

 

Import QuickBooks invoices to csv format

One common question that we get is ‘Is there a way to convert an existing invoice to CSV format with all the data fields?’ The system creates invoices only in PDF format. CI worked on a solution for converting QuickBooks invoices to csv format.

Solution

CI created Windows based application to export QuickBooks invoices to csv format. The main fields that were considered for the conversion were invoice number, line number, style, quantity, shipto address and notes. The exported csv was uploaded into FTP. User can export the invoices based on the specified date range. The application would then fetch the qualified invoices and check the style with the customer database. If the invoice style was not available in the database, application would ask for the substitute style from the database. User had the option to save the substitute style for next time use.

Are you looking to import/export QuickBooks invoices to csv/excel format? Contact us with your requirements at sales@ciindia.com

 

QuickBooks Add-on Development

QuickBooks as resourceful it is, cannot satisfy all business needs for all types of industries or customers. End users often keep certain information outside of QuickBooks and then later enter the details into QuickBooks for accounting purposes. Such information are entered in external programs. Many of these programs perform industry specific critical functions. Companies use both external programs and QuickBooks often pushing the need to implement industry specific accounting software and entering the same data twice. Add-ons are products that integrate with QuickBooks and address functionalities not available in QuickBooks. In addition to evaluating the features of add on, the following points need to be assessed:

• Accessibility
• Ease of use
• Integration mechanism
• Look and feel when comparing the same to QuickBooks
• Product stability
• Help / Technical support

There are many QuickBooks available in the market. But still not all industry / customer needs are addressed. Are you one of the users entering data twice? If yes, then do not waste more time. Invest in integrating your systems and improve your productivity. CI has been involved with QuickBooks add on product development, customization, integration projects. We can help address the gaps and provide a cost effective solution. Talk to us for a free quote!

 

Mobile Inventory Management with QuickBooks

QuickBooks 2011 with its improved features and accounting tools may still not be enough to satisfy the needs of small businesses in terms of inventory management. There are different solutions in the market for inventory management.

Mobile and cloud computing are beginning to change the way that developers work at enterprise-level and smaller businesses, according to a report released this week by Forrester Research. Mobile development exploded in 2010 and will continue to expand in importance in 2011. According to the report, customer facing applications constitute the most frequently development mobile applications with 51% of decision makers building or planning these. With mobile usage increasing on a daily basis, the need of hour lies in mobile inventory management that seamlessly integrates with QuickBooks.

Customers usually face the following challenges with respect to inventory management:

• Stockist manually counts the items against UOM in the warehouse
• Wrong or dual count of items
• Stockist enters the counted values in the inventory work sheet
• At end of day, data entry operator updates QuickBooks – time consuming
• Huge inventory – Manual counting process – Leads to human errors
• Errors in consolidating the counted items for each location
• Data Entry error when updating it to ERP

Mobile Inventory Count (MIC) is a solution that is integrated with QuickBooks and helps customers overcome the listed challenges. MIC is a real time inventory management system for warehouse personnel. The solution is integrated with barcode scanners and wireless printers.  To know more about MIC…contact us at sales@ciindia.com