You can create QuickBooks estimates directly from SI projects. This saves you time because you don't have to recreate a project's BOM in QuickBooks.
Once transferred to QuickBooks, you can perform whatever functions in QuickBooks you would normally do from an estimate, e.g., create invoices, sales orders, etc.
1/ Open QuickBooks and log into your QuickBooks company (.QBW) file. This is not required, but opening QuickBooks greatly improves speed.
2/ Open the Project Editor for the project you want to export to QuickBooks as an estimate.
3/ Click the QuickBooks tab, then click the Create button.
You can create an estimate for just the selected items or choose all items in the project.
The Create Estimate form will open.
Select/Create Customer:Job
You can select an existing customer or Customer:Job from QuickBooks if they already exist.
By default, only Customer:Jobs is displayed, but you can view all your QuickBooks customers by checking the Display All Customers checkbox.
You can also create a new Customer:Job or just a new job (if the customer already exists in QuickBooks) via the New Customer button and the New Job button.
New Customer
The New Customer button will open the Add QuickBooks Customer form.
This will be pre-populated with information from the project, but you can edit it if needed.
The Additional Info tab has QuickBooks dropdowns that you can set if desired.
The Job Info tab will populate with the SI project name.
New Job
Use the New Job feature to assign a new Job to an existing customer in QuickBooks.
The Select QuickBooks Customer form will open; choose the customer from the dropdown list.
The address will default to the project's Billing Address. These options allow you to choose whether to use the Site Address (or toggle back to the Billing Address).
In this dialog, you can enter a Class, Customer Message, or add a Memo. The dropdown fields come directly from QuickBooks. There are also Customer PO Number and Rep fields here.
The Customer PO Number will populate if the Client PO Number has been entered for the project, but you can also manually enter it here, and it will sync back to the project.
The Rep dropdown list populates from your "Sales Rep" list in QuickBooks. It corresponds to the "P.O. Number" and "REP" fields, which you can use to customize your QuickBooks estimate.
Assign QuickBooks Item Numbers
Your QuickBooks Settings determine how your QuickBooks items will be created.
If any items in the estimate are not assigned to QuickBooks items, you must do this before transferring the estimate to QuickBooks.
If you click the Create Estimate button before doing this, you will be prompted to create new QuickBooks items for all necessary items.
If you would rather map the items to existing QuickBooks items, click the Map button.
1/ Click the Create Estimate button.
If all items have not been assigned QuickBooks item numbers, you will get the following prompt.
2/ You must create or map all items before pushing the estimate to QuickBooks.
This will open a form listing all of the items to create in QuickBooks.
3/ Choose your Item Type, Vendor, Accounts, etc, and then click Create.
4/ Repeat for all items in the list. The form will close when everything has been assigned.
In addition to the Accounting Item Number that will be created in QuickBooks (based on your QuickBooks Settings), the SI fields that transfer to QuickBooks are Vendor, Tax Code (taxable or non-taxable), Short Description, Long Description, Item Number, and Custom Fields.
SI Fields | QuickBooks Field |
Vendor | Preferred Vendor |
Tax Code | Tax Code |
Short Description | Purchase Description |
Long Description | Sales Description |
Item Number | Manufacturer's Part Number |
*Custom Fields (any) | *Custom Fields (1-5) |
Some fields in SI can be mapped to any of the five available Custom fields in QuickBooks.
5/ Once all items have been created, the estimate will transfer to QuickBooks.
You'll then be prompted to save the project.
Adding to the Existing Estimate
You can also add any items to an existing QuickBooks estimate, rather than creating a new QuickBooks estimate, if the need arises.
This will open a form allowing you to enter any existing estimate in QuickBooks.
Clear Estimate
The Clear button will allow you to clear existing estimate numbers from an SI project. You should do this if you wish to modify the project and then push over a new estimate to QuickBooks.
Select the estimate(s) you wish to clear and click the Clear button.
You will then be prompted whether to delete the estimate(s) from QuickBooks as well.