{"id":15972,"date":"2023-02-06T21:14:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-07T02:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/?p=15972"},"modified":"2023-03-31T09:28:06","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T13:28:06","slug":"intacct-struggle-connecting-salesforce-quickbooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/intacct-struggle-connecting-salesforce-quickbooks\/","title":{"rendered":"The struggle connecting QuickBooks to Salesforce"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header has-dark-background-color entry-header--has-illustration entry-header--has-illustration--generic\">\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__row row align-center\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"col col-lg-7 col-xlg-6 entry-header__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"component component-single-header\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__misc text--subtitle text--uppercase text--small\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/category\/technology-innovation\/\" class=\"entry-header__link\">Technology &amp; Innovation<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-title-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"entry-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe struggle connecting QuickBooks to Salesforce\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"entry-header__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<div class=\"single-post-details container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"col\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"posted-on \"><time class=\"entry-date published\" datetime=\"2023-02-06T21:14:00-05:00\">February 6, 2023<\/time><\/span><span class=\"reading-time\"> min read<\/span>\n\t\t<button\n\t\t\ttype=\"button\"\n\t\t\tclass=\"social-share-button button button--icon button--secondary js-social-share-button\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-title=\"The struggle connecting QuickBooks to Salesforce\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-url=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/intacct-struggle-connecting-salesforce-quickbooks\/\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-text=\"Please read this interesting article\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__share-label\">Share<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-label\" hidden>Copy Link<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-tooltip\" aria-hidden=\"true\" hidden>Copied<\/span>\n\t\t<\/button>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/header>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-post-author\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"co-authors\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-author-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t<a class=\"entry-author\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/author\/bill-fuesz\/\">\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/08\/BillFueszHeadshot-350x350.jpg\" class=\"entry-author__image\" alt=\"Bill Fuesz\" \/>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"entry-author__name\">Bill Fuesz<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">If you\u2019re using Salesforce, congratulations, you\u2019re in good company. They bill themselves as the world\u2019s number-one CRM platform and rightfully so. I\u2019ve been both a Salesforce user and administrator for more than 20 years, though the latter is not part of my current role. I\u2019ve met and spoken with Mark Benioff, and he is a true mensch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Now, if you\u2019re using Salesforce along with QuickBooks or are considering this, we need to talk. Some of us recall the Salesforce tagline \u201cNo Software\u201d as it\u2019s a cloud-based software-as-a-service offering. Unlike Salesforce, QuickBooks started out as desktop software and indeed many of its users are on the desktop version while others use QuickBooks Online. Besides where the platform resides, there are other major differences as QuickBooks Online delivers less functionality than the desktop version. And if you want to connect QuickBooks to Salesforce, your options are confusing at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">QuickBooks offers its own Salesforce connector for QuickBooks Online Advanced. Look at its current customer ratings, which as of this writing scores a 2.6 out of 5, with comments such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201cIt doesn&#8217;t work at all. Unable to import enough data, seems can&#8217;t even import more than 5. A waste of money.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cRandomly misses certain fields for some customers and sometimes doesnt (sic) even import the opportunity no matter what you do.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cThe integration is extremely poor, it doesn&#8217;t work properly. It creates sales drafts for every opportunity that gets edited, even though the settings are configured to only bring in an opportunity once it is closed. It creates drafts for old opportunity records every time you edit an old opportunity, or merge an account with old opportunities.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cTerrible documentation, no support (not only that &#8211; they purposely obfuscate), a complete mystery to make it work properly. Look elsewhere.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Those are direct quotes from QuickBooks customers using its connector to Salesforce. Of course, using the QuickBooks built-for-purpose connector from Intuit isn\u2019t the only option as there are dozens of third parties offering much higher-rated connectors to Salesforce. This begs the question: Why doesn\u2019t Intuit offer a solid connector to Salesforce? Why force customers to add yet another solution to their financial tech stack, instead of making it easy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Part of the problem goes back to the very nature of Salesforce and QuickBooks. One is a true cloud platform, the other is software retrofitted for the cloud. When it was released, QuickBooks wasn\u2019t designed for use with an application programming interface (API), since it was single-instance desktop software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Speaking of instances, let\u2019s consider that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/sage-business-cloud\/intacct\/resources\/product-demos\/outgrowing-quickbooks-introduction-sage-intacct\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">QuickBooks can\u2019t handle multiple entities<\/a>. Each entity needs its own instance of QuickBooks. As it is, multiple-entity consolidations can take hours to days to complete because the data from each entity must be exported and manually combined in spreadsheets regardless of any automation within a unique instance. Now it gets more problematic when you consider connecting multiple instances of QuickBooks to a single instance of Salesforce. What a mess, and you\u2019re not going to go there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Connecting QuickBooks to Salesforce \u2013 Why?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">At this point, you might be thinking \u201cis it even worth connecting QuickBooks to Salesforce?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Let\u2019s think about the negative consequences lacking an integration, primarily driven by cash constraints and missed revenue opportunities. Without a tight integration between the accounting system and Salesforce, it makes it harder to scale due to inefficiencies. When cash flow is tight, you can\u2019t fund as many growth initiatives as you\u2019d like and grow slows down. As a result, you might end up looking for additional funding to fuel growth. As well, you might find that you\u2019re:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Not hitting quotas\/growth targets<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Experiencing flat or declining sales<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Missing customer commitments<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Unable to grow and react to market changes and opportunities<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lacking visibility into costs, profit and loss<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Unable to maximize revenue<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Unable to optimize pricing and have ineffective discounting programs<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">All this creates unpleasant outcomes. Since your CRM isn\u2019t connected to your accounting platform, you could end up losing market share, fail to meet customer needs, weaken your competitive position, miss revenue and growth opportunities, and make less informed decisions, leading to lower margins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Instead, what if you could accelerate cash flow by 20% or more? How about saving scores of hours each month by not rekeying contracts, orders and projects, as well as eliminating manual billing? Or scaling billing 100% to 400% without increasing headcount?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">This requires application integration that gives you and other stakeholders visibility and access to information at the right time. It also requires business-process automation and a modern, scalable integration platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/sage-business-cloud\/intacct\/product-capabilities\/platform\/salesforce-integration\/\r\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">With the right integration, you can streamline and automate the entire quote-to-cash process.<\/a> Salesforce quotes can be turned into orders with a single click. This automatically triggers invoicing, ASC 606 revenue recognition and expense amortization for subscription-based services such as health clubs, internet service, phone contracts and SaaS. An immediate bidirectional synchronization between Salesforce and your financials allows you to maintain billing, revenue recognition and receivables in your financial platform while maintaining orders, contracts, projects, changes, and renewals in Salesforce. Pricing, billing and payments are easily visible to salespeople. Everyone stays up to date\u2014without time-consuming rekeying of information, phone calls or emails, or jumping between systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Automating quote-to-cash increases sales and services productivity with:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Creation and modification or orders, projects and contracts within Salesforce<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One-click conversion<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Email templates and notifications for renewals<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Automatic generation of renewal sales opportunities<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Increased visibility<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Support of reseller workflows<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">With Salesforce Chatter integration, collaboration should improve. A common view of contacts, accounts, products, prices, orders and contacts will improve efficiency. This will help you meet or exceed business-plan objectives; exceed customer expectations; improve communication, visibility and collaboration; and create a positive company culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You can track success with metrics that include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Time to market<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Net promoter score and percentage of repeat customers<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Average revenue per account<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Percentage of increased sales per customer<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Days sales outstanding<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Time to cash<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year revenue increases<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Of course, you can\u2019t do any of this with a clunky integration between QuickBooks and Salesforce. First, you need to be on a single instance of QuickBooks, then choose the right one of dozens of the connectors out there (since QuickBooks\u2019 own connector doesn\u2019t work), and then more than likely engage with their professional services teams to map everything out so the connector works for your environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Fortunately, there\u2019s a better solution than trying to connect QuickBooks to Salesforce. Here at Sage Intacct, we\u2019ve built a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/sage-business-cloud\/intacct\/product-capabilities\/platform\/salesforce-integration\/\r\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hardened integration<\/a> that allows our cloud-native financial management platform to connect directly into Salesforce. It\u2019s as simple as point-click-connect. Our customers report 30% to 75% shorter order and quote-to-cash cycles, DSO improvement and some report millions of dollars in accelerated cash flow. Our Integration is prebuilt on the Salesforce platform, so there\u2019s no need for expensive third-party integration, IT support, upgrades or custom consulting. It comes with our \u201cBuy with Confidence\u201d guarantee. So, instead of playing go-between with vendors, you can stay focused on your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Not sure what to do? Review the advantages of connecting your financial system with Salesforce as I\u2019ve outlined here. Your path will be clear after that.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"single-cta\">\n\t<div class=\"single-cta__positioner\">\n\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__wrapper has-dark-background-color\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"single-cta__title h3\">Subscribe to our Sage Advice Newsletter<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Get our latest business advice delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\t\t\t\thref=\"#gate-ab515c6e-7e90-4c2f-a67e-113872516e8b\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\tclass=\"single-cta__button button button--primary\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t>Subscribe<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1440\" height=\"810\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1073797282-1440x810.jpg\" class=\"single-cta__image\" alt=\"Working from home with tea in hand\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1073797282-1440x810.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 48em) 33vw, 100vw\" \/>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s how to decide the best cloud financial management for your CRM <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1427,"featured_media":15975,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sage_video":false,"post_featured_image_hide":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[420],"business_type":[41],"lilypad":[],"context":[418],"industry":[450,204],"persona":[],"imagine_tag":[440,443,434],"coauthors":[609],"class_list":["post-15972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology-innovation","tag-cloud-financial-management","business_type-growing-business","industry-software-saas","industry-technology"],"sage_meta":{"region":"en-us","author_name":"Bill Fuesz","featured_image":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/GettyImages-1288428995.jpg","imagine_tags":{"440":"Intacct Financial Services","443":"Intacct Large Business","434":"Large Business"}},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Sage Advice US","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/15975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15972"},{"taxonomy":"business_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/business_type?post=15972"},{"taxonomy":"lilypad","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/lilypad?post=15972"},{"taxonomy":"context","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/context?post=15972"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=15972"},{"taxonomy":"persona","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/persona?post=15972"},{"taxonomy":"imagine_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/imagine_tag?post=15972"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=15972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}