How do I use Shift4Shop's Quickbooks Web Connector Plugin?

Welcome to the Quickbooks Web Connector Plugin for Shift4Shop! The next generation of the Quickbooks plugin uses the built-in Quickbooks Web Connector to communicate with your Shift4Shop store. All PC versions of Quickbooks 2008 and above should come with the Quickbooks Web Connector. The Web Connector is launched as a separate application alongside Quickbooks and it uses a QWC file to connect and communicate with your Shift4Shop store. The steps below will walk you through that process.

Step 1 – Setting up Shift4Shop to connect to Quickbooks

Log into your Shift4Shop Online Store Manager and - using the left hand navigation menu:

1. Go to Modules
2. Use the search bar at the top to search for "QuickBooks Plugin"
3. Once the module appears, click "Settings"

Since you have not yet set up the Quickbooks Web Connector Plugin, you will see a simple page with a password field.

4. In the Password field, create a password.

This password will only be used by Quickbooks Web Connector to communicate with your Shift4Shop store. For this guide we will use the password, “test”

5. Next, look to the top right of the screen and click “Build QWC”.

This will generate a file that your browser should begin to download. The file will be called “3dcartqb.qwc” and will go to your computer's default download folder.

Generally you can double-click the 3dcartqb.qwc file and the Web Connector should launch by default. But if that doesn’t work, you can go to File >Add Application in the Web Connector and it will let you manually select the 3dcartqb.qwc file.

Once selected, the Web Connector will display security pop-up asking you if you want to authorize Quickbooks to communicate with your Shift4Shop store. You must click "OK" for this to work.

A second pop-up from Quickbooks will also open and ask for Authorization. You can select anything here besides No. For this example, we’ll use “Yes, Always” so we are not prompted any further.

After bypassing these prompts, the Web connector will show your new application. If you’re using the Web Connector for other 3rd party applications, it will be added to the list.

6. In the Password field you will enter the Password created earlier (see step 4)
7. You also want to check the box on the left of the Web Service for your particular store.

In the next step when we run the application, this will tell the Web Connector to run this one specifically.

Next we will run and execute the Web Connector. To do this, please make sure the checkbox is checked to the left of the application in the Quickbooks Web Connector (as shown above)

8. Click the button labeled "Update Selected" located towards the top of the window.

This will pull your data from Quickbooks to Shift4Shop. The data pulled is:

• Asset Accounts
• COGS Accounts
• Income Accounts
• Vendors
• Deposit Accounts
• Payables Accounts
• Receivable Accounts
• Discounts Accounts

9. After the process reaches 100% you can return to the plugin settings page from step 1.
   (Go to Modules, search for "QuickBooks Plugin" then click "Settings")

You should now see a different screen than previously (if you do not, please refresh the page). The page will contain the same password field as before, but you will also see a new section along the bottom labeled "Quickbooks Settings" with a series of tabs along the top.

Using the various tabs, go through the Inventory, Taxes, Payment, Customer, and Transaction tabs and select appropriate accounts for each area. Remember, that the accounts listed in the drop down menus are all being pulled from your Quickbooks application.

QuickBooks Settings Tabs

In this next section of the article, we'll go over the various settings found in the tabs.

In the Inventory Tab (mentioned above), you will have the following additional settings and options to mark as needed:

• Mark to be Printed
  This brings orders into Quickbooks marked to be printed.
• Delete QB Duplicates
  This is helpful if you were bringing some orders in previously and want to be sure nothing is duplicated.
• Update Customer Account in Quickbooks
  Tells the Web Connector to use the customer info in the most recent order and update the customer record with that data in Quickbooks.
• Asset Account, COGS Account, and Income Account
  Allows the customer to specify which account in Quickbooks to use for the appropriate values. These are required.

• Update Stock Values
  Tells the Web Connector to update Shift4Shop with updated stock values based on inventory on hand in Quickbooks. This will only check for items on orders that are being pushed to Quickbooks.

In the Taxes tab, you will find this selectable option

• Sales Tax Vendor
  If taxes are used, this allows you to select which vendor to hold taxes for.

In the Payment Tab, you will see these options

• Deposit Account and Payables account
  Select the appropriate accounts to use in Quickbooks. This is required.

The Customer Tab will contain this option

• Quickbooks Customer ID
  Select how you’d like the custom records to be imported to Quickbooks.

The Transaction Tab will have these options and settings:

• Invoice Mode
  Select how you would like invoices to appear in Quickbooks.
• Quickbooks Class, Standard Terms, and Default Sales rep
  If you use Quickbooks classifications for transactions, these options are selected here.
• AR Account, Discounts account, and Payments AR Account
  Here you will select the appropriate accounts to use for each of these areas of your business. This is required.

Export Settings

The very last tab will be the section where you'll configure your export settings. This area will be used to control how the data from your Shift4Shop store is exported to your Quickbooks program and how it is treated after export.

Your settings in this section are as follows:

• Order Status
  Here is where you select which status(es) you’d like to receive orders from. If you select New, only orders in the New status will be exported. You can select multiple statuses by holding CTRL and clicking on the statuses you want to import.
• Lowest Order
  This field tells the plugin where to start importing orders. If it’s set to 1111, it will only export order 1111 and above. Please remember that this does not look at the order prefix. For example, be default the order prefix is “AB-“. Order AB-1234 should be interpreted as just 1234. This field is required.
• Export Orders After
  The date you’d like the plugin to begin looking for orders to send to Quickbooks. This field is required.
• Order Prefix
  This is where you will set the Order Prefix used in the store.

• After Export, mark order as
  When an order is exported, you can specify what status to move it to on Shift4Shop. You can select that here. We recommend setting this to "Processing"
• QB XML Version
  Select the option appropriate to the version of Quickbooks you’re using.

That’s it! Just click Save in the top right to commit your changes. Unless you want to adjust accounts or the order export settings, you’re done in the Shift4Shop admin. The process of exporting to Quickbooks is now all done via the Web Connector.

Step 2 – Using the Web Connector

Now that you have Quickbooks open, the web connector loaded, and all of the settings correct in the Shift4Shop Store Admin, all you have to do is select the application on the Web Connector, and click Update Selected.

In the illustration above, the Quickbooks WebService is selected and then we Click Update Selected. Orders then are populated from the store to your Quickbooks Application

Important Information Regarding Product Updates

Editing Products

When editing imported product attributes (such as cost, price, etc) it is usually best to edit the items in Quickbooks and then synchronize them to the store. If a product is edited on the store after it has already been synchronized to Quickbooks, then the updates will not reflect properly.

Synchronizing Inventory

Although inventory is typically synchronized from your store to your Quickbooks records, the Quickbooks web connector does have the ability to synchronize inventory from items that you have in Quickbooks to the Shift4Shop store. However, there are two limitations to this ability.

1. Items must be of the "Inventory" type in quickbooks in order for the update to complete successfully.
2. Secondly, the web connector will only pull items that are modified within the last 180 days in Quickbooks.

If the item was modified outside of that range, the the Web Connector will not update it on your store.