Once installed, the Quickbooks Desktop Connector module easily integrates into the Odoo system and allows you to set up integration with not only one Quickbooks database, but several if your system architecture requires it. To check the connection, just click the Check Connection button and if it is successful, you will see the corresponding status Successfully Connected.

In its basic version, Quickbooks Desktop Connector exchanges this data:

• Customers
• Vendors
• Account
• Taxes
• Products
• Customer Invoices
• Vendor Bills
• Payments (paid and received)

Let's focus a bit more on how data exchange works for specific groups of items. When we start working in Odoo, it is obvious that Quickbooks already has certain directories that are used by the company, as well as certain historical data that we want to use in Odoo as well. In order to avoid conflicts due to different data in the two systems, we need to synchronize the directories or set up a mapping between individual directories, as well as migrate the actual documents. Before doing this, it is recommended to "clean up" the directories and documents, to determine what exactly is needed for working, and what is better to delete or leave in the archive, to avoid transferring irrelevant data to the new system and creating "garbage" when you start working.

Accounts and Taxes Mapping

You should start by setting up the mapping for accounts and taxes. To do this, use the Import button to import the lists of accounts and taxes you have in Quickbooks into Odoo.

You can also immediately define default accounts that will be applied to items when exporting products to Quickbooks if these accounts are not defined in the items.

You can view the imported list by clicking on the View QB Accounts button. Among the data that Odoo receives from Quickbooks, you can see a unique identifier for each imported account item. This identifier is essentially technical information, it is assigned to each item that is exchanged between the systems and actually serves to recognize and identify it by both systems.

After importing the Quickbooks accounts, go to the Odoo chart of accounts and set up the mapping between the two by matching the Odoo chart of accounts with the corresponding Quickbooks chart of accounts that you can select from the imported list, as shown in the following screenshot:

Similarly, we configure the mapping for taxis and their corresponding codes: first we import taxis from Quickbooks using the Import from Quickbooks button, and then we configure the mapping in the taxi settings in Odoo using the Configurations menu:

Counterparty Directory Import and Export

The next step is the import of customer and vendor lists. As a rule, the business partner lists are contained in Quickbooks, since they are regularly used in the work of the accounting department, so when you start the module during the first data exchange, we need to import them from Quickbooks to Odoo using the Import from Quickbooks button. After that, we will have identical customer and vendor directories. However, since Odoo is the main master system where we manage the business partner directories, you should remember that in the future you will need to create new business partners or make any changes to the cards of existing business partners in the Odoo system. These changes will then be transferred to Quickbooks via export. This approach will ensure that your lists are always up-to-date and identical in both systems, and will eliminate possible errors that can occur when the elements of the lists in the systems are different and cannot be recognized when trying to transfer data from one system to another.

Please note the following: unlike Odoo, where the same counterparty can be both a customer and a vendor, Quickbooks cannot have both a customer and a vendor with the same name - they must be two different elements with different names. Therefore, if you have created a business partner in Odoo that was originally a vendor for you, but in the course of working with him, his type has changed and he has also become a customer (or vice versa), the next time you synchronize in Quickbooks, this contact will be transferred again, but to the directory that corresponds to the new type of this business partner, and the corresponding designation will be automatically added to the name. New directory entries can be exported automatically at a specified frequency, or manually using the Export to Quickbooks button.

In general, the Export to Quickbooks button is intended for bulk export of items. If you need to transfer a single item to Quickbooks, for example, if you have a new vendor and need to transfer this vendor to Quickbooks immediately, it is better to do it directly in the vendor's card on the Quickbooks Connections tab:

Then, in the window that appears, select the system to export this business partner and the type of business partner - customer or vendor:

On the same tab, you can use the Update in QB button to transfer the changed data to Quickbooks if any changes have been made to the counterparty. You can also manually change the name for each type of counterparty if it has both customer and vendor types:

Products Import and Export

Before the import of products, it is necessary to map units of measure (UoM) for them. After all, units of measure are a mandatory parameter for products, and when we exchange products between systems, their units of measure must be understandable for each system.

Mapping units of measure

Mapping units is done similarly to accounts: first, we import units from Quickbooks:

You can view the list of units of measure downloaded from Quickbooks by clicking the View QB UOMs button.

It is important to note that you can create new UOMs directly in this list of UoMs received from Quickbooks for further export to Quickbooks:

The next step is to match the units of measure from Quickbooks to the units of measure in Odoo in the units of measure categories settings:

After you have defined the units of measurement, you can start importing products. The basic version of the module allows importing products of the type Service, Non-Inventory (Consumable), Inventory (Storable). To import products, you should click the Import from Quickbooks button. To get the current product balances when updating the product list, you must additionally activate the function Fetch product quantity, products with the type Inventory (Storable) that do not have information about the warehouse balance will be imported into Odoo with a zero balance:

As in the case of counterparties, we only need to import the product catalog from Quickbooks to Odoo once (except maybe in some cases when we need to repeat the bulk import to update the existing one), and further management of the product catalog will be done in Odoo: creating new products and making changes to existing ones will be done in Odoo. And to transfer them to Quickbooks, you have to use the export function. You can also export products automatically at a certain frequency or manually by clicking on the Export to Quickbooks button. For bulk export, the button is located on the Products tab in the Quickbooks Connector module itself:

and for single exports - on the Quickbooks Connections tab in the Product Card:

Import and Export of Bills and Invoices

The import and export of invoices is done using the corresponding buttons in the module, similar to the way it works with directories. It is also possible to automatically transfer these documents to Quickbooks using scheduled actions. However, when importing invoices, it should be noted that most of the documents stored in the old database are historical and do not need to be imported into Odoo. Therefore, when importing invoices, there is an additional field where you can specify the date from which we import documents, and documents dated earlier will not be imported:

Payments Import

Unlike the management of most directories and transactions that are migrated from Odoo, the management of payments is usually done by the accounting department and is centered on the Quickbooks side. Payments already posted by the accountants are transferred to Odoo. Therefore, for payments on the Payments tab, we have the ability to bulk import payments from Quickbooks for bills and invoices, also specifying from which date to take payments for the first import. And all subsequent payments that the accounting department makes in Quickbooks are automatically transferred to the Odoo system using scheduled actions

Summary

The Quickbooks Connector module exchanges all the necessary elements between the two systems, allowing you to completely separate the work of the accounting department and the operational activities and management of the company in two different systems. All the data required for this activity is kept up-to-date in both systems simultaneously through automatic actions. And for greater flexibility, the ability to manage exchanges manually is also maintained. Of course, to avoid uncontrolled changes of information, it is recommended to grant access to control and manage the module only to certain responsible users.