Overview of the QuickBooks Integration

Overview

• This article provides a thorough overview of how data stays in sync between Kindful and QuickBooks. It’s important to understand how the two systems interact before connecting QuickBooks to Kindful, so be sure to review this article in entirety before connecting.
• If you'd like more to learn more about QuickBooks and how it can benefit your organization, please visit this link.
• This integration can save you hours that you may have otherwise spent manually double entering data, or exporting and importing CSV files.
• Versions of QuickBooks compatible with this integration:
  • QuickBooks Desktop for PC
  • QuickBooks Online
  • QuickBooks Non-Profit
  • Note: This integration is not currently compatible with QuickBooks Desktop for Mac

Linked Articles:

- Connecting QuickBooks Online: Getting Started

- How to Connect QuickBooks Desktop to Kindful

- How does QuickBooks terminology map to Kindful?

- QuickBooks Online FAQs

- QuickBooks Desktop FAQs

What data syncs between Kindful and QuickBooks?

The video below provides an overview of what elements sync between Kindful and QuickBooks and how.

For even more information, here is a breakdown of how each element stays in sync:

• A Contact is anyone that you have stored in your database. This can include people who have or have not given.
• Your entire customer list in QuickBooks will sync into Kindful as Contacts. The sync of this element is not regulated by your Sync Date, and will always remain in a two-way sync.
• Kindful will only send a Contact to QuickBooks as a Customer if they have a Transaction on their contact history.

Can I limit which customers in Quickbooks sync into Kindful?

No. All your active QuickBooks customers will sync into Kindful as contacts. Even if a customer in QuickBooks does not have a sales receipt on file, they will still sync into Kindful.

• A Transaction is a monetary contribution that one of your Contacts has made. 
• The flow of sales receipts and transactions can be regulated by a Sync Date. You can choose which date your Quickbooks Sales Receipts start to flow into Kindful as Transactions. 
  • Please Note: Sales Receipts and Transactions are the only donation-related element that stays in sync between QuickBooks and Kindful. Kindful does not send Pledges, Non-Cash gifts, or Soft Credits to QuickBooks. QuickBooks does not send Invoices, Payments, or Deposits to Kindful.

What if I’m tracking donations in a different way than Sales Receipts?

If this is the case, you can still use the Quickbooks integration, but you’ll need to import your donation history via CSV files. You’ll also need to be willing to change your workflow in Quickbooks, since Kindful will only ever send transaction information into QuickBooks as a sales receipt.

• Campaigns are the main building blocks of Kindful’s financial structure. They’re defined as donor-facing initiatives or projects.
• Your Classes stay in a two-way sync with your Campaigns. Each time you add a new Class/Campaign in one system, it syncs into the other.
• There is an option to completely disable the sync between Class/Campaign sync entirely. This needs to be done in partnership with a member of our support team. Disabling this portion of the sync will mean that when your Transactions sync to QuickBooks as Sales Receipts, they will only be focused towards an Income Account and Item, and no class data will be tracked. If the class/campaign sync is turned off for QuickBooks, you should not expect campaigns to sync to QuickBooks as classes and vice versa; new transactions entered into QuickBooks would sync to the campaign "Unclassified". THIS OPTION IS MEANT FOR ORGANIZATIONS NOT USING CLASSES PRIOR TO CONNECTING.

Can I map a different Quickbooks element to be used in Kindful as a Campaign? 

No. Only QuickBooks Classes are able to map to Kindful Campaigns.

• Funds are the secondary building blocks of Kindful's financial structure. They provide an admin-facing way to group your Campaigns together.
• Your Income Accounts are in a one-way sync with your Funds. This means that after you connect Quickbooks to Kindful, if you need a new Fund in Kindful, you must first add it as an Income Account in QuickBooks.

Does any other type of account in my chart of accounts sync with Kindful, such as Bank Accounts or Expense Accounts?

Since Kindful is only tracking incoming donations, only Income Accounts from Quickbooks sync into Kindful as Funds.

• Designations pair with each Fund in Kindful to ensure that your transactions sync into QuickBooks in the correct place. Each Fund that you want to use in this integration must be assigned a default designation.
• Your Items/Products & Services are in a one-way sync from Quickbooks to Kindful. If you want to add new Designations in Kindful, they must first be added as an Item in Quickbooks, and assigned to the desired Income Account.
• Each Income Account that you want to use in Kindful as a Fund must be assigned a unique Item/Product & Service in QuickBooks. For example: If you have an Income Account in QuickBooks called “Events,” it might also be assigned an “Events” Item.
• QuickBooks Desktop calls these “Items” and QuickBooks Online calls these “Products & Services.”
• Only Income Accounts with associated Items/Products and Services will sync to Kindful as Funds. Kindful will not pull in Income Accounts that lack the associated Items/Products and Services.
• If a designation is assigned to a Campaign and a different designation is assigned to the Fund connected to that Campaign, the Designation on the Campaign level will supersede the default Designation on the Fund level.

What if I’m not selling Items/Products & Services?

Kindful uses your Item/Products & Services as designations, but this does not mean that your organization must be selling any physical items or be providing a service. Kindful needs at least one Item to be assigned to each Income Account you want to use as a Fund in Kindful. This is how the sync stays accurate. Assigning an Item/Product & Service in QuickBooks, will assign a Designation to a Fund in Kindful. 

See How Your QuickBooks Data is Staying in Sync with Kindful

The video below walks through where to look to see how your QuickBooks elements have synced into Kindful.

Other Thoughts 

What if I’m not selling Items/Products & Services?

Kindful uses your Item/Products & Services as designations, but this does not mean that your organization must be selling any physical items or be providing a service. Kindful needs at least one Item to be assigned to each Income Account you want to use as a Fund in Kindful. This is how the sync stays accurate. Assigning an Item/Product & Service in QuickBooks, will assign a Designation to a Fund in Kindful. 

I’m tracking donation history in a different way than the video describes. Can I still use the Kindful integration with QuickBooks?

If you and your team are willing to make changes to your workflow, then absolutely! The QuickBooks integration syncs very specific elements with Kindful, and there isn’t a way to map additional elements from QuickBooks into Kindful (or vise versa) that are not mentioned above.

If you decide you are willing to change your workflow, but still want your donation history brought into Kindful, you can do so via an import. Attached at the bottom of this article is the appropriate import file to use when formatting your data for this import. If you choose to go this route, make sure you are being mindful of the sync dates you choose when you connect QuickBooks to Kindful, in order to prevent duplicate transactions/sales receipts from syncing between the systems.

What is the recommended best practice for tracking transaction fees?

Since transaction fees are an expense incurred by the organization as opposed to the donor, we recommend that the transaction fees be recorded in an expense account as a lump sum per payout. This process is not automated by the integration, and will need to be completed separately.

Kindful's Payouts function (from the Gateways page) provides another useful application:

When transactions sync from Kindful to QuickBooks as sales receipts, those sales receipts (in QuickBooks) go into Undeposited Funds. From there, you can review the payout report (from Kindful) for that deposit made into your bank. Using the payout report, you will be able to compare the sales receipts to tie them to that bank deposit. Once that's done, you can add an additional expense line item where you note the transaction fee for that deposit, which can be found in the payout report. That line item should make your deposit amounts match in order for you to complete/close out that deposit.

How do I reconcile my deposits in QuickBooks (including the payouts from my payment gateway) against the sales receipts that were synced from Kindful?

The Kindful-QuickBooks integration does not send Payment Gateway Deposit data between the two systems.

When reconciling deposits made by your Payment Gateway, we recommend using Kindful's Batch Deposit Report (which displays payouts made by your gateway, and the transactions inside the deposit). Alternatively, you may also use any other report that your Gateway may provide to you directly.

Create a deposit in QuickBooks, and add the Sales Receipts (which automatically came into QuickBooks via the integration), to the deposit in QuickBooks.

Can I restrict the flow of Sales Receipts from QuickBooks to Kindful in any other way than the sync date, such as archiving my Funds once they're synced in from my QuickBooks Income Accounts?

No. Only the sync date restricts the flow of sales receipts. It's not recommended that you connect a QuickBooks account that contains sales receipts that do not represent donations.  

How do transaction types map? (QuickBooks Online only)

When data syncs from QuickBooks to Kindful, Kindful currently supports 32 different Payment Methods from QuickBooks. We map QuickBooks "Payment Methods" into Kindful as "Transaction Types". The following Payment Methods are supported:

If you use one of these Payment Methods in QuickBooks, it will automatically sync to the corresponding Kindful field. If these types are not used, it will sync over as “Cash”.

Once the integration is connected, the payment type mappings cannot be remapped. It is important to ensure that Payment Methods in QuickBooks are set correctly before connecting the integration. 

When syncing data from Kindful to QuickBooks, if a corresponding Payment Method does not exist in QuickBooks, Kindful will create one for some of our Transaction Types.

Please note that some Transaction Types are not included on this list.

Credit, Cash, and Check can will sync; however, they need to manually be created as payment methods in QuickBooks prior to connecting the integration.

With this set prior to connecting the integration, as long as the Payment Methods in QuickBooks are strictly the word “Credit”, “Cash”, or “Check”, it will sync without needing custom mappings.

Which Contact Fields map from QuickBooks into Kindful?