Actinic Link not creating customers in Quickbooks

[tantronics]

We are a current Catalog user, but I am evaluating Business for it's multi-item discounts, user accounts, database links and the Actinic Link for Quickbooks.

I have installed Quickbooks 2002 Pro and the demo version of Actinic 7.0.3 on a test machine, imported a snapshot of our live Catalog and setup a basic though virtually empty Quickbooks data file.

I was expecting the link from Business, through Actinic Link and the data import into Quickbooks would create a new customer - and all address details etc, with a sales receipt detailing the items ordered etc. however it just seems to create a standard user "Internet Shopper"

Is this the way it is supposed to work, or am I missing something

[David N]

That is how it works

[cdicken]

New customers are only created in QuickBooks if the order comes from a registered (account) customer in Actinic Business, and the customer has a value in the 'External Reference' field - which is used for theQuickBooks customer name.

All 'retail' (i.e. unregistered) customers are automatically assigned to this 'Internet Shopper/Cash Sales' customer in QuickBooks.

[tantronics]

OK, so I have set up 3 customer accounts in Business (Trial), given each of them an external reference (cust1, cust2, fred). I have raised an off-line order for each of them and run the export (bypassing the actinic order processing), this runs the Actinic-Quickbooks link fine and creates the iif file.

When I import this into Quickbooks (2002 Pro), all the Invoices come through assigned to the Internet Shopper account. this account gets no address details assigned to it though each invoice has the address details for the account I specified in Actinic even though they are all assigned to the same Interner Shopper account (make sense?)

I have set quickbooks up as a blank file, so no customers & no items, to try and give a consistent start point.

I guess this may be an issue with QB 2002 Pro, anyone else using this successfully?

[cdicken]

The customer has to already exist in QuickBooks as it is not possible to create new customers in QuickBooks via an IIF file import. This is a limitation of the *.iif import I'm afraid - and the international (i.e. UK) version of QuickBooks is not shipped with the API required to make this work any better.

Sorry about that.

[tantronics]

Thanks Chris, but below is an extract from the Actinic-Link help file that suggests that a new customer will be created. Also the link does create the "Internet Shopper" customer all by itself, so surely it could do the same for any other customer.

I'm sure you are probably right, but if you are then I'm not too sure how much use the link will be for us.

Thanks for looking at it for us anyway.

====== Extract from Actinic-Link Help File =====
Note: If you do not enter the exact QuickBooks customer name into the External Reference field in Actinic, then a new customer will be created within the QuickBooks customer list when you import the order. This new customer will have the same name as the value you entered into the External Reference field for that customer in Actinic.
====== Extract from Actinic-Link Help File =====

[cdicken]

====== Extract from Actinic-Link Help File =====
Note: If you do not enter the exact QuickBooks customer name into the External Reference field in Actinic, then a new customer will be created within the QuickBooks customer list when you import the order. This new customer will have the same name as the value you entered into the External Reference field for that customer in Actinic.
====== Extract from Actinic-Link Help File =====

Hmmm - I'll look into that. It sounds like an error to me. It does this in the US, but not in the UK.

[fergusw]

Has there been any further update on this Quickbooks UK -> Actinic Link with "Internet Shopper" issue?
It seems that there is quite a demand for this API. Should we try and put some community pressure on Quickbooks to get this sorted? I certainly know of several clients who would dearly love this feature.

[cdicken]

No progress I'm afraid.

I would dearly love to see the full QuickBooks API in the international version, and not just in the US version. It would make a life a lot easier!

[fergusw]

Ok - so with over 4000 people in this community and potentially many more actinic/Quickbooks users could we not exert some pressure on Quickbooks to bring out an API update to pacify 4000+ upset customers.
Does anyone at Actinic know the best Quickbooks 'pressure point' to aim an API update petition at?
Between us we should surely be able to put together a Quickbooks petition, even on a thread on this forum, or are there other factors that I am unaware of?

[David N]

count me in

[tnn]

====== Extract from Actinic-Link Help File =====
Note: If you do not enter the exact QuickBooks customer name into the External Reference field in Actinic, then a new customer will be created within the QuickBooks customer list when you import the order. This new customer will have the same name as the value you entered into the External Reference field for that customer in Actinic.
====== Extract from Actinic-Link Help File =====

Hmmm - I'll look into that. It sounds like an error to me. It does this in the US, but not in the UK.

Chris, it seems that the External Reference field does not work even in the US version of QuickBooks. I have contacted web support with this issue, and the response I got was that there is no such External Reference field for customers, only for Products. And the person who replied to my support ticket thinks that what this refers to only applies in the UK version, and not the US version.

So now I'm totally confused. Is there such a field for customers called the External Reference field which is supposed to link to existing customers in QuickBooks? I am using the US version of Actinic and Quickbooks. Thanks.

[Bruce]

Hi,

There is an 'External Reference' field on the 'Account' tab of a customer account within Actinic. This has to be the same as the customer name in QuickBooks in order for a customer record to be updated correctly by Link.

Hope this helps,