Yes, you read the title right.  While at the QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Conference I was asked not once, but on a couple of occasions, if it was possible to not have Method update QuickBooks in real time.

Can you say baffled?    I was, especially after we worked so hard to have the integration seamless and not require any manual sync process.  My curiosity grew of course and I had to learn why a person would want to deprive themselves of such a cool feature!

So here was a scenario I was given which helped shed some light on the situation.  For this example, I am just going to call the company ABC Company (creative isn’t it?). 

Scenario

ABC Company provides tutoring services and employs college and university students on a part-time basis.  Tutors currently get their schedules emailed to them and need to fax in a detailed report of the services they provided.  The office then needs to manually enter in each service that was made and type in a description of the work that was completed. 

After hearing about Method, the wheels of course started spinning especially when I mentioned the ability to have tutors login to Method via a Third Party Portal and create invoices themselves.  The invoice would show up directly in QuickBooks thus eliminating the manual entry.  This did raise one concern though.  What if the tutor accidentally entered in the order incorrectly?  Would it be possible to have the office manager approve and review the orders before giving the green light to send it to QuickBooks? 

It sounds like a special situation, doesn’t it?  Well I was surprised by how many people had specific niches where this would be helpful.  For the most part, people want to update information in real time.  But for those specific situations, we needed a way to deal with this. 

Here is how we solved it!

New Feature: IsWaitingForSyncApproval

Now any table or screen that has to do with QuickBooks transactions can be modified to include a new field called “IsWaitingForSyncApproval”.  With this field added, until the checkbox is cleared, the transaction will not go over to QuickBooks.

Here are the steps you’ll want to follow:

Step 1:

Check to see if the field exists in the transaction table you want to use.  To do this:

1. Click Customize > Tables/Fields.
2. Click the Edit Fields for the transaction table.
3. Check to see that ‘IsWaitingForSyncApproval’ is listed.
   

Step 2:

1. Click Customize > Screens.
2. Edit the screen you would like to add this field too. 
3. Drag the ‘IsWaitingForSyncApproval’ field onto the screen.
   
4. Click Publish.
   

Step 3:

The next question of course is “How do you prevent users from clicking the checkbox?”  Here are some suggestions.

1. Edit the checkbox for ‘IsWaitingForSyncApproval’ so that it is “checked” by default.  Also, click the “Advanced” link and make it ‘hidden’.
2. Make another screen, using the Copy/Import Screen that would be a “manager” screen.  Here you would also have the checkbox but the person approving the entries can clear it so that it can be sent to QuickBooks.
   

So there you have it!  Looking back at it, I don’t think it was so much a question of “Who wouldn’t want “real time” syncing?” as much as it was a question of “How do I control certain portions of “real time” syncing?”

Questions, comments, feedback!  I want to hear them all.

Cheers!

Danny Do Couto
Method Integration