Method Community

Dear Method Tech Support Team,

I have just discovered a serious glitch with the synchronization process. This is probably not due to a QuickBooks database error, I ran QuickBooks utilities and there are no errors in the file.

Recently, I turned on the preference in QuickBooks that allows synchronization of credit card #’s between Method and QuickBooks (June 17^th).

Here is what happened:

On June 20^th, a client’s credit card # was missing. Initially, I thought one of our employees had inadvertently erased her client’s card information. On July 1^st, I asked this employee had she erased any­ of her client’s card information when I noticed I was unable to process any of her clients, all of their credit card #’s were missing. The answer was “no”. This person actually barely uses Method, but I needed to ask the question.

As it turns out, I am missing nearly all of the stored credit card #’s of my most active clients. Here’s the summary:

I have detected 143 credit card numbers ERASED

Expiration dates remain but these fields are GONE:

87 Recently accessed records remain intact (I had accessed these records to process payments in May or June)

Thousands of records that MAY or MAY NOT contain credit card information WERE NOT SYNCED (thank God) and come through the data export as completely empty in the cc address / cc number and postal card fields. I researched numerous records that whose last 4 digits did NOT come through QuickBooks. They remain intact in QuickBooks. I consider this a sync error but I am very happy about this.

I created numerous new customer records on June 20^th and 21^st. Their credit card information is completely intact.

I ran a rebuild in QuickBooks, just in case the numbers were hidden (on a test file, these things can damage your database). The numbers did not come back. This is NOT a database disconnect error (i.e., tables become unlinked due to file damage)

The preference in QuickBooks that permits this synchronization has been turned off.

 I downloaded my customer data to better assess the damage. I am happy to send this to you. 

Thank you!

Hi Shelley,

Credit card data is extra special when syncing between Method and QB...we have to  play by QB rules as well as industry standards, which is a good thing of course.  Any CC details entered in Method are securely sent to QB which realizes the sensitivity of this data and sends it back to Method as xxxxxxxxxxxx1234. This actually happens in QB and had nothing to do with our recent update.

It is probably showing for some of the clients because numbers had yet to be synced with QB where all of the above happens. Can you please confirm this and get back to us?

As a side note, the reason for this which I’m sure everyone can appreciate is to remain PCI compliant. For more information please visit the PCI SSC Data Security Standards link.

Thank you for the reply. I understand not seeing xxxxx1234 in Method (records not synced).

CREDIT CARD NUMBERS WERE ERASED FROM QUICKBOOKS DURING THE SYNCING PROCESS.

Michael Melo explained the encryption process in detail; I understand that they are only viewable in the format xxxx1234 after being synced.

So far, over 140 clients that had credit card #'s in their QUICKBOOKS RECORDS had the # portion erased. We bill by installment, so I need to have these #'s stored.