Method Community

Okay, I've been screwing around trying to find some way to acquire the Sales Order # associated with an invoice line item. In Quickbooks, it's clearly obvious and included as a field on every invoice that is produced from a sales order. In the QB Database, it's even more obvious, and also included in the InvoiceLine table (ref http://www.qxchange.com/QuickBooks-Linking-between-SO-Invoice-and-PO-Bill.htm). In Method CRM, it does not appear. How can I add the SO Number to the InvoiceLine table?

Bump.

Is there truly no link between the InvoiceLine or Invoice table, and the sales order number that the invoice was originally generated from? I know that the data exists in the local QB table. Anyone? I still have been unsuccessful here.

Greetings,

I dont work for Method but here is a link to concering your issue.  It dosent address it head on but it could help put some light on what your looking for

http://www.methodintegration.com/cs/forums/p/2722/10209.aspx#10209

hope this helps!

John M

Hi John,

Thanks for the help! Unfortunately, I had already seen that post and was not relevant to our particular situation. What we need to do is to associate the originating sales order number of an invoice. Of course, this will not ALWAYS exist, but 99% of the time, it does. In our business, the invoice is almost always generated from a sales order, and I just KNOW the data is there.

The post mentions linking by REF#, which would make sense, but the issue is that the sales order #'s are generated by our web ordering system, pulled into QB, and have no association with the record # (unique index ID field) in Method.

For this to work, I can see that we would have to manage all invoicing from Method, which we are not currently doing (we will, eventually, but are still fairly new to the system and working on making the transition).

My real problem is that this should not even be necessary. The data is RIGHT THERE in the local QB database. We should not have to create a complex REF# association system in Method to pull the data. I'm looking at it right here. It's in the InvoiceLine table, and also available as a screen or print data field for Invoices. But it's not being pulled into Method, or I'm simply not seeing it.

Got any ideas?

Best,

Charles

How about creating a grid with your fields you want to show.?  From there you can narrow it down from customer, then invoice number.  

The other thing that could be happening is qbo might not allow method to get the data you need.  Not sure but somone from method will know.

Just a idea. 

Problem there is, as there is no linkage between sales order # and invoice #, this just creates a more complex scenario rather than a simpler one. This is what we're doing with sales order #'s and purchase order #'s with no problem, and would work just fine for customers with only a couple of invoices... trying to think long-game here. I know there is a simple solution, I'm just wondering why nobody from Method has even looked at this yet.

This is what I would do.

We know that Method is transfering the sales order number to the invoice.  

Knowing that, tweak the action that transfers that SO# to a field in the invoice.

When that numer transfers to the invoice make that sales order number a GOTO link.  This way when the cusomer calls in about a invoice the person on your end will have a link to that sales order.

Most of the work has been done all you have to do is make that action a goto link and your set. 

hope that helps.

John M - Thanks again for the help.

Charles,

Unfortunately, there isn't any link between the Sales Order table and the Invoice table.  If you were to create an invoice from a sales order in QuickBooks, when the records are added to Method, there is no linking value to help you identify which sales order the invoice was created from.

As John suggested, if you use Method to create the invoice, you can edit the QuickBooks_SalesOrder_CreateInvoice screen and add actions to insert the Sales Order recordID into a custom field in the Invoice table.  Then you could simply link that value and send the user to the sales order screen. to view the sales order.

There may be another way, but would require a bit more work and some manual input.  You could create a custom QuickBooks field on your Invoice screen in QuickBooks.  You can then put the Sales Order number into that field then save the invoice.  This will then sync it to Method.  You will then have that custom field available to you in Method.  I say a bit more work, as you will have to add actions for find the recordID for the sales order number in order to load the correct sales order. 

With this approach, you may also want to again alter the QuickBooks_SalesOrder_CreateInvoice to add the sales order number to that field so that its populated from both Method and QuckBooks.

I haven't created or tested out the second option yet, but I'll have a quick go at it tomorrow to confirm.

Sorry for the late reply, I hope this helps. If you need any help with this or any other project, our in-house Consultants or Method Solution Providers would be happy to assist you.

- Adam

Adam & John,

Thank you both VERY much for your help. So, it would appear that I do in fact need to create the invoices from Method rather than from Quickbooks to make this work, as the sales order number is pulled in dynamically from our website, and would like to avoid any extra steps in populating the invoice with manual data furthering the possibility of human error. As we will eventually be doing everything from Method anyway, I would consider thiat to be a suitable solution.

That being said, you need to have your developers take into serious consideration the adding of the linked sales order # field from the QB invoice table. I can't remember off hand if it's the invoice table, or the invoice line table, but it's there for sure. It's just not being pulled into Method for some reason.

Greatly appreciated!!

Best,

Charles

Charles,

Something I need to make clear is that this is a limitation of the QuickBooks SDK and not something our developers can link to.  This goes for all third-party applications.  While you may be able to see that information in QuickBooks, we are bound by what we can see via the SDK.

- Adam

Adam,

Wow! I didn't even think about this aspect, but it would make sense. Quickbooks is a great accounting tool, but beyond that, well... let's just say there's a reason why we're using Method. You guys rock! Thanks again for the help, and for the clarification.

Best,

Charles

Charles,

I did get a bit of clarification.  We can in fact see the field LinkedTxn field through the SDK but we don't currently bring it into Method.  It is available for Invoices, but not for InvoiceLineItems.  I can't say if or when this might get added but I'll bring it up with the team.

- Adam

Adam,

I understand there is a process for these sort of things. I can say that it would be extremely helpful if we could start bringing this in, but I realize we are not your only customer. I appreciate you bringing it up with the team, and will wait to hear from you on this.

Best,

Charles

Charles,

This may be an obvious question, but are the Invoices in QB generateed directly from the Sales Orders?  If not, then the Link to SalesOrder field would not be filled in.  While I work with SO's alot, I just have not really checked to see that the Link to SO field appears in QB table.   But it works great in Method. 

When I am creating Invoices, I added a field to the Invoice table for SO Reference # and SORecordID,  in Method only - And I have added a field to SO table which references the newly created invoice number. This way, on any screen I can go back and forth and cross reference Invoice and related SO numbers. 

Fran

Hi Fran,

Yes, they are directly generated from sales orders. Like I said, we'll eventually transition fully to Method, but for the time being, this just looks like a data hole that should be filled for future users. Could be a valuable bit of information to have in my opinion.

Best,

Charles