MISys Manufacturing Integration with Intuit QuickBooks Desktop FAQs

What versions of QuickBooks is MISys Manufacturing compatible with?

MISys Manufacturing 6.4 is compatible with all US editions of QuickBooks Pro, Premiere and Enterprise as well as QuickBooks CA (Canadian version) Premiere and Enterprise.

MISys Manufacturing 6.4 officially supports the existing version as well as one version prior of QuickBooks. For current information, please refer to MISys Manufacturing Supported Accounting Packages (PDF).

Is MISys Manufacturing compatible with the U.K. versions of QuickBooks?

No. Though the code base and API are similar to the Canadian versions of QuickBooks, MISys Manufacturing is not tested or integrated with the UK version.

How does MISys Manufacturing integrate with QuickBooks?

MISys Manufacturing uses the QuickBooks SDK/API for direct interaction between the two products.

Does QuickBooks have to be on the same computer that MISys Manufacturing is installed and running on?

A copy of QuickBooks must be installed and have a valid license on the same computer that any MISys Manufacturing client being used to perform QuickBooks integration operations is installed on and running from. QuickBooks does not have to be installed on the MISys Manufacturing Server computer unless the Client and Server are on the same PC.

Does MISys Manufacturing consume additional QuickBooks user licenses?

The MISys Manufacturing interface to QuickBooks consumes one and only one concurrent user license for the very brief time that a transaction is invoked from MISys Manufacturing to QuickBooks. MISys Manufacturing never holds a user license in-use for any significant amount of time. Under normal usage, a single QuickBooks user licenses will be adequate for each actual QuickBooks client connected to the same QuickBooks company file. MISys Manufacturing does require that the copy of QuickBooks on the MISys Manufacturing Client computer must be running in multi-user mode.

How do General Ledger Accounts map between MISys Manufacturing and QuickBooks?

In order for Sales Transfers and Period End to keep proper accounting in QuickBooks, all MISys Manufacturing GL Accounts referenced in any MISys Manufacturing Account Set must exist in QuickBooks (they must have exactly the same name and number). The default set of GL Accounts that MISys Manufacturing creates with any new company database are designed to be compatible with QuickBooks – they either correspond to standard QuickBooks GL Accounts or are non-interfering (aren’t normally created by QuickBooks). MISys Manufacturing provides a facility to check and automatically create any needed GL Accounts in QuickBooks.

How do QuickBooks Inventory Items map to MISys Manufacturing Inventory Items?

MISys Manufacturing Inventory Items (referred to as Mfg Inventory items), including both parts and assembled items, can be mapped to QuickBooks Inventory Items (referred to as Sales Inventory Items), including both Inventory Parts and Inventory Assemblies. The item names do not have to have the same name. MISys Manufacturing can create this mapping by either Importing one or more QuickBooks Items into MISys Manufacturing, exporting one or more MISys Manufacturing Items into QuickBooks, or by mapping MISys Manufacturing Items to existing QuickBooks items. For importing and exporting, MISys Manufacturing requires the user to select a template item (in QuickBooks for exporting or in MISys Manufacturing for importing) which facilitates setting standard item properties such as reorder levels, accounts to use, parent item, etc. when new items are created.

How do I transfer finished manufactured items from MISys Manufacturing to QuickBooks?

There are several facilities within MISys Manufacturing that allow automated transfer of completed manufactured items to the QuickBooks Sales Inventory. You can use MISys Manufacturing’s ‘Replenish Sales Inventory’ function to automatically detect shortages in QuickBooks based on either QuickBooks ‘Reorder’ or ‘Bring to Zero’ (if QuickBooks on hand is negative) levels for one or more items and transfer them from MISys Manufacturing to QuickBooks. You can also use MISys Manufacturing Direct Stock Sales Transfers to transfer user specified quantities of a MISys Manufacturing Inventory Item (including part types or assembled types) to QuickBooks Sales Inventory. A third way is to use the ‘Transfer to Sales’ function for a MISys Manufacturing Work Order to automatically transfer the Work orders completed assemblies.

All of the above transfers to QuickBooks work in the same way from an accounting perspective. They all create a pair of transactions in QuickBooks. First a Bill of Receipt is created for the Items transferred in QuickBooks against a special MISys Manufacturing vendor. This results in liability in QuickBooks Accounts Payable and increases the asset accounts in QuickBooks for the corresponding QuickBooks sales items. MISys Manufacturing then immediately pays the Bill via a full Discount in a corresponding Vendor Credit against the same MISys Manufacturing vendor. The Vendor Credit offsets the discount using the ‘Sales Transfer Control’ control account (which defaults to Account No. 5454 ‘Sales Transfer Clearing’). The Vendor Credit results in the Bill of Receipt marked as paid and AP liability reduced appropriately. The ‘Sales Transfer Control’ control account ends up with credit equal to total amount of bill.

A subsequent Period End balances the accounts by debiting the ‘Sales Transfer Control’ control account.

Can I create MISys Manufacturing Work Orders from QuickBooks Sales Orders?

You can use MISys Manufacturing’s ‘Process Sales Orders’ facility to create linked MISys Manufacturing Production Work Orders automatically for any user specified range of Sales Order dates. MISys Manufacturing also provides a drilldown from a MISys Manufacturing Work Order so that corresponding Sales Order form is displayed directly in the QuickBooks.

Can I transfer MISys Manufacturing Manufactured Items to QuickBooks based on QuickBooks On Order levels?

If you don’t need to link Sales Orders to Work Orders, or you just need to build to order without linking to a specific Sales order, you can use MISys Manufacturing’s ‘Replenish Sales Inventory’ function to automatically detect shortages in QuickBooks based on QuickBooks ‘On Order’ levels for one or more items.

How do I coordinate MISys Manufacturing Purchase Order transactions (e.g. item receipts) with invoicing in QuickBooks?

To facilitate common vendor/supplier information, MISys Manufacturing can import Vendors from QuickBooks as MISys Manufacturing suppliers.

When you do a PO item receipt in MISys Manufacturing, MISys Manufacturing creates Period End sub-ledger records that refer to the PO Number and Supplier name to facilitate coordination with invoices entered in QuickBooks. Specifically, the MISys Manufacturing a sub-ledger entry for a PO receipt charges the associated cost for the item on the PO and the variance to the standard cost in general- ledger accounts as determined in the interface configuration. Received items costs are tallied in the ‘PO Liability’ control account, which by default is set to Account No. 2016 ‘Mfg PO Liability’. The price variance is tallied in the ‘Purchase Price Variance’ control account, which by default is set to Account No. 5416 ‘Mfg Purchase Price Variance’. The sum of these debits are offset by a credit to the ‘PO Receipt’ control account, which is by default set to Account No. 2014 ‘Mfg Accounts Payable’. Any of these control accounts can be set to a different account depending on the style of use in QuickBooks.

MISys Manufacturing also provides the capability to Invoice against a PO Receipt. When you perform a PO Invoice operation in MISys Manufacturing, a Bill of Receipt is automatically created in QuickBooks with the payee set to the correct Vendor for the PO. Expense lines are used, rather than Inventory Item lines, since the Item No. on the Purchase Order need not exist in the QuickBooks Sales Inventory. If the MISys Manufacturing Supplier does not exist in QuickBooks, you can set MISys Manufacturing to automatically create a corresponding Vendor in QuickBooks before the Bill of Receipt is created. MISys Manufacturing credits the standard Accounts Payable account in QuickBooks for the Bill which is offset by a debit to the ‘PO Receipt’ control account. MISys Manufacturing also allows adding a reference on the Bill of Receipt created for an Invoice; it can be set to refer either to the PO No. in MISys Manufacturing or the actual Invoice No.

Note that after performing both a PO Invoice and then a Period End, the ‘PO Receipt’ account will have been zeroed.

Does MISys Manufacturing support use of the multi-currency capability introduced with QuickBooks 2009?

Yes, with MISys Manufacturing 4.0 or later you can create POs to Suppliers/Vendors that use a different currency from the ‘home’ currency. For example, if the ‘home’ currency in both MISys Manufacturing and QuickBooks is set for U.S. Dollars, you can create a PO to purchase items from a supplier/vendor that uses Canadian Dollars as their currency. In order to use multi-currency with QuickBooks 2009, QuickBooks 2010 or QuickBooks 2010 CA, both MISys Manufacturing and QuickBooks must have multi-currency turned on (it’s an option off by default in QuickBooks) and they must use the same home (functional) currency.

With multi-currency capability enabled, MISys Manufacturing currencies and rates are automatically added/updated from QuickBooks whenever the user views the list if currencies in MISys Manufacturing, imports any QuickBooks vendors into MISys Manufacturing suppliers, or when MISys Manufacturing needs to create a QuickBooks vendor during Period End if the transactions include a PO Invoice. MISys Manufacturing will properly set the currency for any imported Suppliers from QuickBooks. MISys Manufacturing will properly set the QuickBooks currency for any Vendors it creates in QuickBooks. PO Invoices created in QuickBooks will use amounts and tax amounts in source currency of the PO.

Can I track manufacturing activities by Jobs in QuickBooks?

QuickBooks uses ‘jobs’ as subsets of a Customer and only used for Customer functions in – e.g. Sales Orders and Sales Invoices. MISys Manufacturing uses its ‘job’ records to track manufacturing activities. QuickBooks provides a separate mechanism called Classes to allow filtering/organizing accounting reports by a specific Class – this matches the use of Jobs in MISys Manufacturing.

When a user performs a Period End in MISys Manufacturing, and has ledger entries that refer to MISys Manufacturing jobs, MISys Manufacturing automatically creates an associated QuickBooks Class for each MISys Manufacturing Job and references that Class in the sub-ledger entry MISys Manufacturing creates in QuickBooks.

Can I coordinate Serial/Lot Tracking information with QuickBooks?

QuickBooks does not have specific functionality designed to support serial/lot tracking. However, MISys Manufacturing has the ability to add appropriate serial number or lot number information as additional comment details to a QuickBooks Sales Order or the Bill of Receipt created in QuickBooks when Items are transferred from MISys Manufacturing to QuickBooks. MISys Manufacturing Adds a comment line to the Sales Order or Bill of Receipt for each unique Item and corresponding Serial/Lot number showing the quantity for each.

When does MISys Manufacturing automatically create Vendors in QuickBooks?

MISys Manufacturing will automatically create a non-existing Vendor that matches the MISys Manufacturing Supplier in the following two cases:

1. When performing a PO Invoice against a MISys Manufacturing Supplier and the ‘Auto-create Supplier’ checkbox is checked. Note that in order to post a PO Invoice to QuickBooks it must refer to a Vendor so if the checkbox is unchecked and the Vendor does not exist in QuickBooks, an error message indicating the supplier is missing will be displayed.
2. When performing a Period End and the Accounting integration option for Period End Consolidation is set for ‘None (Full Detail)’ and there is a pending PO transaction to be posted. This is necessary so the QuickBooks general ledger entry created for the PO transaction will properly refer to the appropriate QuickBooks vendor.

Does MISys Manufacturing support use with QuickBooks Advanced Inventory Option?

Yes! QuickBooks Enterprise Advanced Inventory adds the capability for QuickBooks to specify multiple possible locations (called 'sites' in QuickBooks) where inventory stock can be located and sold from on QuickBooks Sales Orders.

If the QuickBooks Advanced Inventory option is installed and turned off (it is turned off by default), MISys Manufacturing works exactly the same as if it was not installed.

When Advanced Inventory is turned on in QuickBooks, QuickBooks will immediately ask for a Site to be assigned for all previous transactions. You can select a Site or create a new Site which will be used for all previous transactions (for example, if you have transferred items from MISys to QuickBooks before turning on Advanced Inventory, those items will now appear in the selected Site). When MISys Manufacturing detects that Advanced Inventory is turned on, several MISys Manufacturing forms are enhanced, with additional settings and functionality to take advantage of the multiple sites in QuickBooks. This includes the ability to specify a site for Sales Transfers to QuickBooks and the ability to view Sales Stock levels by site for a particular item in the MISys Manufacturing Item form.

Does MISys Manufacturing support use with QuickBooks Serial/Lot Tracking, FIFO, or Enhanced Inventory Receiving Options?

No, none of these new features are currently supported. These features should not be used/enabled in QuickBooks (they are turned off by default) to insure correct functionality when using with MISys Manufacturing.