Linking Customers and Vendors with QuickBooks

Once BaseBuilders is connected to QuickBooks Online, you'll want to match up your existing clients and consultants with their corresponding records in QuickBooks, so transactions push to the right place instead of creating duplicates. This article covers the QuickBooks Dashboard tools for linking Customers and Vendors.

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Accessing the QuickBooks Dashboard

Once connected, select QuickBooks in the left navigation menu, then go to the Dashboard.

Customers vs. Vendors

• Customers in QuickBooks correspond to your clients in BaseBuilders. Invoices, income, and pay requests/payouts push against linked customer records.
• Vendors in QuickBooks correspond to your consultants and anyone else you buy expenses through — including staff being reimbursed for expenses, who become vendors for reimbursement purposes.

Both are linked the same way, described below.

Auto-Linking

Select Auto Link to automatically match records where the name in BaseBuilders is spelled identically to the name in QuickBooks. This is the fastest way to connect the bulk of your existing records and should be run first.

Pulling a Record from QuickBooks

If a company already exists in QuickBooks but not in BaseBuilders, select it and choose Pull to bring it into BaseBuilders. Multiple records can be selected and pulled at once.

Manually Linking Near-Matches

Auto Link only catches identical spellings. If a name is close but not exact — a missing comma, "Inc." on one side but not the other, a typo — you'll need to link those manually:

1. Select the record in the BaseBuilders column.
2. Select the matching record in the QuickBooks column.
3. Choose Link.

Be careful when manually linking: selecting two records that aren't actually the same company will incorrectly tie transactions for one to the other in QuickBooks. If you accidentally link two records that shouldn't be connected, select Unlink to undo it.

There's currently no way to sync or correct a misspelled name between the two systems from within BaseBuilders — if you want the names to match exactly, that correction needs to be made directly in QuickBooks.

Pushing New Records to QuickBooks

If a company exists only in BaseBuilders, you can select it and choose Push to send it to QuickBooks. Once pushed, the two records are automatically linked. You can select multiple records and push them all at once.

Why Linking Matters Before You Push Transactions

You only need to manually link the records you're actually going to use — but skipping this step for a company you do transact with can cause real problems:

• If a company exists in both systems under the exact same name, and you push a transaction without linking them first, BaseBuilders will attempt to add the company to QuickBooks and QuickBooks will reject it, since a record with that name already exists. This results in a failed push.
• If a company exists in both systems but the names are spelled slightly differently (for example, "ABC Construction" vs. "ABC Construction, Inc."), and you push a transaction without linking them, BaseBuilders won't recognize them as duplicates and will create a second, separate record in QuickBooks — leaving you with two versions of the same company there.
• If a company only exists in BaseBuilders and not in QuickBooks at all, pushing a transaction will automatically create that customer or vendor in QuickBooks for you, with no linking needed beforehand.

Best Practice

Run Auto Link first to catch identical-name matches quickly, then manually review and link any near-matches with slightly different spelling or formatting. Do this before pushing transactions for a given company, since an unlinked near-match will silently create a duplicate record in QuickBooks rather than throwing an error you'd notice right away. An exact-name duplicate, by contrast, will fail the push outright — which at least flags the problem, but still requires you to go back and link the records before trying again.

Summary

Customers (clients) and Vendors (consultants and expense payees) are linked between BaseBuilders and QuickBooks from the QuickBooks Dashboard. Use Auto Link for identical-name matches, Pull to bring a QuickBooks-only record into BaseBuilders, Push to send a BaseBuilders-only record to QuickBooks (which links it automatically), and manual linking for near-matches with slightly different spelling. Unlinked exact-name duplicates will fail to push; unlinked near-matches will silently create a duplicate record in QuickBooks — so link your records before pushing transactions to avoid either outcome.