KeithC

Has anyone encountered this problem while setting up Quicklinks, and how did they overcome it?

When d-tools exports items into qb they are imported as sub items (Manufacturer: Model). Unfortunately, when qb prints sub items on invoices, po's etc. It will not print the parent (Manufacturer) even through it is visible on screen. What you are left with is a po or invoice that only has the model number on it.....Not very good.

I was able to come up with a solution to correct this by reconfiguring the data in the master table, but perhaps my approach to the problem is incorrect.

Any coments?

Reed Phillips

QB has a lot of report fields that can be modified. Have you checked to see if you can add Manu to the report.

KeithC

I could only work with the fields that d-tools sends over to quickbooks.

This was my work around....

I transferred the product description data over to client description data...and used client description when printing reports in d-tools.

This freed up product description data to format like quickbooks (Manufacturer: Model)

I configured quickbooks to only print description data (which is linked to product description)

Presto, when I print invoices in qb it looks exactly as the item data would look if it in fact worked properly.

My real question is Am I doing something wrong to begin with because it seems real strange that no one else would be complaining about this issue.

It is a big deal.....

jims

I transferred the product description data over to client description data...and used client description when printing reports in d-tools.

How did you transfer Product Description to Client Description? We would do a similar thing to solve the same issue. But who has time to move everything from one column to the other?

Reed Phillips

You could possibly use the CSV export/import process. I used an Access update query to make these types of global database changes.

Michael Hall

Also, you don't have to use SubItems at all in generating QuickBooks items if you don't want to...

This is dictated by the input mask settings in the Options tab of QuickLinks: "MMM.....:OOO...." Where the Ms are the Manufacturer field characters and the Os are the Model field characters. It is the ":" that tells QuickBooks to create subitems of the manufacturer. If you don't want subitems, change the default mask to something like "MMM-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO." Then, all of your items will be created in QB with item names like MAR-SR7500 for a Marantz 7500. The only drawback I've found is that with names like Sony and Sonnance, or Panamax and Panasonic, you get the same 3 characters and it can be confusing if P.O. full Descriptions aren't used.

If D-Tools had a "manufacturer abbreviation" field it would be quite cool because then we could maybe use that for the input mask to QB and just set it once per manufacturer in the D-Tools database. Come to think of it, that is a good use of one of the Custom Data fields... Now all I'd have to do is find out the equivalent field map call for the custom field like where 'M' is the Manufacturer and 'O' is the Item.... Hmm is the Dev team reading this?!

Reed Phillips

Yes, What happens if you add another "M", "MMMM"? I don't think you are limited to three chars. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Michael Hall

You can do 20 Ms if you want... it's the colon mark that dictates all characters after it become a subitem... The only real issue with too many characters from the manufacturer field is that your item names in QB might become a little bulky.
4 characters is good, but it still won't fix Panamax and Panasonic.

Reed Phillips

I undestand the ":" issues, you are correct. Looks like five would do the trick, but as you say, the field size gets a little large. I like your idea of a 3-4 char Manu abbreviation.

By using the "-" as you suggest, would allow the QB user to have both Inventory and Non-Inventory parts for the same Vendor. This is a big deal. Thanks for the tip!

It seems that most users in the forum use Inventory only, which in my opinion, complicates the invoicing process if you are selling systems rather than components.

Thanks again for the tip.

KeithC

Originally Posted by jims

I transferred the product description data over to client description data...and used client description when printing reports in d-tools. How did you transfer Product Description to Client Description? We would do a similar thing to solve the same issue. But who has time to move everything from one column to the other?

The fastest cheapest way is to open the mastertable.mdb file and edit the master table directly.

If you are not familiar with access and/or do not have the password for the database, then you should enlist the services of d-tools or one of the d-tools partners to do this. It is a fairly easy transfer of information.

If you do not want to do this, then on an ongoing basis before you transfer data over to QB, run through the proposal and manually move the info. You will only be editing the data you have to and eventually the master table will be correct.