Within this article you will find the most Frequently Asked Questions regarding the General use of QuickBooks, inclusive of both Desktop and Online inquiries!
Select from the list below to jump to its spot within the article!
FAQ: MOST COMMONLY ASKED
Mapping [LMN > QB]
Settings [Related]
How To [...]
- Does LMN Have A Sample Of How to Setup Your QuickBooks?
- Exporting LMN Estimates to QuickBooks
- Exporting LMN Timesheets to QuickBooks
FAQ: GENERAL INQURIES
General Topics
- What versions of QuickBooks does LMN integrate with?
- Does LMN Work With QuickBooks for Mac?
- What if I use an outside payroll system for my payroll? Can it still do jobcosting?
Troubleshooting
FAQ: UNCOMMON [BUT IMPORTANT] INQUIRIES
How To [...]
- How do I remove estimates from the export queue?
- How Do I Apply Overhead Costs to a Job In QuickBooks?
- Creating Two Sided Service Items in QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online
Troubleshooting
LMN to QuickBooks field mapping
When syncing estimates, timesheets, invoices and payments from LMN to QuickBooks, specific LMN fields will go to specific QuickBooks fields for each type of document synced.
If you are using a specific template in QuickBooks for invoices or estimates you may have more fields than shown in the mapping document. If you've added additional custom fields with a QuickBooks template then LMN data will not map to those.
Anything marked as N/A in the document is a data field that LMN will not sync any information into.
The below document has the mapping for both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online, one tab for each.
LMN to QuickBooks field mapping - QuickBooks Desktop and Online
How do Service Estimate Billing Types affect QuickBooks Sync?
Billing Types are a separate feature that you will find only in Service estimates but not in Standard estimates.
Your billing type for Service estimates will determine how they are exported to QuickBooks. Here are the billing options with explanations on how they affect invoicing:
- Per Season will give you per season pricing for invoicing in QuickBooks
- Per Visit your quantities will export to QuickBooks as '0's since we don't know how many times you will need to perform this service (use billing report to find quantities in LMN).
- Per Hour/Unit your quantities will export to QuickBooks as '0's since we don't know the number of hours or units you will use for the job (use billing report to find quantities in LMN).
Setting Up Your QuickBooks Sync Options
There are a few settings here that will affect the way your estimates are synced to QuickBooks, but you will always have the option to change these during the sync process. These are defaults only.
To get to Settings > Integrations > Quickbooks.
- Default Status View - selecting a status here will determine which estimates appear first in the Quickbooks Export list (found in QuickBooks, Export). You can also leave your default as "All Statuses" to see all and sort once you're in the export area.
- Estimate Status Update - this will automatically change the status of exported estimates to the status you have selected from these drop-downs. Alternatively, you can opt to leave the estimates in the same status by choosing the "OFF - Setting Disabled" option.
- Default Export Format (Standard Estimates ONLY):
- Simple combines everything that shares a cost code and tax code
- Summary breaks estimate down by Work Area
- Detailed breaks estimate down by line item. During the sync, there will be 2 more options within this one. The first is Show Detail which will show each item on the invoice, the other is Hide Detail which brings all items over to QuickBooks but only prints Work Areas on the invoice
Can I Ignore Sales Tax for Invoice Exports to QuickBooks?
The setting to turn off taxes (for estimate reports, as shown below) also turns off taxes when exporting invoices to QuickBooks.
For QuickBooks Desktop users, here's how you will find this option:
- Open your LMN QuickBooks Sync Tool (the program you installed from your LMN account)
- On the LMN Estimating side of the program, find step 3; titled Choose your Import Settings
- From there, select My Company does not charge Sales Tax (Taxes OFF)
For QuickBooks Online users, here's how you will find this option:
- Open your QuickBooks Online from the Estimating side of LMN
- Once you have logged in, select Estimates then choose Settings
- Select My Company does not charge Sales Tax (Taxes OFF)
Does LMN Have A Sample Of How to Setup Your QuickBooks?
Yes, we do - see the attached files at the bottom of the article for sample of how to set up your QuickBooks.
- QuickBooks Chart of Accounts (Import File)
- QuickBooks Service Items (these link to the chart of accounts)
- LMN Cost Codes (these link to QuickBooks Service items)
But before you do that, please read below:
Important Disclaimer (read before downloading!)
These chart of accounts and cost codes are for sample purposes only and are not intended to represent professional accounting advice. Consult your financial/accounting professional before setting up your Accounting.
- The sample files are only intended to illustrate how a landscape company might setup their Income, COGS, and Expense (Overhead) accounts. Payroll settings, payroll burden, sales tax, asset, liability and other accounts will need to be adjusted to meet local taxes, laws and legislation.
- Account setup (what's a COGS, what's an Overhead cost) will vary depending on the way your company estimates. The attached examples are for sample purposes only and are not guaranteed to setup correctly for every company.
- LMN cannot be held responsible for any costs, errors, mistakes and/or omissions resulting from the use of these accounts. By reviewing, downloading and/or employing any these sample account setup configurations, you agree to assume full responsibility for their consequences.
This article and sample attached documents contains advice for educational purposes only. LMN strongly recommends that you consult a professional financial adviser before making significant changes to accounting.
DOWNLOAD SAMPLE CHART OF ACCOUNTS
DOWNLOAD SAMPLE SERVICE ITEM LIST
Exporting LMN Estimates to QuickBooks
To Export an Estimate to QuickBooks Online or Desktop, mark the Estimate as 'Mark for QuickBooks Export':
*Note To queue for Export, the Estimating user would need to have LMN Accounting permissions.
Next, open the LMN Sync tool.
QuickBooks Desktop:
- Download the LMN/ QuickBooks Sync tool.
- The sync tool can be downloaded in the main LMN page by clicking on QuickBooks in the menu and then Setup. Once there you will see a button to download the LMN QuickBooks Desktop Sync App.
- make sure your Cost Codes, Taxes, and Classes (if applicable) are set up properly in "Step 4" of your Sync Tool.
- Select, "Publish Estimates", and then "Sync Now"
QuickBooks Online:
- In LMN Estimating, access the sync tool via the QuickBooks tab >select QuickBooks Online.
- Enter your LMN login credentials to access the sync tool. Make sure your Cost codes, Taxes, and Classes (if applicable) are set up properly in the Setup portion of the sync tool.
- Select Publish Estimates and click Publish to QuickBooks.
Exporting LMN Timesheets to QuickBooks
To Export Timesheets to QuickBooks Online or Desktop, the Timesheet must be in an Approved status.
*Note To export to QuickBooks, the Time Admin would need to have LMN Accounting permissions.
Next, open the LMN Sync tool.
QuickBooks Desktop:
- Download the LMN/ QuickBooks Sync tool.
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- The sync tool can be downloaded in the main LMN page by clicking on QuickBooks in the menu and then Setup. Once there you will see a button to download the LMN QuickBooks Desktop Sync App.
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- Make sure your Staff, Paycodes, Service Items, Classes (if applicable), Taxes, and Customers are set up properly in the Setup portion of the sync tool.
- Go to Publish menu and select Publish Time.
- Select Dates to Publish Time for and click next.
- Select Employees to Publish Timesheets to QuickBooks and click Next.
- Review Jobs - This will only be required for 'unmatched' jobs if you selected 'Simple' or 'Detailed' as your Job Costing Type in the Settings menu.
- Import Time to QuickBooks, once complete, press Close.
QuickBooks Online:
- In LMN Estimating, access the sync tool via the QuickBooks tab >select QuickBooks Online.
- Enter your LMN login credentials to access the sync tool. Make sure your Staff, Service Items, Classes (if applicable), Taxes, and Customers are set up properly in the Setup portion of the sync tool.
- Scroll down to Timesheets Settings and adjust if needed.
- When you are ready to Publish Time, click on Publish Timesheets. Complete Step 1 - Choose the dates to Publish Time for.
- Choose Staff to Publish Timesheets to QuickBooks.
- Review Jobs - This will only be required for 'unmatched' jobs if you selected 'Simple' or 'Detailed' as your Time Tracking Style in the Timesheets Setting menu.
- Click Publish to QuickBooks - Continue to Job Status - once Exported, review Weekly Timesheets in QuickBooks Online.
What versions of QuickBooks does LMN integrate with?
LMN supports both Quickbooks Online just about every Desktop version of Quickbooks (Professional and above) back to about 2010.
The following versions are not supported:
- Quickbooks for Mac - Mac versions of Quickbooks do not support sync'ing with any 3rd party software
- Quickbooks Basic Editions - Quickbooks Basic editions (all years) do not support sync'ing with any 3rd party software
Does LMN Work With QuickBooks for Mac?
QuickBooks for Mac or Apple does not support integration with 3rd party applications. If you need integration for QuickBooks for Mac, we recommend you look at:
- Using QuickBooks Online instead
- Installing the PC version of QuickBooks on your Mac. Although LMN cannot support this process, you can read more about it online:
What if I use an outside payroll system for my payroll? Can it still do jobcosting?
LMN will still track, up-to-the-minute, the number of hours on a job. It can also export payroll hours to .pdf reports or Excel spreadsheets, which many payroll systems can use to import employee payroll hours.
The problem with most outside payroll companies is that they don't give you back payroll information in a job-by-job breakdown. Most companies give you a single journal entry that tracks payroll for accounting, but doesn't break down the costs by job. So LMN can give you the exact number of hours spent on a job, but you won't know the true payroll costs.
QuickBooks does not apply the costs of wages to a job until paychecks are generated from timesheets. Unless you're using Quickbooks to produce the paychecks, you won't be able to get true jobcosting out of Quickbooks.
So you have two options:
- You can continue to use your existing payroll service. You won't get exact jobcost data for every job, but LMN will give you the exact hours, and that will give you and your staff an excellent indication of what jobs went right, and what jobs went wrong.
- You can investigate using QuickBooks Payroll service. They offer several different levels of service, ranging from completely self service, to an option where you do your paycheques and they do your tax calculations, to a full-service option.
There are some great advantages to using QuickBooks for payroll - and jobcosting is the biggest one of them.
When I Click on "Mark For QuickBooks Export" and Nothing Happens
If the Mark for QuickBooks Export button is not working/functioning within your Estimate, please follow these instructions:
- Go to your LMN Settings
- Select QuickBooks from the menu on the left of your screen
- Ensure that ALL of your defaults have been set up by accessing the drop-down menus
- If any of the drop-down menus are BLANK, select your desired settings
- Click Save Changes
Please Note: If you had any estimates in the Export Queue before making these changes you will need to remove them from the queue and re-add them before you will be able to successfully import them into QuickBooks.
How do I remove estimates from the export queue?
You can easily remove estimates that have already been importing from the queue. This would only happen in a very odd circumstance, like Internet going down.
- Go to the QuickBooks menu under Estimates > Quickbooks > Export.
- When that screen loads, click the EXPORT QUEUE tab. That will show the estimates 'stuck' in the queue. Just hit the DON'T EXPORT button to remove them from the queue.
How Do I Apply Overhead Costs to a Job In QuickBooks?
Most contractors don't take the time to apply overhead costs to a job in QuickBooks. It takes a few extra steps. However, if you want to invest 30min to 90min a month to see overhead recovery in QuickBooks, there is a way. Keep reading!
Step One: Use LMN to find Overhead Recovered
There are two ways you can see how much overhead LMN is recovering on a job.
Finding Overhead for One Job At a Time: If you're just entering overhead for one job, you can open the estimate in LMN Estimating. Go to the Analysis tab and look for overhead recovered.
Finding Overhead for All Sold Jobs In a Period: Its a lot faster to enter overhead for a bunch of jobs at once. Luckily, there's a report in LMN that will show you your overhead recovered for a bunch of jobs at once, instead of opening each job one at a time.
- Go to the Estimate menu, then click Standard so you're looking at your list of standard estimates
- Click the Excel button (it's the white button at the top of the list right beside the Update Estimates button)
- This will download all your estimate summary info to an Excel spreadsheet. Open the spreadsheet.
- Click the Enable Editing button at the top of the spreadsheet (the yellow notice)
- You don't want to recover overhead for jobs you didn't sell or complete, so you need to filter your spreadsheet to show only jobs you've sold or completed. (some companies enter the overhead cost as soon as the job is sold, other companies wait until the job is completed to enter overhead)
- In your Excel spreadsheet, click the Data menu, then click the Filter button
- Now all your columns will have a filter drop-down option at top of them. Go to the Status column and click the down arrow.
- Select the Statuses you wish to include in your overhead recovery calculations. This could be all SOLD jobs or maybe you only want to include jobs that are COMPLETE. Pick whatever works for you. Note, the screenshot below shows sample statuses. Your statuses may differ.
- Next, you probably want to only include estimates for a specific date range, so next click the filter dropdown on the Date column and pick specific years/months/etc
- Now you should be looking at only sold/completed jobs in a specific date range. There's all the jobs that you need to apply overhead for.
- Still looking at your spreadsheet, scroll to the right to Column V - Total Overhead. That's the overhead each job needs to recover, as per the estimate.
Before moving on, repeat that same process for SERVICE estimates.
Step Two: Apply Overhead to Jobs in QuickBooks
QuickBooks gives you two different ways of manually applying overhead to jobs so that your jobcosting reports show overhead recovery costs.
QuickBooks Overhead Allocation (the simple method)
QuickBooks Overhead Allocation (the advanced method)
Run a jobcosting report in QuickBooks (Reports | Jobs, Time & Mileage | Job Profitability Detail)
You will see your overhead costs now be deducted from your job's profitability. In our example screenshot below, we used the simple method which means my overhead recovery shows up on the report as a line called No Item. Note below how it deducts the overhead I've recovered from our job profit.
Creating Two Sided Service Items in QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Desktop Instructions
If you would like to create a two-sided service item in QuickBooks Desktop for tracking both income and expenses, you can do so by going to List>Chart of Accounts and selecting the service item to make two sided. Once it's open, you'll see a check box that says "This service is used in assemblies or is performed by a subcontractor or partner."
Once selected, it will allow you to enter purchase and sales information:
If you have any questions on which accounts to select for expense or income, please work with your accountant or book keeper.
QuickBooks Online Instructions
To set up a two-sided service item for QuickBooks Online you do need to be using QuickBooks Online Plus. Then, go to the gear at the top of the screen and select Products and Services.
In the list of service items click edit for the service item you want to make two-sided. That will open a side-screen menu. In that menu, make sure the checkboxes for "I sell this product/service to my customer" and "I purchase this product/service from a supplier" are both checked and then select the correct account for each area, then click save and close:
If you have any questions on which accounts to select for expense or income, please work with your accountant or book keeper.
When exporting 2 estimates for a New Client at once, the 2nd Estimate Gives Me an Error. Why?
QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online don't allow 2 customers to have the exact same name. This makes sense, or else it would be really confusing to review your customer list.
Because your customer doesn't exist (yet) in QuickBooks, you can't match either of the new estimates to a new customer. What's happening is that the customer is being auto-created by LMN after the first estimate, then it's failing on the 2nd estimate because the customer already exists with that name... and it was impossible to 'match' that estimate to an existing customer before your export because the customer didn't exist yet.
The easy solution is to just re-export your estimates immediately after getting that Partial Success error message. The estimate(s) that didn't get imported will still remain in the queue and now that the customer exists in QuickBooks, LMN will auto-detect a match and everything will go smoothly. It just takes a few extra seconds to run the routine a second time.
If you require further assistance, please contact our Support Team via email at support@golmn.comor reach out to us through our Live Chats feature or by Phone: (888) 347-9864!
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