You Should Be Integrating QuickBooks with Your CRM. Here’s Why.

Your business, like any other, requires some sort of financial software to keep track of customer purchases, billing data, payroll data, etc. QuickBooks is a market leader in accounting software, so it makes sense that it’s a top choice for small and medium sized businesses that want to keep thorough and accurate accounting records.

But, as great as QuickBooks is, there’s one major problem: QuickBooks can’t help you manage your pipeline or increase sales. That’s where your CRM comes in. Using integration to bridge the gap between your CRM and your QuickBooks improves processes and offers the insights necessary to better track and learn from customer data. Here are a few reasons why you should be integrating QuickBooks with your CRM.

#1 Full Customer Data Management Will Become a Reality

Every business using more than one software solution must choose a “single source of truth”. If you’re unfamiliar with that term, it simply means that, of all the software solutions your organization may work with, the data that lives within that one system should be the most accurate, up-to-date, and complete. Businesses often choose their CRM as their single source of truth, however, QuickBooks can also take on that role if it makes sense for your organization. In any case, one solution should win out as the owner of information. 

Your single source of truth should be as complete as possible, however, to truly complete your customers’ CRM profiles, you need the FULL picture of their history with your business. It’s one of the biggest reasons integrating QuickBooks with your CRM is so important.

By feeding crucial accounting data into the CRM records, you make total customer data management a reality for your organization. When sales needs to look back at a customer’s purchases, or customer service needs to respond to a concern, all the accounting history is already at their fingertips.

Often times, CRM users don't have access to the accounting system, so they are forced to ask the accounting team for help, which slows business processes immensely and unnecessarily. If your CRM and QuickBooks remain separated,  teams may also be forced to flip-flop between solutions to find answers and uncover trends. And, because your QuickBooks only reflects part of the story (aka accounting data only) they won't get a full view of the customer in either system.

#2 Employees Will Save Time Without Duplicate Data Entry

Pop Quiz: What digital task is both annoying and prone to error? The answer: duplicate data entry. When employees enter the same data into multiple systems, a few things can happen:

• Data will be entered incorrectly in one or both of the systems
• Data entered in at least one system will be incomplete
• Employees will avoid entering the data at all because it’s time consuming and pulls them away from productive tasks

Integrating QuickBooks with your CRM solves all of these roadblocks by isolating data entry requirements to one system and automatically syncing the new data between your QuickBooks and your CRM. In a typical CRM and QuickBooks integration, you can expect relevant data sets to pass through after their singular entry into QuickBooks. Here’s an example of how that data might move between QuickBooks and a CRM like Infor:

#3 Customer Service Teams Can Work More Efficiently

We all try to create the best experiences we can for our customers, but sometimes things can fall through the cracks. When a customer service issue arises, having the financials on hand can be extremely helpful to your team. For example, if you are a SaaS business and a customer submits a ticket that they can’t log into their system, your Services team can first troubleshoot any billing issues that may have led to the problem.

Did access automatically shut off because a bill wasn’t paid this month? Did access to the solution expire on a given date and the customer was unaware? QuickBooks order and payment histories provide initial clues for your team to weed out the possible causes of the problem.

Aside from any potential billing issues, the visibility of that data provides a complete snapshot of the customer for the service rep, allowing them to react more efficiently to the request. The rep knows immediately upon opening the record which products or services the customer owns and the status of any orders they may currently have open.

This saves time and energy for the rep who would otherwise have to search around the system to learn about the customer. With the ability to uncover more information faster, Services teams can resolve issues sooner and keep customers happier overall.

#4 Reporting on Combined Metrics Provides New Opportunities

By combining the customer insights from your CRM and the financial histories of your QuickBooks, your team can build reports that reveal opportunities that were previously unseen or unaccounted for. For instance, you may choose to build a transactional sales report that summarizes your activities and interactions with a particular customer.

A report showing past invoices, open orders, and recent interactions would help a rep stay on top of the sale and proactively uncover cross-sell and up-sell opportunities that match the buying habits of that customer. Or, perhaps a manager wants the ability to report on sales revenue by rep or customer buying patterns. All of these reports are informed by both your CRM and QuickBooks data, together.

Conversely, by integrating QuickBooks with your CRM, you may also discover issues that you didn’t even know were a problem. For example, if you’re a wholesale distributor reporting on inventory, you could use item codes from QuickBooks to build a summary of each customer that shows invoices, estimates they’ve received, and even interactions with sales reps. If there are unpaid invoices, estimates that weren’t followed up on, or it’s been too long since the rep has contacted the customer, you could bring that to the attention of that rep so they don’t miss a beat.

Integrating QuickBooks with CRM is a no-brainer for efficiency, deeper reporting metrics, comprehensive buyer personas, and more. Every business should consider this integration to bridge the gap between their back-office financials and their front office data. The more data you can report on and learn from, the better experiences you’ll create for your customers, and the more opportunities there will be to find new ones. For help getting started with your QuickBooks integration, contact our team.