QuickBooks Link Troubleshooting
Questions
- When executing actions from CommitCRM to Quickbooks, I get an error message that says: "Error connecting to the specified company data file." What could be causing this?
- When Importing Accounts from Quickbooks into CommitCRM I recieve this error message: "Message: An exception occurred! Type:UTFDataFormatException". What can be done?
- Why do my invoices display Quickbooks Default Items (CMT Default Item)?
- Using Old QuickBooks edition does not work with CommitCRM?
When executing actions from CommitCRM to Quickbooks, I get an error message that says: "Error connecting to the specified company data file." What could be causing this?
Errors like this happen when QuickBooks has been re-installed or updated, and no longer grants the permissions needed for CommitCRM to preform the invoicing and import actions that the CommitCRM QuickBooks Link offers our community. Resolving this issue involves configuring Quickbooks to grant permission to CommitCRM to perform 3rd party actions in the QuickBooks Company File.
To do this: You need to have the QuickBooks Admin user login to the company file. QuickBooks integrated applications (such as CommitCRM) need the Admin user to grant permission to the company file the first time the utility is run. This allows the program to have the correct permissions to read and write transactional data to the QuickBooks data file.
- Log into QuickBooks as the Admin user
- Select Edit > Preferences and the icon for Integrated Applications
- Select from the Panel the application called CommitCRM
- Tick the application to grant it permission to QuickBooks data
- Re-open CommitCRM and try again
When Importing Accounts from Quickbooks into CommitCRM i recieve this error message: "Message: An exception occurred! Type:UTFDataFormatException". What can be done?
Here’s what we know about this error– this happens in the Intuit integration components (QBFC). This means that for some reason, the QuickBooks data retrieve by Intuit QBFC contains a bad character and therefore it fails to get the data from QuickBooks and pass it to CommitCRM.
This is a very rare issue and we have been informed that according to Intuit’s forums, they already have a bug open for this (hopefully will be fixed with their next release of QBFC).
The solution they suggest is related to privileges set for CommitCRM in QuickBooks:
- Go to EDIT>PREFERENCES, select Integrated Applications.
- In the Company Preferences tab select the CommitCRM <-> QuickBooks by Commit, and press Properties.
- Check the option to allow the application to access Social Security numbers, customer credit card information, and other personal data (we don’t need this data, it will help in increasing privileges and full access to the data itself).
- Select OK and close the properties window.
Why do my invoices display QuickBooks Default Items?
Items created in CommitCRM need to be synced to QuickBooks before you can create invoices for them. If an invoice is being created for an item that has not been transferred to QuickBooks, then the Invoice Creation Wizard will indicate to the user about this at the bottom of the Invoice Charges screen, and mark each of these items with a *. If an invoice is created for an item that does not exist in QuickBooks, then the QuickBooks invoice and database will reflect the charged item as the CMT Default Item.
If needed, the user can generate an invoice even when the items are not in sync, and that in this case the default item will be used; however, it's always best to create the QuickBooks item prior to creating invoices for it.
To avoid using the Default Item in your QuickBooks invoices, the system will require you to sync the unrecognized items to QuickBooks so that the charge information in QuickBooks will have the correct item information to display in the invoices.
More information on resolving this behavior can be found here and here.
Using old US QuickBooks editions does not work with CommitCRM?
When using old US QuickBooks edition (version 2006 or older) this required using an older QBFC edition (QBFC is the API layer in QuickBooks). This requires using QBFC5 instead of the default QBFC7.
To switch QBFC editions go to CommitCRM > Tools > Options > QuickBooks tab > Right click the text that says Using QBFC7 for Integration (At the top of the tab when US compatibility mode is selected) > and choose Use QBFC5.
Make sure to install QBFC5 - the installer can be downloaded from our Web site, under Support > Support Downloads. Once all is done, run the installation wizard again and try to select the company file and use QuickBooks.