We are running Microsoft RMS and would like to start integrating it with Quickbooks. Before we get started, does someone know what to do about the following:
- We are running RMS 1.3 and have Quickbooks Pro 2006 (US version). The user manual only specifies Quickbooks 2003. Will RMS integrate with a later version?
- We only use RMS for POS functions for a retail store. The goal would be to have billing and inventory done in Quickbooks and not in RMS. If we use the Sales Total + Tax assignment for the GL (which I think is all we need), would this record individual products correctly, so that the inventory in Quickbooks is accurate?
We use Quickbooks 2009 and have the integration working with no problems. As far as your second question, I don't believe the inventory would get updated within QB. RMS is a inventory management solution so it assumes you are controlling inventory within RMS. I may be wrong in that but am pretty confident it won't work that way. There may be a way to export the sales from RMS and import it into QB but I've never looked into it. Ideally you would want RMS to control all aspects of your inventory and have QB manage the accounting end. Craig
The reason we are trying to control the inventory through Quickbooks is that we also have an online store that syncs up with Quickbooks. The goal is to have both the online store and the retail store match up to the same inventory. Assuming that we ran the inventory through RMS, are there ways to interface the online shopping cart with RMS?
Separating the functions between Quickbooks and RMS can be a challenge, but we never manage inventory in Quickbooks. It is significantly inferior to RMS for this purpose - just compare the number of attributes RMS tracks for an inventory item compared to Quickbooks, then look at the inventory wizards, reports, matrixes, etc.
Customer tracking and engagement is also much better in RMS than Quickbooks, including purchase histories, customize customer fields, store accounts, discount schemes, etc. Again the advantages are huge and the information is at the Point of Sale where you engage the customer, not in the back office where you count their money!
Suppliers need to be tracked in both systems because RMS does a much better job of Purchse Order management; yet Quickbooks pays those vendors. With proper integration RMS passes closed PO's to Quickbooks and enters them as Bills to be paid.
Finally, you might look at Nitrosell which connects your RMS Store database to the web with a First Class ecommerce solution.
Bottom line, in our experience, QB is a fine accounting package; but its generic "one size fits all" approach makes running a retail operation with it painfully inefficient. When properly integrated, you can post all of your daily sales, inventory, and vendor payable activities to quickbooks in just a few seconds.
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