- Posted on Jan 9, 2025
If you are using an external system that syncs to QuickBooks, are you taking the extra step to review and compare the data to make sure everything synced over correctly? You should be if not. Just like bank statements, we download the data via online banking and then we reconcile to the statement to correct any errors and confirm the data. We have seen many clients come to us and state that their books are reconciled, but when we take a further look, all they did is download the online banking, it’s just not enough. You must reconcile every account on the balance sheet. The same type of situation should occur for these external systems, like Gusto, Bill.com, and Practice Panther to name a few.
Every system differs, I’ll use Practice Panther as an example and the process each month to ensure accuracy.
- The first thing I do is a final sync of all items for the month I am working in, for both payments and invoices.
- Second, I reconcile the bank accounts.
- Third, I open up a profit and loss report (accrual basis) and compare the invoice total dollars from Practice Panther and compare that to the income number on the profit and loss report. If it doesn’t tie, I resync one more time. If it still doesn’t tie, I export all invoices for the month to excel and do a pivot table to group all amounts by client. I then do the same for the income number in QuickBooks. I then calculate the totals, per client to see the differences. 9 times out of 10, its an invoice that was hung up and no matter how many times I bulk sync, it doesn’t work. But simply resyncing just the invoice in question that is off fixes it. There are occasions where the invoice was deleted and not billed out and the deletion didn’t cross over to QuickBooks, so simply deleting the invoice from QuickBooks is the fix.
- Fourth and lastly, I open up an AR report in Practice Panther and a AR report in QBO and compare the bottom line number. If it doesn’t match, I go line by line to confirm the numbers per client. Like the scenario above, it is usually a invoice or payment that is hung up and needs to be individually synced, or because we use PantherPayments, those don’t sync right away and until they are deposited.
I hope this article helps you with learning about extra steps needed when using external systems and to confirm the accuracy of your books. – Jenny Furst