Intuit Settings

Available in: Enterprise, Premier, Professional + QuickBooks Integration

QuickBooks Integration

After your QuickBooks and Kantata accounts are linked, you are ready to have your account members log time and expenses for project administrators to send to QuickBooks. You can also create projects from QuickBooks estimates and create timesheets from consulting time logged on your projects.

Getting Started

Once QuickBooks and Kantata are connected, an Intuit Settings page becomes accessible in Kantata, containing five distinct mapping categories: Map Users, Map Projects, Map Expenses, Map Vendors, and Map Account Settings. In order to move forward with the integration, these categories must be mapped and a destination point in QuickBooks must be provided.

The process of mapping categories creates a direct relationship between "items" (i.e. users) in Kantata and "items" (i.e. employees or vendors) in QuickBooks. For example, Mike Davis in Kantata can be mapped to Michael Davis in QuickBooks. Therefore, the time entries that Mike Davis logs in Kantata will be attributed to Michael Davis in QuickBooks.

Invite Your Employees to Kantata

To get up and running quickly, you'll want to invite your QuickBooks employees and vendors to Kantata using the Intuit Provisioning page.

The Intuit Provisioning table contains employees in your QuickBooks system with an email address. By inviting them to your Kantata account, these employees will be able to track time and expenses in budgeted Kantata OX projects and use Kantata's collaboration capabilities. Once they've accepted the invitation, you'll be able to set their permissions and invite them to projects.

Map Users

The Map Users tab allows you to map existing Kantata account members (shown in the left column) to QuickBooks employees or vendor records. This connection is necessary for QuickBooks to create timesheets and expenses based on that user's activity in Kantata OX.

Depending on whether you need time and/or expenses sent to QuickBooks, you can map account members using the QuickBooks User (for Time Tracking) and/or QuickBooks User (for Expense Tracking) columns. You'll need to map both columns in order to send time and expenses from Kantata to QuickBooks.

• For Time Tracking—When mapping users for time tracking, they may be mapped as either QuickBooks employees or vendors. Time entries exported to QuickBooks from Kantata via integration are found in the QuickBooks Employee Weekly Timesheet (regardless of whether they are mapped as vendors or employees) and can be added to the QuickBooks invoice.
• For Expense Tracking—When mapping users for expenses, you need to map them as vendors in QuickBooks. Expenses exported from Kantata to QuickBooks via integration are found in the Vendors > Pay Bills section of QuickBooks and can be added to a QuickBooks invoices.

To map a user, click in the field with the QuickBooks Employee/Vendor placeholder text to the right of the member's name. Start typing the first few letters of the employee / vendor name; if they exist in QuickBooks, you'll see an auto-complete menu that allows you to quickly select the user you want.

Select the correct association for your Kantata account member. When you're finished, click the Save button to commit those changes.

Map Projects

Next, use the Map Projects tab to connect Kantata projects with the appropriate customer/job records in QuickBooks. Similar to mapping users, clients and jobs (or sub-clients) must first exist in QuickBooks in order for them to appear when clicking in the QuickBooks Customer fields.

Kantata customers / clients must be mapped to QuickBooks customers / jobs (or sub-clients), regardless of whether they exist in the Kantata OX project workspace. Synced Kantata OX activities need to be associated with the correct customers for billing purposes. When you're finished, click Save.

Clicking on a project title in the Map Projects tab opens the QuickBooks Settings for that project, allowing you to easily map both your customers and jobs. These options are also accessible to Account Administrators via the project by selecting QuickBooks from the Actions (“   ”) drop-down menu located to the right of the project title.

Project QuickBooks Settings

In the project's QuickBooks Settings, you can add or update QuickBooks product/service mappings at the task or project level for Kantata customers, jobs, tasks, fixed fee items, time activities, or additional items.

QuickBooks Customer and Job (for Billing Purposes)—Indicate which QuickBooks customer and job this project is for. 

QuickBooks Task Configuration—From a time-tracking perspective, Kantata maps to QuickBooks Desktop via task item and to QuickBooks Online via product/service. Therefore, in order for Kantata account members to send time entries to QuickBooks, use the QuickBooks Product/Service drop-down menus to select the appropriate products/services from QuickBooks and map them to Kantata tasks. Depending on how your QuickBooks is set up, these can be high-level (e.g., Advertising) or more granular (e.g., Cardstock).

QuickBooks Default Project Mappings—Use the drop-down menus to set your default QuickBooks products/services mappings for fixed fees, time activities, or additional items. Leaving one of these mappings blank at the project-level forces Kantata to rely on the task-level mapping; if that is also blank, Kantata will then look at the account-level equivalent of these defaults configured in the Map Account Settings tab in Settings > QuickBooks.

Map Expense Categories

The Map Expense Categories tab contains a table that allows you to customize the available selections in Kantata's expense category drop-down menus so that they use products, services, and/or items pulled directly from QuickBooks instead of Kantata's default expense categories. This way, you can make selections that are applicable to your business and better correlate to the expenses your members are logging.

Similar to mapping users and projects, expensable items must first exist in QuickBooks in order for them to appear in the Map Expense Categories table. If you haven't previously created any expensable items in QuickBooks, Kantata will use a set of standard defaults. Below is an example of the default Kantata categories.

Once you've created expensable items in QuickBooks, you can use the Map Expense Categories table to select the QuickBooks products/services/items you want to appear in the expense category drop-down menus in Kantata. Now, when your account members select one of these categories, they will be mapped correctly to your QuickBooks account.

Map Vendors

On the Map Vendors tab, you can map an existing Kantata OX account vendors (shown in the left column) to a QuickBooks vendor record. Vendors automatically imported using the Import Vendor button are automatically mapped here.

Import Vendors—Click this button to automatically import all QuickBooks vendor records into your Kantata account. This keeps vendor information consistent in both programs and eliminates the need to manually enter vendor data in Kantata.

When the QuickBooks icon (“   ”) appears to the left of the vendor record, it indicates that the mapping is being managed by QuickBooks. If you Change the mapping, it will no longer be managed by QuickBooks and the next time you import vendors from QuickBooks, the vendor will be imported as new.

For historical reasons, mapped vendors cannot be deleted. If you no longer want a vendor to be used in expenses, either archive the vendor in Vendors Settings or, if the vendor has not been used in any expenses, unmap the vendor here. You can then delete the vendor from Vendors Settings.

Map Account Settings

If you'd like to use Kantata for expense tracking/billing and/or payroll, use the Map Account Settings tab to select a QuickBooks A/P account for expense reimbursement and a default Payroll Item for employee time.

Product / Service Item Mapping for Time Activities

When syncing time activities or time on an invoice with QuickBooks, choose one of the following options:

• Task Mapping—Select this option if you want the task on a time entry to map to a specific QuickBooks product/service item.
• Role Mapping—Select this option if you want the role on a time entry to map to a specific product/service item.
  Note: The role on the time entry will be used, not the member's default account role.
  

If an individual task or role is not mapped, Kantata uses the Product/Service Item for Time Activities mapped at the project level.

• You can find this mapping in the QuickBooks Default Project Mappings section of Project Settings > QuickBooks.

If no product/service mappings are defined at the project level, Kantata uses the Product/Service Item for Time Activities mapped at the account level.

• You can find this mapping in the QuickBooks Defaults section of the Map Account Settings tab in Intuit Settings (defined below).

QuickBooks A/P Account

• QuickBooks A/P Account—This is the Accounts Payable account used to reimburse vendor expenses itemized on a QuickBooks bill. When selecting expenses for approval, items will be mapped to expensable items in QuickBooks.

QuickBooks Defaults

• Payroll Item—This feature is only available for Kantata accounts that use Basic or Enhanced payroll features in QuickBooks Desktop for Windows. Once the Payroll Service in QuickBooks is enabled and the default Payroll Item is selected, employees will be able to send payroll-linked time entries directly from Kantata. Click here to learn more.
  Note: QuickBooks Online payroll features do not currently support 3rd-party integration. Please call your Intuit representative to request this feature.
• Product/Service Item for Invoice Additional Item—Use this to select the default QuickBooks product/service item that you want used when you add additional items to a QuickBooks invoice.
• Tax Rate for Invoices—Use this optional drop-down menu to choose the default tax rate to be used when creating QuickBooks invoices.
• Product/Service Item for Invoice Fixed Fee Items—Use this to select the default QuickBooks product/service item that you want used when you add fixed fee items to a QuickBooks invoice.
• Product/Service Item for Time Activities—Use this to select the default QuickBooks product/service item that you want used when you add time activities to a QuickBooks invoice. Once this default is defined, all time activities are automatically mapped to the selected service; you will only need to adjust individual tasks whose time needs to be mapped to different QuickBooks product/service items. Keep in mind that if you leave this field blank, time activities can not be synced with QuickBooks until they have been mapped—manually or otherwise.
  
  Note: If Product/Service Item for Time Activities are defined in either the Map Account Settings tab or the QuickBooks Default Project Mapping section, you'll be able to sync time to QuickBooks that isn’t associated with a task/role or whose task/role isn’t individually mapped to a product/service item.
  When syncing time:
  • Kantata will first look at the QuickBooks Task Configuration to see if a QuickBooks product/service is mapped to an individual Task Tracker item.
  • If an individual task/role isn't mapped, Kantata will use the product/service mapped in the time activities field of the QuickBooks Default Project Mappings section.
  • If nothing is defined in the Product/Service Item for Time Activities section of the QuickBooks Default Project Mappings, Kantata will use the product/service mapping defined in the Product/Service Item for Time Activities section of the Map Account Settings tab.

• Use Kantata OX Invoice Number as the QuickBooks Invoice Number—This option gives you the ability to use Kantata invoice numbers when performing a QuickBooks invoice sync. Typically, QuickBooks automatically assigns a number to each invoice, including those created during the sync with Kantata. Since Kantata does not ordinarily provide an invoice number, if you disable QuickBooks’ auto-numbering functionality, invoices created with Kantata will not have an invoice number. If an invoice number is already in use in QuickBooks, you’ll receive an error indicating that the number is a duplicate and no invoice will be created. You can then change the invoice number in Kantata to one that is unique and resync.
  
  Note: In order for this feature to work, you must first disable the auto-numbering functionality in QuickBooks.
• QuickBooks Invoice Prefix—You also have the option to add a prefix (e.g., “KT-”) before all QuickBooks invoice numbers to make them unique and easily identifiable as having originated from Kantata.

Map Roles

Use the Map Roles tab to map existing Kantata roles (shown in the left column) to QuickBooks product/service items if you want to sync time activities and invoices based on the role in the time entry instead of the task. This option can help reduce redundant, individual project-based mapping and gives you the ability to generate invoices grouped by role.

You can choose whether to use role- or task-based mapping at the account level. All projects will use the selected mapping; you cannot use task-mapping for one project and role-mapping for another.