Connecting Your A.A. Webstore to QuickBooks Online (NAATW 2025)

Transcript

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability from the original caption file. Speaker names are standardized using first name and last initial where available. Timestamps are adjusted so the edited audio begins at 0:00.

Presentation: Connecting Your A.A. Webstore to QuickBooks Online. Presenter: Robin T.. From the NAATW 2025 Workshop.

This transcript was split from a combined VTT containing two presentations and begins at approximately 27:25 of the source transcript.

[0:00] Opening and Presenter Context

[0:00] Robin T.: Alright, perfect. I… hi, I am Robin, I'm an alcoholic. We got you, Robin. And yes, the office manager at, CCFAA, Central California Fellowship. And we are a central office, and. I, um… I am also part of the ICOA.A. web committee, so… here we go. So, connecting your web store with QuickBookss Online.

[0:39] About the Office and Role

[0:39] Robin T.: So, first of all. I am not the back end of tech. I don't know how any of that works. we have beautiful, beautiful, web. masters that have come along and, really run the back end of the website. My responsibility is taking care of all the content and how… The, you know, front or middle of the website. Right. and also, as the office manager. coming up with ideas that will, um… streamline processes. So, I'm just here to share my experience about our upgrading. of the web store sales with QuickBookss Online. And from the point of view as a user or an administrator.

[1:41] Why Integration Matters

[1:41] Robin T.: So by the end of this presentation, we… It says, we’ll, but hopefully should, have a clearer understanding of why integration matters, how to set it up. Generally, not the back end. And pros and cons. I have been serving as a special worker for 10 years at the central office. I started out as a volunteer, working on the website. And, joined… as this paid special worker about 10 years ago. I am passionate about simplifying work and organizing processes, so my brain is always. going, trying to come up with new ideas. So our recent office upgrades, which leads us to, the conversation today, is in January of 2024, we upgraded our accounting system. to QuickBookss Online. And then in April of 25, we launched a redesigned website.

[2:51] Robin T.: And then in September of 2025, um… We… we connected the web store to QuickBookss Online, so, you know, it wasn't something that, uh… Was, like, instantaneous. it was definitely a development.

[2:54] Scenario 1: Brick-and-Mortar Store + WooCommerce

[3:11] Robin T.: within the office. And I, um… I just have to take a moment to thank all of the presenters that have. come before me, last night, yesterday, last night, and today. Um… Jackie… amazing. You know, the, presentation about. our communication, and the central office. is all about how we can commune. communicate better and, and all the different avenues, so… Thank you, Jackie. And then… Terry and Pierre, I had no idea I was using AI, you know, all those different tools. So, you just learned so much, and… Christina, I… I remember when she presented in 2019, I was so excited. I was an office manager at that time. And I brought back all that information and I was met with resistance. But, you know, a year later, they were coming to me going, what was that you said?

[4:25] Robin T.: so, you know, coming to, uh… this workshop has been… vital to us growing and changing and adapting at our central office. And really what propelled me was when. Harry, I believe it was in. 2023, she, presented Build a Website, and. Our current website at the time was just not capable of connecting and. And everything, so my juices in my brain started working, and then the following year, I was online, and it was, um… Repeated in blast… from the past, and that really put a fire, in me.

[5:17] Scenario 2: WooCommerce Only + QuickBooks Online

[5:17] Robin T.: to, uh… To make a change. So… Oh, I'm supposed to… there. All right. So we're, I'm gonna bring up 3 scenarios. This is how most, offices, they're… they fall into one of these categories, so… The first one is our hybrid model, which is a brick-and-mortar store, plus. WooCommerce. or, uh… You know, the… well, we're just gonna talk about WooCommerce, so… Um… In this, sales happen both in-store and online. Um… the… QuickBookss is the system of record for inventory, pricing, and accounting, and the WooCommerce is the online storefront. Customers pay on the website using payment gateways. Such as Authorize.net, Stripe, and so on. So, the recommended plugin for this scenario is MyWorks QuickBookss Sync. For WooCommerce. So, Scenario 2… is, when you have… only a website, so WooCommerce only. there is no physical store, but you do have QuickBookss Online.

[6:51] Robin T.: And, um… The sales happen both in-store. No, okay. hmm… WooCommerce is the system of record for products, inventory, and pricing, and QuickBookss Online is used primarily just for the bookkeeping, reporting, and tax compliance. So the recommended plug-in, for this scenario is My WorkSync. For the flexibility and growth. or Intuit, WooCommerce connector for the basic one-way sync needed. And then Scenario 3… It is in-store only. so no WooCommerce, it's just a physical store. all sales are made in person, QuickBookss, online, or QuickBookss Online POS handles inventory, pricing, and accounting. And no plug-in is needed. you use… QuickBookss, um… and integrate… that with, you have a POS system, and then you just integrate that with your QuickBookss Online.

[8:13] Scenario 3: In-Store Only

[8:15] Robin T.: So why should, you connect your web store to your, accounting system, QuickBookss Online? First of all, it saves a lot of time, um… Lots of, uh… hours, um… For, you know, um… Other special workers to help manage that. It improves inventory and order management. It reduces manual errors and real-time financial insight. So for us, before we connected this. we had a manual process, so those orders came in. We, received an email, but it was also on WooCommerce. And we would print that. Give it to whoever was working in the bookstore that day, they would. enter that information into QuickBookss, create a sales receipt, and then if it needed to be shipped, put it in a package, and so on.

[9:22] Why Connect Your Web Store to QuickBooks Online

[9:24] Robin T.: So, the big thing was, when… we took it off the website, got the order, and entered it in QuickBookss, it would reduce the inventory. But you have to have some type of inventory online. For, your membership or the community to use your website. And so we had a real problem keeping inventory correct, because if you received, you know. 50 bucks, and uh… you put 50 online. But in-store, you have 50 as well, and they don't communicate, then you have to manually, every time… not every time there's a sale, but every couple of days, for sure. go into the website and update all the inventory manually. So… Understanding the data flow. So, through this process of connection. you get an order. And the customer places an order online. And then MyWorks will create… and it says invoice, but. and syncs with QuickBookss Online, the data does come over as a sales receipt, and I'll show you.

[10:48] Robin T.: where that is, later on in this presentation. Um… So, you need to choose how you want your customer information to sync on. we created a customer called Online Sales, and that way it all goes in there for all the online orders. Um… or… You can sync it, and it can bind your current customers and just put it, you know, attach it to their account. but if they… if… my wart doesn't find the customer, then it will create a new customer, and that's something we did not want. We did… because we get a lot of orders online from people out of state. and then step 3, the products and the inventory. My work syncs with QuickBookss every 5 minutes. That's how we set it up. You have the option of.

[11:47] Understanding the Data Flow

[11:49] Robin T.: from 5 minutes, you know, to greater amounts of time. and it will, sync the orders, inventory, price, and or product. And all of this information is updated with each cycle. And then, um… payments and deposits, customer pays online by the current merchant. Or you are able to link WooCommerce payments. And then the sales receipt drop into the QuickBookss Online deposit screen, so it makes it very easy after you close each day, that you can do the daily deposit. You know, based on the… the way that those sales come in to QuickBookss Online. So, this is the MyWorks plugin. you, you sync your WooCommerce store to QuickBookss Online through the MyWorks. sync, QuickBookss app. So, here I did also include the pricing, and you do it based on the number of orders that you've, receive through your web store.

[13:10] Robin T.: We chose, GROW. And, I believe I paid for the entire year at one time, and it was, like, $420.

[13:15] MyWorks Sync and Setup

[13:21] Robin T.: So, this plugin is customizable, it's very flexible, in your automatic sync settings, and as I said, you can do it as quickly as every 5 minutes. it's a two-way product and inventory sync. there are advanced payments, transaction fees, and bank deposit. All of that syncs. purchase orders, uh… Once you receive a purchase order and QuickBookss Online, and that drops into your inventory. Again, every 5 minutes, it will update. So, it syncs the purchase orders to QuickBookss along with orders, and um… Once you set it up, I'll talk about this also, you do… have access to all your historical data. And, if you're not careful, it will sync everything, before the date you use the plugin, so… it's a little tricky, but it definitely is worth it.

[14:35] Hybrid Model Preparation Checklist

[14:35] Robin T.: So… I, uh… our office, has the brick-and-mortar store, which was Scenario 1, and the WooCommerce. We are a hybrid model. So, there's a preparation checklist. you know, verify your chart of accounts. You want to make sure QuickBookss Online is very clean. And that's why I waited, a year before… it was about a year and a half before, we… Um… seat this together, because when I, moved to QuickBookss Online, all the data was migrated from the previous accounting system, and uh… It was a lot of work to make sure everything was in its correct place. So, you've got to clean up your product and customer data, ensure tax and payment methods are consistent, and back up your QuickBookss data. and then when you're mapping your data, you have to align SKUs and product names.

[15:44] Robin T.: so we'll… I'll show you that as well. You link your payment processor, handling, shipping, and discounts, and definitely do this when you can test your mapping.

[16:04] Manual Maintenance vs. Automatic Sync

[16:04] Robin T.: So, here we have the… manual maintenance versus automatic sync, so… before MyWorks, the manual entry. I had to go in there and create all of the products, add product images, you know, determine if the product is simple versus variable. And, as I explained earlier, there definitely was the manual inventory adjustment. So. just for note, there are 60… variable products within the Bill and Bob, uh. medallions that we sell. So, that's just 60. And we have maybe 4, varieties, to choose from for medallions, and then we have the bronze. so that goes up to 60, and then we have all the aluminum as well. So, just for medallions. There's a lot of SKUs, so… I definitely breathed a sigh of relief once we had this, automatic sync. setup, um… Because, it was a lot of, um… A lot of work.

[17:26] CCFAA Sync Settings

[17:26] Robin T.: So, um… I did… I gave you a screenshot of the SB16. Which is the big book, large print, Spanish. the Spanish version. And so, um… this type of item, you can see there's only a quantity of 2. we don't keep a lot of products. We will order cases of. for those who come in and want to pick up foreign language material. So, it was these types of, um… products are very difficult to monitor the sales. So if we sold those two, and then somebody came along, you know, an hour later, and we didn't update this, then when they place their order. We would really be out of stock, but the website wouldn't say that. So now. You can see here, I put a box around it. Here was the inventory. sync, and uh… it syncs. You know, every 5 minutes, so that is so exciting. So, these are our settings, but of course, you can, uh… use any kind of setting that fits your needs.

[18:57] Robin T.: So this, first one up here is the WooCommerce. and QuickBookss. So it's the information from WooCommerce going into QuickBookss. So. What exactly are our needs? Well, we want WooCommerce to send over the order. And the payment. And then we want QuickBookss to talk to WooCommerce. And update all the products, inventory, and pricing. So, that's the two-way communication and how we… set up, uh… Who communicates what to, the other? And then you can see everything is set for 5 minutes. to sync.

[19:48] Customer Sync Features and Payment Mapping

[19:48] Robin T.: So, key customer sync features, I did mention it, and we can… This is a lot to dive into, and I wanna… hurry up and get through this, um… It will auto-create new customers, um… But settings for how customers sync. 3C, the option to sync all WooCommerce orders into one single QuickBookss customer. instead of mapping each WooCommerce user, and that's definitely, uh. How we did that. And then, if an online sale, that's the customer, if that comes through, but it's actually a group contribution. then you are able to go in. open up that sales receipt that was created from the sale on WooCommerce. and change the customer. So, I can give credit to whichever group has submitted. an online transaction for a group contribution, so. I just want everyone to know that you are able to do that, and uh… so even if you dump all the sales into one customer.

[21:11] Robin T.: You are able to get, you know, change the customer name, and I felt that that was. more simple. are simpler, then, having, the possibility of. a lot of new customers created within our, database. so you… the payment method mapping, we have authorized.net and PayPal. But, I know you can use Stripe and, other payment methods, um. And you set this up through the WooCommerce Gateway. And a setting… order settings, um… This is key. So, I… down here where it says block, sync orders before ID. the… the ID on all the web store orders, I made sure that it started where the last order had begun, because I did not want.

[22:17] Robin T.: Any of that historical data. creating sales receipts on those days, and syncing, like, all the sales that we've had, so… making sure that you have the correct number in there. That was trial and error, so, hopefully that will help someone, um. not go through what we had to go through. Um… and uh… We also set it to use the QuickBookss. order number, so I will show you that. Next. So you can see here, rows.

[22:52] Order Settings and Sales Receipts

[22:57] Robin T.: that's the order number, so as the one before it, I set it. Before anything after 11,000. And so, here's Rose, she's 15 to 10, I believe. And you can see where that order number pops up. Now, over to the right of the first panel. You can see where it's synced, and once it synced. It gives the number… of QuickBookss Online. And we wanted that because our… we had been using QuickBookss Online and migrating the data. The numbers were repeating themselves, and that's where I was like, oh my goodness, what is happening here? So… this… Where it says number is actually the QuickBookss, number. So, when you open up the sales receipt, where it says customer and online, there's a drop-down, and that's where you'll find your database of customers. So.

[24:00] Robin T.: If you have individual contributions or group contributions. then, you can change to that customer. And then you can see up at the top, the sales receipt is actually that number. that sales receipt transfers over to, the QuickBookss status, so… making sure you have the correct receipt, because they'll all say online sales. and then also the reference number that is within here, is actually the order number on QuickBookss Online, so it throws it into that reference number, um… space. And then here's a sales receipt, and um… The sales receipt only has… the sales receipt number, and it does not have the reference number, so if you print this out. you will not see the reference number on here.

[25:05] Pros and Cons of MyWorks

[25:05] Robin T.: So there are some pros and cons. to the MyWorks. The pros are reduced manual entry, better accuracy, and less human error, two-way or bi-directional syncing, more flexibility, better financial and inventory reporting, and definitely scalability. So. If your sales increase and your online web store just takes off, you can, uh. at this plugin will grow with you. And some of the cons… The initial setup and mapping, it is complex. there is the cost I mentioned I paid for a full year of the GROW, $420. These plugins, there are advanced workflows that may not sync perfectly, so… you definitely have to monitor and reconcile. Reconciliation is still required over in QuickBookss Online. and they're, uh… There may be some plug-in performance and maintenance issues, um… So there we go. And… Oh, yes.

[26:23] Final Thoughts

[26:23] Robin T.: Okay, I must have hit something. final thoughts? Um… You know, take time up front to map everything correctly. Definitely run test, set up monitoring and alerts. And make sure you have good ongoing support and a backup plan in case the plug-in fails. And for us, we'll just go back to the manual entry. We know that very well. But don't underestimate the setup and ongoing oversight required. It's not something that you just set up and forget. Um… Oh, I have them in the wrong place, alright. Maybe I can fix that before they post it. Anyway, thank you for letting me be of service, and there's my contact information if anyone wants to reach out.

[27:20] Host: Thank you, Robin. Thank you, Robin. Thank you. we have time for one question, and online, Matthew L, please.

[27:34] Q&A / Discussion

[27:34] Host: Matthew, could you unmute? Thank you.

[27:40] Matthew L.: Hello, thank you, Robin, for your… Your service, to the program, and… bringing the technical successes and everything you've had, um. I share a similar story. I was working by in QuickBookss Online. And I found that AI is able to import PDF bank statements. pretty easily. Have you experimented much at all with the QuickBookss Online AI?

[28:12] Robin T.: Because, um… No. No, not yet. Mm-mm. Well, when I reconcile, it does, because the… because our bank accounts are connected to QuickBookss Online, when I go to reconcile for the month, not daily. Yes. reconciliation of, sales. But in the overall monthly at the end of the… or actually, it's the beginning of the next month. Then all that data goes in, and hopefully it says 000, there's no difference, but if there is, because AI does connect it all, and uh… Yeah, I was really surprised. So, not daily.

[28:53] Matthew L.: I was actually… I was actually gonna ask, um. closet, but the back end. about the AI receipt, integration function and description of transactions. And, how much experience, um… You've been able to have with QuickBookss Online. I work with the area, the Mid-Southern California Area 9. And they have PayPal contributions. And they're integrated with QuickBookss Online. But we have this massive PayPal contributions that have no meeting record descriptions. Hmm. Because the PayPal plugin isn't in as advanced as the… WooCommerce integration of QuickBookss, for example. Thank you, Matthew. Thank you.

[29:38] Robin T.: So… Thank you. The question is that, um… Is there, like, a receipt scanning. automated thing that can enhance the PayPal. with QuickBookss Online integration. Well, with the WooCommerce, it goes… across, and it does tell you what the payment is, but the fees, are taken care of by. Thank you. QuickBookss Online. So, um… The fee just comes over to the bank account, per transaction, so… at that time, then, you know, I just, deposited into the account that we have. We do not charge our customers for any of the fees. That is something that the central office absorbs.

[30:33] Host: Robin, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, let's thank Robin for her wonderful presentation. In just a moment, we will have the Tech 12 demo, followed by. AAWS doing their presentation, so just give us a minute or two, and we'll be right back. Awesome.