Connecting QuickBooks Desktop to ArboStar

This guide walks you through connecting your QuickBooks Desktop company file to ArboStar. Once connected, your customers, services, invoices and payments flow from ArboStar into QuickBooks automatically.

Set aside about 45 minutes. Most of that is preparing your QuickBooks file - the connection itself takes a few minutes.

Before you start - two things to check

1. Are you currently syncing QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage, Fortnox or Sage Intacct with ArboStar?

If yes, stop here and contact us first. Only one accounting system can be connected at a time. Turning on Desktop while another system is live will create duplicate records in both. We will handle the switch-over for you.

2. Which QuickBooks company file are you connecting?

Use the file you actually work in. If you have several company files, make sure QuickBooks is open on the right one before you begin. Connecting the wrong file means starting over.

What you will need

• QuickBooks Desktop installed on a Windows PC, with Admin login
• Your ArboStar account details from us (we send these in step 1)
• About 45 minutes

Step 1. We set up your ArboStar side

Contact your ArboStar manager and tell them you are ready to connect QuickBooks Desktop.

We will:

• Generate your connection credentials
• Turn on invoice sync for the customer types you use (residential, commercial, municipal)
• Configure sales tax handling if you charge tax

We will then send you two things:

• A .qwc file - the connection file you will import into QuickBooks
• A password - a one-time password for the connection

Save both somewhere you can find them. The password cannot be retrieved later - if you lose it, we generate a new one and you start the connection again.

Tell us before we start:

• Do you charge sales tax? If yes, we need the name of your tax agency vendor in QuickBooks (for example "CRA" or "State Board of Equalization"). It must already exist in QuickBooks.
• Which customer types should sync - residential, commercial, municipal, or all three. Any type left off is invisible to the sync.

Step 2. Prepare your QuickBooks company file

ArboStar creates your customers, service items and tax items automatically. It does not create accounts or the discount item. These have to exist in QuickBooks before the first sync, and the names must match exactly.

Check you already have these (most files do):

• Account: Accounts Receivable
• Account: Undeposited Funds
• Sales tax code: Tax
• Sales tax code: Non

Create these three by hand:

a) Income account named "Sales"
Chart of Accounts → New → Account Type: Income → Name: Sales

b) Income account named "Discounts given"
Chart of Accounts → New → Account Type: Income → Name: Discounts given

c) Discount item named "Discount"
Lists → Item List → New → Type: Discount

• Item Name: Discount
• Account: Discounts given
• Tax Code: Tax

Then check two settings:

Sales tax must be turned on. Edit → Preferences → Sales Tax → set "Do you charge sales tax?" to Yes. This is required even if most of your work is non-taxable. With it off, tax items cannot be created and taxed invoices will not sync.

Windows region must be English (United States), with standard number and currency formats. A different region causes every invoice to fail. If you change this, restart both QuickBooks and the Web Connector afterwards.

Step 3. Install QuickBooks Web Connector

Web Connector is a free Intuit tool that lets QuickBooks talk to ArboStar. It may already be installed - check your Start menu for "QuickBooks Web Connector."

If it is not there, download it from Intuit's website and install it on the same PC that runs QuickBooks.

Step 4. Connect ArboStar

1. Open QuickBooks on the correct company file, logged in as Admin.
2. Open QuickBooks Web Connector.
3. Click Add an application.
4. Select the .qwc file we sent you.
5. QuickBooks will ask for permission. Choose "Yes, always allow access even if QuickBooks is not running." This lets the sync run without someone having QuickBooks open.
6. Back in Web Connector, paste the password we sent you into the Password box and press Enter.

Step 5. Run the first sync

In Web Connector, tick the checkbox next to the ArboStar application and click Update Selected.

One run is enough. The sync handles everything in order in a single pass: tax items first, then customers, service items, invoices and payments.

Depending on how much history you have, the first run can take a while. Let it finish - watch the progress bar reach 100%.

Only run it a second time if it stopped early. Needing a second run before you see any invoices at all means something went wrong, not that it is working normally.

Step 6. Check it worked

Open ArboStar → Settings → Integration → View sync status.

At the top you will see a count table - Invoices, Payments, Clients, Services, Categories - each split into three columns:

Every number is clickable and opens that exact list.

Also check that Last QBWC poll on the Integration page shows a recent time. If it does not, QuickBooks is not reaching us.

If something did not sync

One record failed
Open the sync status page, find the record, and click Retry on its row. The QuickBooks error message is shown next to it.

Several records failed and you have fixed the cause
Click Try again for all in the page header, then run Update Selected in Web Connector again.

Invoices are waiting and you charge tax
Open the Taxes tab on the sync status page. It lists exactly which tax items your invoices need and the status of each. Once the tax item exists, the invoices go through on the next run.

Nothing synced at all
The most common cause is that no invoice types were switched on. Contact us and we will check.

Anything else
Send us a screenshot of the sync status page. If the problem is on the QuickBooks side, the log file is at:C:\ProgramData\Intuit\QBWebConnector\log\QWCLog.txt

A line in that log reading "serverVersion not present" is normal and can be ignored.

Two things to avoid

Do not press "Clear integration data" unless we tell you to. This wipes every connection and re-sends everything from scratch. Against a QuickBooks file that already has your records, it creates thousands of duplicates.

Do not connect a second accounting system while Desktop is running. Only one at a time.

Questions

Contact your ArboStar manager, or reply to the email that brought you this guide. If you are stuck mid-setup, tell us which step number you reached - it saves a round of back and forth.