Integrating Customer Relations Management and bookkeeping is probably high on the ToDo list of many companies. No wonder, the two working together can create a powerful management tool.

Richard Barrington in his article for VendorGuru exploring the opportunities that CRM can offer if combined with Marketing/eCommerce, Operations and Accounting, writes:

If accounting information is integrated into the CRM system, it can become a tool for financial management. For instance, customers can be analyzed and prioritized according to profitability. Also, customer sales and cost trends can be used for budgeting purposes.

Salesforce CRM and QuickBooks are rather influential players on the two respective markets, so acquiring a service that synchronizes data between Salesforce.com and QuickBooks shouldn’t go unnoticed for the companies deploying the two tools. That explains the recent increase in the interest and the demand for correct integration of CRM and accounting services.

Here’re some extracts from a very favourable review of QuickBooks by Barbara Laporte, one more time confirming the program’s value. Intuit’s accounting software can be even better than maintaining at accountant

The software, which ever version the merchant selects, allows him to automatically reconcile banking statements, download transactions and match them to accounts the merchant has set up. He can also transfer funds between eligible accounts as well as pay bills through it.
QuickBooks is also advantageous in that the merchant has complete control over his accounts and he can catch up on the position of his business whenever he wishes to. It helps him organize his work better and keep it current.

Your entire accounting department won’t be able to get customer reportw ready for you as quick as QuickBooks will on its own.

QuickBooks guarantees secrecy about the merchant’s work as only authorized persons, decided by him, can access business accounts. Depending on which version he has decided to use, there are different access levels and a number of users (decided by the merchant, again) can be assigned to access different accounting levels.

So, all you need to do is:

1) enroll for online banking through Quickbooks
2) set up online ebanking with the help of his Quickbooks software
3) wait to receive a PIN number a few days after signing up
4) Use the PIN number to get information about your account whenever you need it.

Apatar has recently launched Apatar On-Demand for Salesforce.com CRM and QuickBooks accounting software. Apatar On-Demand Edition is a hosted service that synchronizes order data between Salesforce.com CRM and desktop QuickBooks accounting software. It was designed for business users, so the process of setting up the integration link does not require technical skills. Apatar On-Demand Edition for Salesforce.com and QuickBooks allows running one- or two-way, recurring or one-time synchronization of account, contact, order, and opportunity data, while preserving links between tables in both Salesforce.com and QuickBooks.Designed specifically to avoid double entry, subscription to Apatar software also includes embedded data quality service. To free its users from manual data upkeep, Apatar software searches and removes duplicate accounts every time it synchronizes order data.

Apatar On-Demand is available on AppExchange

Why Salesforce.com and QuickBooks users should care?

According to Forrester Research, 66% of North American and European enterprises are afraid to adopt SaaS applications due to integration issues. Apatar On-Demand solves this problem by providing easy-to-use integration and synchronization of data between Web-based and desktop applications. A recent survey by Kelton Research confirms the enterprise’s increasing interest in on-demand services, with nearly 73 percent of large companies saying they had adopted or plan to adopt SaaS in the next 18 months.

Features and benefits: * Accelerate billing
* Shorten collection cycles
* Eliminate duplicate order data
* Avoid double entry and manual coding
* Quickly process new and existing customer sales orders
* Arm your sales and customer service representatives with key information, including customer sales history and up-to-date product data
* As easy as synchronizing your BlackBerry!

Supported QuickBooks editions include QuickBooks Pro, Premier, Enterprise 2003, and, later, QuickBooks 2007.

More details here.

Intuit, the creator of QuickBooks accounting software, has recently showcased a new product Intuit Document Management System for QuickBooks Accounting.

Intuit research studies show a huge paper overload in the accounting industry. Around 65 % of accountants’ time is spent on documents, filing, retrieving, and sharing files. On average, a four-drawer filing cabinet can cost $25,000 to fill and $2,000 a year to maintain – 80 percent of which is cost for labor. Plus, misfiled documents can cost up to $120 to replace.

With the Intuit Document Management System (DMS) for QuickBooks Accounting, accounting professionals and small business owners using QuickBooks can store files electronically and access them instantly from their PCs. By moving to a “less paper” office, they can help reduce operating costs, improve service, and help protect their firms from risk and drastically increase productivity.

Did you know that Ituit makes Fortune’s list of top 100 companies to work for?

At the 43 position, Intuit (INTU) offers its employees four days off with pay each year to perform community service.

Their QuickBooks accounting software mostly targets small to medium sized businesses, catering for pratically all types of industries…and we all know SMBs are the driving force that powers the US economy. What I’m saying is, looks like Intuit is not only a good place to work for, it’s a good company to work with and to become a customer of.

I came across an article about QuickBook’s lattest step forward towards the SMB and enterprise market, I though I’d share it with you.

Intuit is making some strategic improvements in its QuickBooks application, which now integrates with Microsoft Outlook, works well under Linu…and much more.

Underneath the welcoming interface is quite a hearty financial system with a lot of the same Electronic Data Interchange capability and features that larger competitors have. With a starting price of $1,199 for a three-user pack, QuickBooks Enterprise is cost-effective. Although it’s questionable if this edition is ready to deploy on Linux, as a Windows client/server application QuickBooks Enterprise 8.0 is a good alternative for small and midsize business looking for a low-cost, relatively low-maintenance financial platform.