Table of Contents

Introduction

This material provides guidance in setting up the linkage from Ranger DispatchDirect to QuickBooks. There is capability within DispatchDirect to forward information by product/service offering (Vehicle Class/Service Offering) including, for each product/service offering, the specific components that contribute to the total charges for a tow - such as Mileage, Extras, and Labor. The material that follows in this section is built around a case example that illustrates the full capability Of DispatchDirect for forwarding detailed revenue information from Ranger to QuickBooks.

However, since DispatchDirect has capabilities for management reporting on the detailed revenue information, you could choose a much simpler approach - forwarding all revenue from Ranger to a single sales line “Item” in QuickBooks. If you do not require the collection of detailed revenue information in QuickBooks, go to

http://www1.rangersst.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=support:quickbooks_setup

Overview

For accounting, Ranger provides linkages to QuickBooks - the #1 rated business accounting software for small- and medium-sized businesses. The benefits of using QuickBooks (vs. accounting functionality within Ranger) Include:

There are a few guiding principles that create the framework for the linkage of Ranger to QuickBooks

Major Building Blocks

There are three major building blocks in configuring the connection between QuickBooks and Ranger. All must be made ready before triggering the connection.

Before You Start - Design Variables

DispatchDirectTM captures revenue information at a very “granular” level of detail. For example, each job is associated with a product/service offering (Vehicle Class/Service Offering) and the total charges for a call is the result of adding multiple components, some of which are user-defined (see Pricing Templates):

Ranger will provide management reporting along multiple dimensions - revenue by account and/or by offering and/or by individual pricing elements such as Mileage. Descriptive information related to the services delivered (e.g., PO #, service rendered: Vehicle Class/ Service Offering) can be included.

QuickBooks must be configured before linking to Ranger. The first major decision is to determine how much detail should be forwarded to QuickBooks. At a minimum, revenue should be recorded and sent by Account (customer) and by job. However, there is flexibility to send much more revenue detail. Accommodating more detail in QuickBooks, requires added complexity in setting up the QuickBooks accounting structure and the linkages to DispatchDirectTM.

There are four broad options to consider:

  1. Low Complexity - All components of the charges for a job are summarized in a single number - the Total Charges - and this amount is sent to QuickBooks (by Account, for each job). QuickBooks reporting would center on total sales/revenue, and sales by Account (customer) by period.
  2. Medium Complexity v1 - In addition to the Total charges, each of the individual component parts of the charges are sent to QuickBooks. This requires setting up the line items in QuickBooks to collect those charges. In addition to revenue/sales by Account by period, QuickBooks would have detail to report revenue by source - e.g., tow charges, mileage, labor - for comparison to expense data, if so desired.
  3. Medium Complexity v2 - In addition to the Total charges, each job would be further defined based on the Primary offering - Vehicle Class/Service Offering. This requires setting up the line Items in QuickBooks to collect charges by Vehicle Class/Service Offering (for the desired level of detail - see also Classes/Offerings). In addition to revenue by Account by period, QuickBooks would have the data to report revenue mix and trends by “Product/Service”. A variant of this approach would be to define only one of the two dimensions of an offering - just Vehicle Class (Light Standard, Light Luxury, Medium, Heavy), or just Service Offering (Towing Standard, Towing Emergency, Towing Hat Move).
  4. High Complexity - QuickBooks is set up to report revenue by product/service offering (could be each primary cell in the matrix - see Classes/Offerings) and by the individual components making up the Total Charges. In this scenario, QuickBooks must be set up to have the “Items” for each Vehicle Class/Service Offering and for each of these to have line items for each component of the charges to a customer.

DispatchDirectTM can forward as much detail as desired into QuickBooks. From a practical perspective, we recommend the “Low” or “Medium” complexity set-up option, since detailed information is available in DispatchDirectTM for management analysis and queries. (Please contact Ranger if there is a management report that is needed, but not readily available in DispatchDirectTM.)

Since Ranger provides extensive management reporting, most customers opt for a much simpler setup in QuickBooks. However, the flip side: configuration and set-up is a one-time task - it's worth investing the “design time” to have an approach that fits what is needed for driving performance improvement and financial management. Ranger provides flexibility to accomplish your business objectives.

The material that follows in this section is appropriate for companies opting for a Medium to High Complexity option as described above. If you prefer the “Low Complexity” option, go to

http://www1.rangersst.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=support:quickbooks_setup

As mentioned earlier, over time, there is the potential for minor discrepancies between the numbers reported in Ranger and QuickBooks. The only variances will be changes made to records in QuickBooks - after records in Ranger have been “locked”.

Setting Up QuickBooks

Company Configuration

If you are installing QuickBooks (QB) for the first time, the QB set-up wizard (“EasyStep Interview”) will guide the initial configuration process. Obviously, the configuration decisions need to reflect the character of the business. As recommended in QB, your accountant would be a helpful resource and should be consulted. For the Ranger test company (ABC Company) that is used as an example in this narrative, the following configuration choices were made:

Setup - "Add the people you do business with"

From this point, a new user will be guided through QuickBooks Setup to enter specific company information. The first of these information sets is “The people you do business with”. This provides a place to record information on vendors and customers. During the synchronization process, customer records will usually be linked based on the company short code. (There is an option to use the full name.) The recommended approach:

Setup - "Add the products and services you sell"

The setup process for products and services (“Items” in QB) is similar for first-time and established QuickBooks users. The first step is deciding the granularity of sales information that you will want to maintain in QuickBooks - understanding that there is more detail in Ranger for management reporting than may be appropriate for financial/tax accounting. Review the earlier section - Before You Start - Design Variables - for more information.

Established users may wish to retain the current QB “Items” for sales reporting. In this case, the next step becomes mapping these Items to sales details (the total and/or components of the total charges to a customer) in Ranger (skip to next section). If as an established QB user, there is interest in adding sales detail, this can be accomplished from “Lists-Items” in QuickBooks. There is an “Excel” button at the bottom of the QB dialogue box which creates the option to either “Import Items” or “Paste Items” from Excel. Developing the Excel spreadsheet is the same as described in this section for new users. Established QB users should consider when it would be best to modify record-keeping. For example: for purposes of comparability, there may be an advantage to implementing changes at the beginning of a reporting period (e.g., quarter, or fiscal year).

For both established and new users, we recommend first creating the list of new products and services for the company in Excel, rather than in QuickBooks. The capabilities to copy, edit , and review/check are much easier in Excel. In addition, QuickBooks makes it easy to import or copy/paste data from Excel. The example below, is a medium complexity case. Again, given the management reporting capabilities in Ranger, this will be overkill for many users. However, illustrating the key concepts in a more complex case will hopefully be of added help.

The case example - ABC Company - has defined the following offerings:

Business requirements for the case example: Provide reporting capabilities in QuickBooks to:

As shown in the list below, to track business revenue mix, sales information in QuickBooks will be collected by Primary Vehicle Class (Light, Medium) and by Primary Service Offering (Towing, On-Scene). With this level of granularity, QuickBooks can roll-up total sales and split sales into 4 sub-categories for reporting. In this case:

In this example, to enable the analysis of the desired operating ratios, the detailed components that generate the total charge to a customer (e.g., Tow or Service charge, mileage, labor) will also be collected in QB. Each of these components will roll-up into one of the 4 sales/revenue categories as previously defined, and therefore must be separate QB “Items”. This approach would also be beneficial if it was important from an accounting perspective to have this detail available in QuickBooks - with QuickBooks being the authoritative source for financial reports and tax preparation.

Note that a QB “Item” must be created for Total Sales for each major sales category - 4 in this case. These entries provide the “home” for the sales roll-ups. They create the top level of the hierarchy that will be used in QuickBooks.

The power of Excel comes into play as follows:

  1. Create one complete category: Name and description in the Excel spreadsheet.
  2. Copy these entries (rows and columns) below the location of the original entries.
  3. Use Find/Replace on the newly created cells to change the wording from “Light-Duty” to “Medium-Duty” or “Towing” to On-scene“, as appropriate.
  4. Be careful not to create too much complexity just because it is easy.

Once a solid first draft has been created and checked in Excel, the draft can be copied into QuickBooks. From the setup wizard in QuickBooks,

The most tedious part of the process comes next - creating the planned hierarchy in QuickBooks. In QuickBooks, go to “Lists” - “Item Lists”. This will show all of the line items that were copied in from Excel. The next step is to make each of the detailed components (e .g., Tow or Service charge, mileage, labor) a sub-category under the appropriate major sales category (four in this case). An example:


Linking Ranger DispatchDirectTM And Quickbooks

Creating the connection between DispatchDirectTM and Quickbooks requires that two applications are in place.

QuickBooks Web Connector

For more recent versions of QuickBooks, the Web Connector will be installed along with the accounting software. The Web Connector will be found in the QuickBooks program folder: Start - All Programs - QuickBooks folder - Web Connector. If this application is not installed, it can be downloaded for free from Intuit:

  1. Click on “Download and install the QuickBooks Web Connector”. Note: this download will not affect any of the information stored in QuickBooks.
  2. Click on “Save”
  3. Be sure to remember where the file is downloaded (ideally in the QuickBooks folder) because it will be needed to initiate each and every connection to Ranger DispatchDirectTM.
  4. It may have installed in a directory like C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Intuit\QuickBooks\QBWebConnector, and a shortcut might need to be created if Quickbooks does not show the Update web services menu option in the File menu.

rangersst QuickBooks Application

The download of the rangersst QuickBooks configuration file is a one-time task:

Initial Linkage - Quickbooks and Ranger DispatchDirect

When these steps are complete, the pieces are in place for the first linkage between QuickBooks and DispatchDirectTM. The objective of the first connection is to transfer the Item detail from QuickBooks into DispatchDirectTM. This will enable mapping of Ranger data to QuickBooks Items. Proceed as follows:

The web connection is now configured. Once again, any further communications will be initiated though QuickBooks Web Connector from the QuickBooks folder.

Mapping Data From DispatchDirectTM To QuickBooks

Establishing The Hierarchy Designed For QuickBooks

The final steps in setup will structure the mapping of detailed information on the charges for a job as collected in Ranger, to the (usually more summarized) sales “Items” as defined previously in QuickBooks. The level of effort - in this step: repetitive activity - again depends on the design decision as to the granularity of information that will be transferred to QuickBooks. Before jumping into the details, it is useful to sort through the high-level roadmap for the mapping task. If a less complex design for QuickBooks was selected, there are a few relatively straightforward mapping options available in DispatchDirectTM.

The case example is more complex, again with the intent of providing added value. In the case example, the decision was made to summarize sales in QuickBooks by the primary Vehicle Classes and Service offerings. To roll-up by the primary Vehicle Class and Service Offering in QuickBooks, the roadmap for the mapping in DispatchDirectTM would be as follows:

On the surface this appears complex. In practice, four “base” mappings will need to be created. These “base” mappings will then be saved under each of the Vehicle Class/ Service Offering combinations that roll-up to the appropriate “base” offering. This latter task is repetitive, but easy and fast. Note: any changes to the definition of services - Vehicle Class/Service Offering combinations - must be reflected in corresponding changes in the setup for QuickBooks.

Creating The Detailed Mapping

The next task is to “map” each of the individual data fields in Ranger to the sales accounting Items in QuickBooks. From the initial linkage with QuickBooks, DispatchDirectTM collected the Items for sales accounting as entered previously (see: Setup - “Add the products and services you sell”). These “Items” from QuickBooks will now be available in the drop-down menus for each of the component charges to create the linkage.

The process for creating one of the “base” mappings in the case example, - i.e., for Light - Towing - would proceed as follows:


Transferring Charges From DispatchDirectTM To QuickBooks

Validating Invoices To Be Transferred

After configuration and setup have been completed, DispatchDirectTM is ready to send and QuickBooks is ready to receive invoice information. Most companies choose to do this at least on a weekly basis - to avoid a backlog in the process, and more importantly, to expedite the sending of invoices and the receipt of payments.

Information is generally flowing from DispatchDirectTM to QuickBooks. However, any changes to Item definitions in QuickBooks will be collected by DispatchDirectTM and be available to refine the mappings in “Invoice line item configuration”.

Once a Job has been transferred to QuickBooks, the records are “locked” in DispatchDirectTM and can no longer be corrected. Before transferring jobs to QuickBooks, it is recommended that the Job charges are reviewed in DispatchDirectTM. This review is facilitated by a summary in “Reports - Quickbooks pending invoices”.

Jobs (pending invoices) can be organized by Account (Requested By), and show the detailed build-up to the total amount.

Corrections to a Pending Invoice can be made by:

Executing the Transfer To QuickBooks

Once validated, job invoice information is ready to be forwarded into QuickBooks. When a Job is forwarded to QuickBooks, the record in DispatchDirectTM is “flagged” so that it will not be sent again. The Job record is also “locked” since any attempts at correcting entries in DispatchDirectTM cannot be forwarded to QuickBooks.

To accomplish the transfer, complete the following steps