Yes it's true, I probably should have published this for "Warehouse Wednesday," but I had too much egg on my face.
I've cleaned the egg off my eyelids so I could write this because while it is new to the QBO App Store, it certainly is not new to anyone who has used QuickBooks Desktop and needed to expand their inventory capabilities. Activate for QuickBooks integrates with your QBO company, solving your inventory challenges while allowing you to grow with minimal stress.
So, while Acctivate recently joined the ranks of Intuit listed apps, it promises to deliver real-time inventory control to small- and mid-sized distributors, manufacturers and online retailers using QuickBooks Online.
As an inventory app for QBO, businesses gain an affordable solution experienced in many business operations, including purchasing, warehouse management, production, sales, order fulfillment and CRM.
Once integrated with QBO, Acctivate is your operations software, allowing you to manage inventory, sales and purchasing while QuickBooks Online is your general ledger and financial reporting software.
Let’s look at some of the key features and functions when Acctivate's integrated with QuickBooks Online.
Customer Management
The Acctivate Customer List provides a convenient view of your customer information, transactions, and more. Here are just a few of the details available:
Source: Acctivate content adapted from the QBO App Store.
- Upfront overview of customer info like invoice balances, sales summary and shipping versus billing addresses.
- Pinpoint details for any customer in your system; identifies their order and payment history.
- A convenient timeline view puts customers’ entire history in chronological order.
- Purchase history snapshot makes it easy to drill down into the products purchased, when and how many.
Product List
Activate Product list provides crucial product information in a single location so you can proactively make your sell and buy business decisions.
Source: Acctivate content adapted from the QBO App Store.
- Overview of products, including item type, class, cost method tracked and characteristics (units of measure for purchase, sales, stocking and transportation).
- Product details can be condensed into a snapshot view to quickly identify stock values in each warehouse, location, sub-location (as you configure) and related information, including vendor preferences by warehouse.
Source: Acctivate content adapted from the QBO App Store.
- The timeline view for items provides the complete history of item purchases, item sales orders and fulfillments, and other activities such as inventory cycle counts and product transfers.
- Wide variety of item-related analytics from stocking levels over periods, inventory turns, pricing history, landed cost changes, etc.
- Advanced features for inventory, including multi-warehouse, sub-locations, barcodes, serial/lot tracking, expiration dates,
Strategic Purchasing
Preserve essential inventory levels to guarantee customer satisfaction using tools to measure who buys what, when, where, and how often. Most importantly, which vendors can provide the fastest deliveries to each of your warehouse locations with the lowest historical costs, including shipping/freight.
- Maintain accurate inventories at predefined stock levels using stock analysis, demand reports, reorder alerts, and a proper purchasing workflow meeting your policy provisions.
- Forecast and trend analyze your products to determine optional purchasing opportunities, such as volume discounts or known sales periods.
- Vet vendors through performance analysis and historical data such as published price versus actual price, last cost, lead times required and delivery on time performance.
- Manage deliveries to your facilities and drop shipments and special orders to expedite customer delivery or reduce transportation costs by preventing double-transport of items.
Source: Acctivate content adapted from the QBO App Store.
Order Fulfillment
Acctivate manages order processing from pre-sales (estimates) to sales orders to product delivery. If needed, you can even build product manufacturing into the equation.
- The fulfillment workflow begins when the pre-sale estimate is turned into a sales (or production) order for the customer who has ordered products.
Source: Acctivate content adapted from the QBO App Store.
- Acctivate offers a streamlined process of selecting or picking the items or items from inventory to fulfill the customer’s order. Track the process through packing, preparing for transport, and then shipping to the customer.
- Expedite the selection of products with Acctivate’s warehouse planning that maps the best locations of your products to facilitate the most expeditious and efficient picking of items.
Source: Acctivate content adapted from the QBO App Store.
- Ultimately, the sales or production order will be turned into the customer’s invoice for the fulfilled order.
QuickBooks Integration
When you connect Acctivate with QBO, there are several items under the control of Acctivate and a number within the purview of QuickBooks Online. The data exchanged (synchronized) between the two applications is designed to keep each application balanced.
For example, Acctivate manages operational aspects, including customers, vendors, sales, inventory, purchasing, shipping, and specialized operations like warehouse, barcodes, EDI and locations). QuickBooks controls receivables, payables, expenses, bank accounts, checks, payroll, financial ledgers and reporting.
When you synchronize the two apps, any customer and vendor information gets updated, common codes used between systems, customer invoices/payment information, vendor bills/payment information, and necessary journal entries for balancing purposes (when required).
Records are maintained within Acctivate regarding each data exchange during a sync event. For greater detail regarding the synchronization of Acctivate with QBO, see this Acctivate KBA.
For more information about Acctivate for QuickBooks Online, consult the Acctivate website.
Acknowledgements and Disclosures:
Graphics and content used within this feature was derived and/or adapted in part from Acctivate source materials including Acctivate Support Documentation, Acctivate Knowledge Base, Acctivate Website content, and Acctivate QBO App Store 'app page' listing content. Adapted source materials published by Insightful Accountant are for educational and product promotional purposes only.
Acctivate, as used herein, refers to ACCTivate!® a registered trademark of Alterity, Inc., a private company registered in Arlington, Texas.
QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online (QBO) and QuickBooks Desktop as used herein, refer to one or more registered trademarks of Intuit, Inc., a NASDAQ "INTU" publicly traded corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California (USA).
Other trade names used herein, including any other vendor (app/software) products discussed, may be registered, trademarked, or otherwise held by their respective owners and are now acknowledged accordingly. They have been referenced for informational and educational purposes only.
This is an editorial feature, not sponsored content. No vendors within this article have paid Insightful Accountant or the author any remuneration to be included within this feature. This article is provided solely for informational and educational purposes.
The publication of this article does not represent any form of endorsement by either the Author or Insightful Accountant.
Note: Registered Trademark ® and Copyright © symbols have been eliminated from the articles within this publication for brevity due to the frequency or abundance with which they might otherwise appear or be repeated. We attempt to credit such trademarked products or copyrighted materials within our respective article footnotes and disclosures.
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