Import Your Inventory from QuickBooks

If you already keep your stones, vases and services in QuickBooks, you do not have to type them into MonuDesk a second time. Open Inventory and click Import from QuickBooks to pull your QuickBooks Products & Services list across, matched against what you already have.

After the first import the two stay in step: edits you make in MonuDesk push back to QuickBooks automatically.

What the import does

The import reads every item on your QuickBooks Products & Services list and, for each one, does one of three things: links it to a stone you already have in MonuDesk, creates it as a new inventory item, or holds it back and asks you. Nothing uncertain is written behind your back.

Money does not travel this way. Invoices, receipts and payments still flow one way only, MonuDesk to QuickBooks. Inventory is the part that moves in both directions.

Before you start

QuickBooks has to be connected for the office you are importing into. Go to Settings → Integrations → QuickBooks and check for the green Connected badge. Until then the Import from QuickBooks button is greyed out and its tooltip reads "Connect QuickBooks in Settings → Integrations first."

If your company runs more than one office, the import is per office. Pick the office in the header's office switcher first. That decides which QuickBooks company is read, which office's stock counts are set, and which review queue the held items land in. An office with no QuickBooks connection is simply not importable; switch to it and connect it first.

Check how your QuickBooks writes sizes

MonuDesk stores every size as Width x Height x Thickness. If your QuickBooks item names put those three numbers in a different order, every item comes in with its dimensions in the wrong boxes, which then matches the wrong stones on quotes and takes the wrong stone off your shelf. Set Dimension order in QuickBooks in Settings > Integrations > QuickBooks before your first import. All six orderings are offered, the default is Width x Height x Thickness, and it is one setting for your whole company. It only affects future imports, so items already in MonuDesk are left exactly as they are, and a size with only two numbers, such as 4x8, is never rearranged, because there is no way to tell which dimension is missing.

Run the import

• Open Inventory from the main navigation.

• If you have more than one office, choose the office in the switcher at the top of the app.

• Click Import from QuickBooks, on the right of the search and filter bar.

MonuDesk asks you one question before it starts: Check dimension order before importing. A QuickBooks item name like Bevel 24x10x4 Emerald Pearl does not say which number is the width, which is the height and which is the thickness, so you tell it. Pick the order your QuickBooks uses and the popup shows you a worked example of how a sample size will be read, as Width, Height and Thickness. Click That's correct - import to start, or Cancel to back out. The same popup appears whether you start the import from the Inventory page or from Settings > Integrations, and your answer is saved, so you only change it if it is wrong.

The button turns into a live counter (Importing… 42/318) and the work runs on the server, not in your browser. You can close the tab, go and answer the phone, and come back: when you reopen the Inventory page the counter picks up where it is. Only one import can run per office at a time, so a second click while one is running is refused with "An inventory import is already in progress for this office."

After that, matches MonuDesk is sure about are written straight away, and everything it is not sure about waits for you.

Read the summary

When it finishes you get a green Complete button and a plain summary, for example Created 214, Updated 38, Linked 91, 27 need review. Here is what each word means:

• Created - a QuickBooks item with no counterpart in MonuDesk. A new inventory row was made for it.

• Linked - a QuickBooks item matched to a stone you already had, and the two were tied together for the first time.

• Updated - an item that was already linked by an earlier import, refreshed with the current QuickBooks values.

• Skipped - nothing was done. Usually a QuickBooks item with no name, an item you deleted in MonuDesk (a delete is never undone by an import), or one you chose to skip in the review queue previously.

• Need review - held for you to decide. No inventory row was created for these.

If any items need review, an amber banner appears above the inventory tabs with a Review now button. See Review Uncertain QuickBooks Matches for that screen.

Download the report - you get one shot

Next to the button is Download report. It saves inventory-import-report.csv: a row for every item in your inventory plus every item still waiting for review, with its SKU, name, category, size, color, price, cost and quantity, whether it came from QuickBooks or MonuDesk, which rule matched it, what the import did with it, and the reason.

How MonuDesk decides what matches

Every shop names items its own way. 0-2x0-2x0-2 Academy Black Bevel, Bevel - Academy Black and 2*2*2 all mean something to you and nothing to a computer. MonuDesk tries the safest signals first and only falls back to guessing at the end:

• Already linked - the item was matched by a previous import. Straight update.

• SKU - the QuickBooks SKU equals a MonuDesk SKU.

• Exact QuickBooks name - the item name matches the name a linked item was imported under, ignoring case and punctuation.

• Attributes - same category and same dimensions, confirmed by piece type, material, shape, photo type and stone color. One clean winner is linked automatically; a tie, or a field that disagrees, sends the item to review.

Every way of writing a size is boiled down to one form first, so 0-2x0-2x0-2 (feet and inches), 2" 2" 2", 2-2-2, 2 x 2 x 2 and 2*2*2 all compare as the same size. Slant ratios like 10/2 are handled too.

An item that nothing plausible matches is created as a new inventory row, carrying its QuickBooks SKU so it matches cleanly next time. SKU numbers are unique per company rather than across the whole of MonuDesk, so your own numbering comes across as it stands, even where another company already uses the same SKU.

What the AI does, and what it never does

For items that miss on SKU and name, MonuDesk sends an AI model two things and nothing else: the item's name and its description. It asks which fields those words map to - category, piece type, shape, granite color, photo type, and the dimensions as written. No prices, no customers, no order data.

It carries a monument-trade glossary, so it knows a die is the upright tablet, a plinth is a base, and a grasser or pillow is a bevel. It also knows that words like companion, single, double or classic describe a variant, not a different product.

It does not decide what matches what. The rules above do that. Every value it returns is checked before use: anything outside MonuDesk's own lists is thrown away, dimensions are re-parsed, and a color only counts if it resolves to a stone color that exists in your account. Where MonuDesk worked something out for itself, its own answer wins.

Telling which items are linked

Back on the Inventory list, a small green qb badge sits in a narrow first column on every row that is tied to QuickBooks for the location you are viewing. Hover it for when the item last synced and its QuickBooks item ID. Rows with no link show nothing, and if nothing on the page is linked the column disappears altogether.

A grey badge with a line through it means the item is linked but that location's Sync inventory changes to QuickBooks switch is off. Anything you change while it is off is not sent, and it is not applied retroactively when you switch sync back on. You would have to go back and touch those items again.

Viewing All locations turns the tooltip into a count instead, for example "Synced to QuickBooks in 2 of 3 locations."

The import is not the only way a link is made. An item's edit popup on the Inventory page carries a QuickBooks link field with a picker of your QuickBooks items, so you can point any product at the exact QuickBooks item it should sync to.

Pushing your changes back to QuickBooks

Once an item is linked, changes you make in MonuDesk push back on their own. The switch is Settings → Integrations → QuickBooks → Sync inventory changes to QuickBooks. It is on by default and set per office.

An item that has never been linked is no longer left behind either: edit one and MonuDesk creates it in QuickBooks and links it, instead of quietly dropping the change.

What pushes:

• Name, retail price, cost, description and reorder point when you edit the item. On a multi-office account the office's effective price is what goes to that office's QuickBooks company.

• Stock changes - a quantity you type, an adjustment, or a stone pulled for an order.

• New products - a product you add in MonuDesk is created in QuickBooks. Items in the Services category become QuickBooks Service items; everything else becomes a QuickBooks Inventory item. A new product created while building an order goes to that order's office, provided that office is connected to QuickBooks with sync switched on. If it is not, MonuDesk falls back to your default office, and failing that to your one connected office. With several connected offices and none of them the default, it will not guess. The product is not created in QuickBooks, and you would add it there yourself.

If QuickBooks cannot be reached the change is queued and retried automatically with a growing wait between tries. After six failed tries it stops and waits for a human rather than hammering away. Turning the switch off stops changes going out; it has no effect on importing.

Your stock is only taken off once. When you confirm an order, MonuDesk takes the stone off your count and sends that across. Where the QuickBooks invoice also carries a linked Inventory product, QuickBooks used to take a second unit off by itself, so one stone sold came off your shelf twice. MonuDesk now hands that second unit straight back, so the net is exactly the one unit you sold. Cancelling reverses it properly too: voiding the invoice makes QuickBooks return the stock, and MonuDesk takes its give-back away to match. If your on-hand counts have been running down about twice as fast as you actually sell, this is what was causing it.

The stone posts as your own product. On a confirmed order that reuses a stone from stock, that stone's line on the QuickBooks invoice is now your own linked QuickBooks product rather than a generic service item named after the category, so the sale lands against the real product in your books and your reporting by product works. Lettering, foundation, cemetery fees and custom items still post as generic named items, exactly as before. If the stone is not linked to a QuickBooks product, or the order's office has inventory sync switched off, the line falls back to plain text and the stock still comes off your count as normal.

Stock counts are reconciled, never overwritten

This is the question every dealer asks, so it is worth being exact: an import does not stamp QuickBooks' count over yours. It applies the difference since the last time the two agreed.

Worked example. Last import, QuickBooks said 10. Since then you pulled 4 stones for orders, so MonuDesk says 6, and your bookkeeper received a delivery of 4 in QuickBooks, so QuickBooks now says 14. QuickBooks changed by +4, so MonuDesk goes from 6 to 10. The delivery lands, the four stones you pulled this morning are not resurrected.

The first time an item is linked there is nothing to compare against, so MonuDesk adopts the QuickBooks count as the starting point. Quantity only moves for QuickBooks Inventory-type items; a Service or Non-inventory item in QuickBooks carries no quantity, so yours is left alone.

Re-running the import is safe

Run it as often as you like. Linked items are updated, not duplicated. Two things to know before you do:

• QuickBooks owns price, cost and description. On a re-import those three overwrite what is in MonuDesk whenever QuickBooks has a value. Everything else (piece type, material, shape, photo type, size, color, name) is only filled in where MonuDesk's field is blank, so your own curation is never flattened.

• Deletes and skips stick. An item you deleted in MonuDesk is not brought back, and an item you skipped in the review queue is skipped on every future import.

If something goes wrong

• The button is greyed out. That office's QuickBooks is not connected. Settings → Integrations → QuickBooks, with the right office selected.

• Nothing came in. Check the office switcher. You may have imported into a different location than the one you are looking at.

• The import shows Error. Click Retry. Re-running is safe. If a run stalls with no progress for 15 minutes MonuDesk marks it failed on its own so you can start again.

• A price changed unexpectedly. That is the re-import rule above: QuickBooks price wins. Correct it in QuickBooks, or turn a genuinely MonuDesk-owned price into the master by editing it in MonuDesk after the import.

• Duplicates appeared. Usually two QuickBooks items that really are the same stone written two ways. Delete one in MonuDesk; the delete sticks through future imports.

Related articles:

• Review Uncertain QuickBooks Matches

• How to Connect QuickBooks Online

• How Inventory Works

• Managing Inventory Across Locations