QuickBooks Point of Sale is designed to be integrated with QuickBooks Financial Software. After integration, you use Point of Sale to track your daily point-of-sale business (such as purchasing, receiving, sales, and related inventory activities), while QuickBooks Financial Software tracks your financial data.
Exchanging information between the two programs, referred to as Financial Exchange, can significantly reduce your workload because you can track retail sales activities in Point of Sale and then transfer the resulting data directly into QuickBooks. There's no need to enter information twice.
Important: After integration, we strongly recommend splitting key business activities between the programs, as shown below. This split allows you to get the most from the specialized features of each program and ensures accurate inventory valuation and reporting. Note that this table is not an all-inclusive list of the features in either program.
Activity | Point of Sale
(Retail Activities) | QuickBooks
(Financial Activities) |
|---|
| Add, edit, and view inventory items | X | |
| Order and receive merchandise | X | |
| Ring up sales and collect sales tax | X | |
| Run sales and merchandise reports | X | |
| Add customers or vendors |
X | X |
| Track cost of goods and expenses | | X |
| Pay bills and sales tax | | X |
| Invoice customers | | X |
| Process payroll | | X |
| Run financial reports | | X |
| Do banking activities |
| X |
You don't have to integrate the two programs immediately when you install Point of Sale. However, if you already have a QuickBooks financial company file with existing customers, vendors, and inventory, you can save a great deal of time by integrating from the start and importing those records into Point of Sale.
Setting up the two programs
Several options are available to ensure that integration works for your business model and your preferred method for reporting on retail activities. For details on setting up the two programs to exchange data, see:
Special tips and integration issues
See also