Breaking up (with your business application) can be difficult. But I’m positive you’ll bounce back (and even find love) if you’re experiencing the breakup brought on by Intuit’s discontinuation of the Salesforce for QuickBooks app and integration service. I know it’s tough to be told “it’s time to move on and starting seeing other applications”. But it really was them, and not you!
In their Salesforce Discontinuation FAQ Intuit states “…we have seen a high volume of use by customers who have needed a higher level of customization than our solution can provide – and our solution was unable to meet their needs. We have made the decision to direct our customers going forward to other 3rd party solutions that are better positioned to solve these integration problems…”
Below I’ll provide some perspective on your breakup and offer to set you up with something better.
Chin up! You’ll find a better (and stronger) connection out there
Maybe the breakup is for the best. Your previous CRM relationship with QuickBooks only allowed for a limited number of transactions your staff could create and modify within Salesforce.
For example, if you had an Opportunity in Salesforce that turned into a paying customer, you could create an invoice from within Salesforce (that would sync with QuickBooks), but you wouldn’t be able to view or modify that invoice.
But, isn’t that the whole point of giving your team access to transactions through a QuickBooks integration? So someone (you) doesn’t have to go back into QuickBooks and make changes
That doesn’t sound like a strong connection, and I really don’t think you should settle.
They didn’t give you the real-time of day
Providing your team with real-time access to QuickBooks speeds up how work gets done because your team no longer relies on other people to keep the business moving forward.
Your previous Salesforce/QuickBooks relationship, however, did not sync in real-time. You could get pretty close with the lowest time increments at 15 minutes between syncs. But, what if you have multiple staff in your CRM and QuickBooks working simultaneously? Even the 15 minute time lag could become problematic.
I know you’re thinking of trying to patching things up, but let’s consider what that will mean:
First, you’ll need to transition your subscription over from Intuit and subscribe to one of the Salesforce packages, which involves signing a contract. And second, you’ll need to choose a 3rd party integration app, which will also involve a monthly fee and another potential contract.
I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a high maintenance, expensive relationship that would involve a lot of trust considering all the different applications accessing crucial financial data.
Having a strong, real-time sync directly between your CRM and your QuickBooks is easier on your bank account and provides your whole team with (limited) access to customer financial data and the (safeguarded) ability to create transactions.
We take great pride in our strong integration with QuickBooks, so much so that sometimes we treat our integration patent to a romantic dinner and, of course, take a selfie.
You guys just weren’t a good fit
Was your past relationship based on the Group Edition? Maybe that’s why it just didn’t feel right – it wasn’t a good fit for what you needed out of a CRM for QuickBooks. If you were subscribing to the Group Edition, not only were you not allowed to create transactions as a user, but the account was limited to to 5 users in total. Sounds like a pretty restrictive relationship to me.
In fact, Charlie Russell from Sleeter Group recently recalled that “…the initial integration had a lot of limitations – it was only set up for the lower level of Salesforce capabilities and it didn’t play well with many Salesforce extensions”.
You treat your financial data as your small business’s single source of truth and we really get that. This is why Method CRM was developed specifically with QuickBooks users in mind. QuickBooks is the lifeblood of Method CRM with our real-time, bi-directional sync working as the heartbeat. So, will you find QuickBooks-centric functionality and naming conventions?
You betcha!
And, we love our users equally, so anyone can create transactions in either of our monthly subscriptions packages. And don’t worry – we understand that you many not want all your staff creating transactions, but we leave that up to the business owner to decide in the permissions sections of Method CRM.
Let me set you up! What your first date with Method CRM will look like
Since I know you’ll be much happier with Method CRM, I thought I would answer some questions you might have and walk you through your first date (a.k.a the process of converting from Salesforce to Method):
“How do I get started? Will it be complicated?”
While at first glance, the process might appear to be arduous, the team at Method is ready and able to make this transition as easy and seamless as possible!
Upon signing up for a Free 30 Day Trial, our Customer Success Coach will walk you through the first steps and make sure you are synced and ready to start moving data over.
“What information do I need to bring over?”
With Method’s Single Click QuickBooks Integration, your entire customer database will automatically sync to Method when you sign up for an account, so no need to worry about bringing over any customers – how awesome is that?
“But what about my leads who aren’t in QuickBooks and all the other data I have in Salesforce?”
Method has built an Import/Export tool that enables you to extract your data from Salesforce and Import it into Method CRM. It may sound complicated, but it’s not! We’ve provided step-by-step instructions as well as multiple tutorial videos to guide you through this process.
“I’m really busy with my business – is there any other help you can provide?”
During your free 30 Day trial, you’ll have a free hour with one of our Business Solutions Specialists who will spend time with you on learning how to use Method in more depth, or migrating your existing Salesforce data. If you happen to need additional time beyond the free hour, we offer professional services on an hourly or dedicated basis. You can check out these options here.
As always, feel free to leave a comment or email us with any questions – we’re here to help you through this breakup. It may not feel very good right now, but I know you’ll look back in a few months and laugh at why you didn’t make it happen sooner.