Learn more about contact synchronization and management for your QuickBooks.
Always have the most current QuickBooks lists of customers, vendors, and employees, whether you're viewing the list on QuickBooks (on your Mac) or Contacts (on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac). Contact Sync synchronizes your contact information in QuickBooks with Apple's Contacts and your mobile devices.
When you make changes in QuickBooks, Contacts, or your mobile device, the change is automatically synced between the programs and devices.
Note: Be sure to turn on Contact Sync again even though you may have used Contact Sync in a previous version of QuickBooks.
To use Contact Sync, you first turn on Contact Sync, and then you tell QuickBooks which contacts you want to sync.
Step 1. Turn on Contact Sync
- Open QuickBooks and go to Settings, then select Contact Sync.
- Select Use Contact Sync.
- Select OK when QuickBooks asks for access to your contacts.
QuickBooks creates a new group in Contacts named “QuickBooks: YourCompanyFileName.” All your contacts in that company file will be initially organized in this group.
Step 2. Sync your contacts
- After turning on Contact Sync, go to the Customer Center.
- Select any list of names on your customer list.
- Control-click on one or more of the names you want to sync, then select Sync with Contacts.
- Or you can edit the name and select Sync at the bottom of the Edit Window. The shaded items are synchronized.
The Contact Sync icon appears next to the names that are synced with Contacts.
Step 3. Clean up contacts
The first time to sync your QuickBooks lists with Contacts, QuickBooks creates duplicate Contacts cards and places them in a new group. You may want to consolidate these cards.
- Go to Contacts.
- Select All Contacts.
- Go to Card Menu and select Look for Duplicates.
- When contact finishes looking for duplicate entries, select Merge.
Now you’ve consolidated your Contacts card but the links to QuickBooks lists still work for synchronizing.
Managing syncing
To turn off Contact Sync, go to Preferences and select Contact Sync. Then uncheck Use Contact Sync. All contacts remain in both QuickBooks and Contacts but are no longer synced.
To turn off syncing for a specific contact, Control-click the contact name in the list and select Unsync with Contacts. Or, edit the name and uncheck Sync at the bottom of the Edit window. The contact remains in both QuickBooks and Contacts but is no longer synced. All other contacts with the Contact Sync Icon are still synced.
Add a contact from the Contacts App
- In QuickBooks, if it’s not already on, turn on Contact Sync.
- Open the list of center where you want to add the contact. For example, if you want to add a contact as a customer, select the Customer Center.
- Open Contacts and select the contact(s) you want to add to a list.
- In Contacts, drag and drop the selected contacts to the list in QuickBooks. As you drag the contact to the list, you’ll see a card icon with a green plus. If Contact Sync is on, the contact is automatically synced with the Contacts app.
Note: If you are adding a name to the Employees list that already exists, the green plus does not appear and QuickBooks does not add the duplicate name.
Contact Management
Taking notes about customers
You can display your notes by:
- Go to the Customer Center.
- While viewing the record, select and click the Notes tab.
Scheduling callbacks to customers
To schedule a callback, select the New To-Do button when you are entering notes about the customer. Then type a reminder to call the customer and enter the date when you want to display the reminder.
Use customer types to categorize your customers
The New Customer and Edit Customer windows have a type field on the Additional Info tab. Use this field to categorize each customer in a way that is meaningful to your business.
Examples:
- Commercial photographer customer types: graduation, portraiture, weddings, etc.
- Building contractor customer types: residential, commercial, or industrial.
- A doctor, dentist, or other health professional might use customer types to record a patient's insurance company. (For more information on using customer types in the healthcare industry, choose QuickBooks and Your Industry from the QuickBooks Help menu.
Once you set up customer types, you can create reports that show useful information about the different types of customers you serve. For example, if you have categorized your customers by market segment, you can create a separate sales report for each segment.
