Zapier & The Wonderful World of Zaps

So, @Anonymous, you piqued my interest in Zaps with your question so I found Heather Satterly's session at QuickBooks Connect. Here it is for anyone (like me) who missed it in person:

5 "Zaps" You can Use to Automate Your Processes - Accountant - Heather Satterley - San Jose 2017

Can't wait to hear what others have to say. Thanks for asking the question and pointing me tp this!

Hi Kellie

Zapier is an amazing tool! We have used Zapier for a couple years now for a lot of different purposes:

Converting Xero to QuickBooks Online: Last year while converting over information from a very complicatied Xero company file to QuickBooks Online, our client continued to invoice in Xero while we processed all of the information. To keep from falling behind, I setup a zap that would automatically add all the new infoarmation for customers and their invoices for me to QBO. Without Zapier, I would probabaly still be chasing my tail in QBO.

Mapping Userforms to QuickBooks Online:

We have mapped Google Forms in the past to link up with QuickBooks Online to provide individual data entry forms for our clients. People are afraid to work in QBO sometimes and sometimes we do not want people in our QBO file. THis trick helps us help them :)

Client OnBoarding:

One of the worst feelings is when you search for a persons contact information only to find discrepencies between your different systems.  To help automate the follow up process when we receive an initial phone call from a potential client, we set up a pretty complicated Zap that addes the persons contact information to Office 365, Hubspot CRM ZohoCRM and Mailchimp which sends out an initial introduction email. The whole sequence is set into motion based off a special appointment type scheduled through Acuity.

Consulting Projects:

I do a lot of consulting work with app companies and for Ledgersync, I helped to automate the data entry process across Zoho CRM, Zendesk, Strip and their own internal system.  The end result was the ability to automatically update both their help desk software and their CRM with important subscription based details such as plan level and account status. IT was really cool!

Hope these examples helped!  My favorite procrastination ( besides the Intuit Community) is hunting down apps to see what crazy ideas I can come up with!!  If you need some help, shoot me a message!

Matthew 

I've been using zaps (and IFTTT recipes) for years to automate my business. 

Automation is fun when you use it with one software or service, but it is unbelievable when you combine multiple programs to build Zap powerhouses.

Take for example this lovely post-it note. I take a picture of it in Evernote, it's color determines which notebook the note gets saved in, and a new note in that notebook triggers a Zap. That zap will create a new opportunity in my CRM (SalesForce) or a if it's a pink note, it will be a new lead. The yellow note then also creates a tag (with the job number) in Evernote, will open a ToDo list and used to create an Expense Report in Expensify - although Expensify, just took away the SalesForce integration a few weeks ago :( 

Other zaps…

…text me, when a person filled out my contact form on my website with their name and phone number

…add an Event from my Google calendar to my SalesForce calendar

…tweet a thank you tweet to new twitter followers

Zaps can be as simple and as complex, as you want them to be. My advice, work through your business processes, find those that are highly repetitive and digital and figure out how to automate them. 

You can read more about how I use Zap's on the Link to my Blog in my profile page.

I will give you a demo!

Does anyone know if Zapier is really able to integrate apps to QBO for example Stripe or Square for the fees and payments, etc? I was told it will, but would like to know how it works from anyone that uses it. Also, does it do anything for importing from sites like Ebay, Etsy, or Amazon? Thank you! :)

Hello all,

I'm glad you've turned to the Community for support!

This link will take you to the Zapier app page, which includes the overview, reviews, pricing, and support: https://apps.intuit.com/zapier.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Hi @MorganB, 

Thank you for the link, however we are looking for reviews and info from real time users or current users. We all found out about it from that link. I really appreciate it though. 

Hello,

To add my 2 cents, for anyone seeing this thread way after it was originally created.  Zapier is a great tool.  It can connect many apps to many others, and can streamline the process.  I've used it on several occasion and it worked well. 

For example, I was able to use a Business Card Scanner that out-of-the-box integrated with evernote.  Then I used a Zap to connect evernote to a google spread sheet.  Then I zapped the google spreadsheet data into my CRM.  ( So basically I was able to scan a business card on my phone and have that information automatically uploaded into my CRM )

But I want to mention that there are alternatives out there.  I use Integromat as an alternative. 

Integromat Cons

1. Integromat doesn't connect to as many apps as Zapier.
2. Integromat  is a tiny bit more difficult to use (nothing your average QBO user couldn't figure out). 

But if you find the apps you need there and you spend a few minutes before giving up, you might find that it's better. 

Intergromat Pros

1. In my opinion it's more powerful.  (I found that there are more triggers and action that it can do that I wasn't able to accomplish with Zapier). 
2. Best of all it's priced lower then Zapier, (not to mention their free version is actually usable)

Check them out and post your findings back here.