In theory, it all sounds great to integrate your online giving with your donor software. People give online and the data magically appears in the donor system with little or no effort. That’s the hope, but is it realistic? I did this with QuickBooks Online and Anedot. It wasn’t magic, but it is pretty darn slick.
The key to making it work
Here’s the key: Read the instructions! The integrations won’t come with a manual or set of instructions necessarily, but there is almost always documentation somewhere. Google: “How to integrate Anedot with QuickBooks Online” and likely there will be page out there from Anedot or QuickBooks that gives step-by-step instructions.
I set it up without reading the instructions. I had made several mistakes because nothing worked. Which brings me to the second key: Test! I did a test transaction and nothing happened. So I Googled the instructions and found out that I needed to have an Action Page in Anedot to make the integration work.
Then I tested again, and the transactions came across perfectly! Well, almost perfectly. They were never hitting the correct fund so I Googled that problem. Anedot had instructions for that issue as well.
The key to keeping it working
As the volume picks up, I’m going to pay attention for those little annoying things. The first one was when QuickBooks setup a duplicate donor. This could be a huge pain if, instead of once in a blue moon, I have a dozen duplicate donors each month. So what did I do? I Googled it and was able to merge the donors. I also have a theory on how to prevent future duplicates. If I’m wrong, back to Google.
Don’t let these little annoyances stack up. Take the time to solve the issue…if possible. I had another issue where every donation that came in from Anedot was showing up as “Bank Fees.” Well, Bank Fees was the first Product/Service in QuickBooks alphabetically. So…I Googled it, and I found out how to connect the Funds in Anedot to specific Products/Services in QuickBooks. Again, not necessarily simple to fix, but it will save me a ton of time in the future.
Disclaimer
I just wanted to mention that I never get paid to post about Anedot, QuickBooks, Microsoft, TechSoup, or anything else. I just post about what I use in my regular course of work.
Useful Links
- Guidance from Anedot: https://help.anedot.com/kb/guide/en/integrations-FSrUrUV3zl/Steps/1549274
- Merging Donors/Members: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/manage-customers/add-manage-customers-quickbooks-online/L0M9mMZmd_US_en_US
- Anedot: https://www.anedot.com/
- Initial Post on Setting up Donors in QuickBooks Online: http://jctaccounting.com/2023/05/26/quickbooks-online-setting-up-for-tracking-donations/