REVIEWSAccounting looks backwards, by definition. So, let’s start with looking at Salesforce & Accounting how we got where we are today. Then, we’ll be looking at the Future of Accounting in Salesforce.
Accounting in Salesforce Today
You can gain significant benefits from integrating your Accounting package with Salesforce:
- Eliminating double keying.
- Reducing errors.
- Integrated analytics.
- And more.
Does Salesforce integrate with Quickbooks? Does Salesforce integrate with Sage? What about Xero Accounting, that finance package for small business; does that integrate? What is FinancialForce? – common questions around Accounting and Salesforce today.
Oh, and another FAQ: what to watch out for when you integrate your accounting. Let me start with that last question.
Moving to Integration
Common Pitfalls to Avoid in Salesforce integrations with Accounting Packages:
- Lack of planning. Everyone works in the end of the day to make a buck. Integrating Accounting with Sales lies at the heart of a company making money. Plan your Accounting package integration like you would heart surgery, and you’ll be fine. Start with determining the purposes of the integration as well as addressing these next 3 points.
- Lack of data cleansing / deduping. With poor data quality, accounting becomes a mess. Do the prep and work with clean data.
- Leaving un-aligned data structures. In Salesforce, an account can have several contact records, whereas typically in accounting packages, customers and their contact information are stored in a single record. You need to prepare for this to ensure accurate syncing between the two platforms.
- Choosing an accounting package with predefined fields and objects, or a ‘static’ schema is not so great. It requires you to change all your Salesforce custom fields and custom objects to this accounting package. While processes, workflow rules, etc. hinge upon these fields, this can mean a lot of work. What you really need is a dynamic integration.
- Also read: Salesforce Integration (an introduction)
How Various Accounting Packages Integrate with Salesforce
Head for Native Integration
The long and the short it that you actually want to have your accounting right within (‘native’ to) Salesforce with two-way syncing updates, for best results: financial reporting, analysis, management.
Let me discuss these earlier-mentioned accounting packages in turn. There are other accounting packages that work with Salesforce and you can find all on the Salesforce AppExchange.
Quickbooks or Xero Accounting integrated with Salesforce
I wrote about it exactly 3 years ago: QuickBooks Online integrates very nicely with Salesforce, and so does Xero Accounting, through 2-way syncing products, provided by our friend, Stony Grunow, Founder of Breadwinner. Both are very easy to configure as Breadwinner does pretty much all the work of making the connection for you. If you are an international company, you may want to think through certain set-up issues first such as multi-currency. (see more about data models later).
What can you do with the Quickbooks for Salesforce or Xero for Salesforce integration?
- First up, you can automatically update Salesforce with live Xero or QuickBooks online invoice amounts.
- Second, you can create Xero or QuickBooks records from within Salesforce.
- Third, you can create records in Xero or Quickbooks, and these will then be synced back to Salesforce and kept up-to-date.
- Fourth, Breadwinner offers two-way sync of Invoices, Bills & Purchase Orders, and Xero Contacts.
- You can connect Salesforce to multiple Xero orgs.
Plus other features.
Salesforce Integration with Sage Financials
May 7 we had a Brighton Salesforce User Group Meetup dedicated to this very topic. The key speaker was our very own Phil Meldrum talking about Sage Financials. Sage Financials was brought to life July 2017, and was built on the Salesforce Platform. While buggy, its price-point was perfect for small-mid-sized business who wished to integrate their accounting with Salesforce.
Unfortunately, Sage Financials is being phased out September ’19. The company will support it while it has active users, but not build or develop it further. Meanwhile, Sage hopes to move current clients forward to a Sage product that normally costs at least 40% as much, at the same price as Sage Financials. Sounds like a good deal for them? Maybe.
Sage Financials is not taking on any new customers. So, what’s next?
Salesforce and FinancialForce
Meetup on the Future of Accounting in Salesforce.
At the Brighton Salesforce User group today we heard Barry Reynolds, Head of IT at VAT Accordance talk about his journey with finding the right accounting solution in Salesforce. He spoke about (a few plusses and ) the many minuses of SalesforceFinancials. In short: he had found FinancialForce to be disappointing, uncommunicative and too inflexible for their needs. Just when they decided to migrate to Sage Financials, Sage pulls the plugs on this product.
Barry shared the following slides, laying down the options for accounting with Salesforce, on the platform and off the platform.
The verdict: Thanks to Breadwinners’ low cost and promising list of benefits, the Xero for Salesforce is the solution of choice for a mid-sized organisation, while the QuickBooks solution might best befit the smallest of companies.
DEMO?
Like to see for yourself how this could work? We’d be happy organise a demo, so you can see if accounting in Salesforce with Breadwinner is a suitable solution for you. Or otherwise.
Last Updated on October 12, 2022
