[Step 3] Pushing to the Base Account
Once you've completed the Account Setup and Connect, it's time to move over to QuickBooks Online. The first step is to login into the QuickBooks Account that you would like to run a Ponder on. Navigate to Transactions > Bank Transaction and then click the Account you'd like to work on.
In a nutshell, any transactions that you would like Hello Agnes to tackle need to be pushed into the Base Account. The steps to do this are as follows: A. gather the data, B. select the data and push the data over to the Base Account.
A. Gather
If you have feeds setup in QuickBooks then the only thing you may want to do is refresh the feeds. Otherwise, you're ready to move onto step B. If you do not have connected feeds, then you will need to pull the data into QuickBooks Online as a CSV. Once the data is showing up in a feed, then you can move onto step B below..
TIP (Banking Data)
Most bank accounts and credit cards can be connected to QuickBooks. If you do not want to connect the accounts, then client's can sometimes pull the data from their bank as a CSV.
Otherwise, the data will need to be converted manually. There are numerous tools that can help convert PDF bank/credit card data into CSVs. A tool that works fairly well is HubDoc. You can get it for free if you sign up for an accountant account.
B. Select & Push
The easiest way to push transactions into the Base Account is to use the bulk select method in QuickBooks. You can either select transaction individually by clicking the checkbox next to the transactions or you can select all of them by clicking the checkbox at the top (#1 below).
- The Select All checkbox.
- The Edit button.
Once you've selected the transactions you'd like to push to the base account. Click the Edit button (#2 above). From there you'll be presented with the Edit selected transactions box below:
- Type of transaction
- Account
- Apply and accept
In order for Agnes to function correctly, the Type of transaction (#1 above) must be set to Expense and the Account (#2 above) must be set to the Base Account that you selected during the Account Setup process.
Once the Edit selected transactions has been filled out, click the Apply and accept button (#3 above). You're now ready to move back to Hello Agnes and to complete the process [Step 4] Ponder & The Report
TIP (What Data to Push)
As a rule, only expenses should be pushed into the Base Account as Agnes will not do anything with other transactions types like Deposits or Transfers.
Also, transactions with insufficient information or that are categorized differently from time to time are not good candidates for the Ponder process. For example, a transaction that does not include a vendor or business description would not have sufficient information to categorize.
WARNING (Manual Expenses)
If you manually enter expenses in QuickBooks Online (Expenses > Expenses > New Expense) and post them to the Base Account. You run the risk of them being deleted depending on how you setup the Uncategorized Action under Account Setup.