I recently came a across a very interesting application developed for QuickBooks, it is called ChimpKey. However this a very unique approach; it is actually not an “application” or a traditional software, this is actually a service facilitated the ChimpKey software.
So, let me step back for a second and setup the premise. A QuickBooks user that does a lot of data entry such as Bills from vendors, spends hours and hours transcribing from the paper statement received from the vendor into the QuickBooks Bill. So ChimpKey service is designed to help this user AUTOMATE the entry of these bills into QuickBooks; when I say “automate” I actually mean it. It takes seconds to go from Paper (pdf) Bill into a QuickBooks Bill:
The reason why this is a service, is because every time you get a new Document formatted by a specific vendor, the mapping of the data fields needs to be programmed into your software; but when another document comes in that has been used before (there no further programming necessary) so overtime as the business matures and the number of new Vendors change very little, most of the data will be imported without intervention from ChimpKey.
I will take you through a step by step guide of how it works.
First, You can get a demo to se how it works, download from http://chimpkey.com/download
Once installed you will need to register your free copy:
Once this is done, ChimpKey will email you a set of DEMO PDFs that you can use to post to your QuickBooks company. I’ll run through one example of posting it to QuickBooks. Open one of the PDFs in Adobe reader.
You’ll notice that your Adobe Reader now has a new menu item called “ChimpKey”. Click it an choose “Post to QuickBooks”. Its best if you open up a sample company first, so you don’t affect your real company.
First, you will receive a popup that asks you to tell ChimpKey what name you want to use for this Company’s Invoice. It has to match to avoid having duplicate similar names in your QB. In this case we’ll go with the default…
You can choose to use the Vendor’s part #s or, have them posted without part numbers –its up to you.
The very first time you post, QuickBooks wants to let you know that a 3rd party application wishes to insert new data. For security reasons, it asks you for permission.
So choose “Yes, Whenever this QuickBooks company is open”.
Now the information has been posted to QuickBooks… Go into the “Enter Bills” or “Enter Invoices” section and search for the invoice or bill by number or name.
That’s it… Now if you want to use this for your own invoices, bills or purchase orders contact ChimpKey and they can set up your specific PDF so that it posts to QuickBooks effortlessly just like the samples they provide.
One Response
I signed up for this service after discovering it here. Wow, it does everything you say and more! What you and your readers may not be aware of is the level of customization they can do. For instance, we buy the same item from multiple vendors who use unique MPN for the same product. Chimpkey can map the manufacturer part number to the Quickbooks item so no matter where you buy the item it will be imported and recorded correctly. Another problem we had was on some items vendors would sell in different UOM, so for instance 2 vendors (including the preferred vendor) would sell the item (with different MPN) as EACH while another one would sell it as a DOZEN. Chimpkey can also take this into account. You just send a spreadsheet with the item number, MPN, vendor, and UOM and they set up the map. Talk about a huge, huge time saver!! Chimpkey are fantastic to work with, I highly recommend them. Note: I am just an extremely happy customer and not affiliated with them in any way.