Integrating your Accounting System
Your HWIT system will initially come without any integration to accounting active. If you wish to activate the integration you can easily do so from the Settings screen.
Before you link the systems, and if you have data in BOTH HWIT and your accounting system, make sure that any existing customers’ names in your accounting system exactly match the property names in HWIT — otherwise you could end up with duplicate customers.
In Settings, click the Integrations tab, then on the Accounting Integration row click Manage accounting integration. Until a system is connected you will see your options listed, each with a button to perform the linking of your system:
- Connect QuickBooks Online
- Connect Zoho Books
- Connect Zoho Invoice
- Connect Pennylane
- Connect InvoiceXpress
- Use HWIT Invoicing — invoice from inside HWIT with no external accounting system (see Home Watch IT Invoicing).
It is important that you select the proper system when performing the linking. Please be especially careful to select Zoho Books OR Zoho Invoice to match the system you have.
Once you click the button you are taken to another screen to log into your accounting system. Once you have successfully done so, HWIT begins to sync your customers, items, etc. between the systems. The row on the Integrations tab then shows Connected with the account name.
The same drawer also holds the accounting options that HWIT applies when it creates invoices — the default Terms, the Invoice message to customers, the credit card surcharge settings and the default expense item for vendor bills — plus a Resync from Accounting button. These are covered in the Invoicing articles.
Online payments with Stripe
Section titled “Online payments with Stripe”If you use HWIT Invoicing, or want a Pay Now button on invoices shown in the Customer App, choose your Business country in the same drawer, click Click here to connect Stripe Payments, and complete Stripe’s onboarding. Choose the country where your business and bank account are — Stripe cannot change it later. The row shows Stripe connected when done, or Finish connecting Stripe if the onboarding was started but not completed.
If you plan to use Vendor Bills
Section titled “If you plan to use Vendor Bills”Once QuickBooks Online or Zoho Books is linked, vendor bills you record in Home Watch IT are posted into your books. Before the first one can post, the office has one extra one-time step: make at least one item purchasable in your accounting system (in QuickBooks, tick “I purchase this product/service from a vendor” on the item), wait for the sync, then choose it as the Default expense item in Settings. Until that is done, every vendor bill saves normally but shows Blocked with the message “No expense item is set”. The full steps are in Before your first bill.