Need more options for integrating accounting with outlook contact

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Problem: MS Accounting only integrates to Business Contact Manager under
"Accounts". "Accounts" don’t sync to a PDA.

Suggestion: Allow options to integrate Accounting to either "Accounts" or
"Business Contacts" in Business Contact Manager.

And/or Allow Accounts to be synced to a PDA.

I just forked out a lot of money for the whole Microsoft package for the
reason of being able to share data between all my programs. I actually
switched from QuickBooks (which is a much better program) to Microsoft
accounting simply so I could easily sync my info and have my customer
contacts with me on my PDA phone.

I am very disappointed in Microsoft at this point and feel this problem
needs to be fixed ASAP or I feel there advertising has been very misleading.

Thanks,


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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...-e319aa3f21e9&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.bcm
 
Joel,

This bizarre and potentially confusing design quirk that BCM / Office
Accounting presents an end user is something I wrestled with initially myself.
I have all the empathy in the world for your post to start this thread.
Looking at strictly the "Contact-management" function of BCM, the Account
Record is encouraged by MS to be used as an "all-in-one" repository to join
various Business Contacts into a "super-contact" record whereby all the
linked contact history conveniently rolls up into the one central Account
record location. Life is good so far. (as long as you don't need to link a
Business Contact to more than 1 Account Record!!!) The above is what I
personally think of and refer to as the "Super Business Contact" function of
the Account record.

Now comes the second tricky part: This second part I personally think of and
refer to as the "Accounting function" of the Account record. The BCM Account
record is the only current item through which it is possible for BCM to share
a link to Office Accounting (and ONLY to Customers, not Vendors). This
certainly seems logical enough on the receivables side of things. However,
if your particular business sales activity (like mine) involves a Business-to-
Person process rather than a Business-to-Business, your integration with
Office Accounting is potentially limited and confusing to work around. My
consulting service sales opportunities are always linked to a single person
using an individual Business Contact record (because MS documents and
educates us that Business Contact records are for Individuals... and "Trixs
are for Kids!").

Once my individual sales opportunity closes, I then had to evolve the
opportunity by creating an additional Account record to link the individual
Business Contact and opportunity to in order for my sale to have any relevant
connection to Office Accounting. Although this now linked Account record
shares the same title of "Account Record," this newly created Account record
is NOT for the same functional purpose of "super-business-contact-linked-by-
ORGANIZATION" relationship I mentioned above. My closed opportunity linked
Account record has NOTHING to do with a company or an organization. This
Account record relates to a PERSON not an ORGANIZATION. Confused yet? Well
I sure was for a long while until I stopped blindly following the MS
documentation and started logically thinking for myself.

I believe the problem lies in the semi-contradictory manner of how MS
documents the intended purpose for the Account record as an organization
related data entity. My own personal solution was to mentally purge from my
head the oft stated idea by MS that the Account record be a named company or
organization entity (The Super Business Contact Function). This shift in my
thinking allowed me to open up to flexibly understanding and adapting the
Accounting function. I now just use the BCM Account Record as appropriate
for either a single person AND/OR for an organization. The common purpose of
use for me is that the Account record be named for either the person or the
organization that is ultimately going to buy something from me. If you do
not choose to link BCM to the use of Office Accounting, this confusion does
not exist. Understanding and use of the "super-business-contact" function
will then suit the Account record just fine as a stand alone convenience.


The problem lies inherent in the fact that BCM has 1 separate and distinct
functional data purpose for the Account record which can be separate and
different from Office Accounting's purpose. It seems almost as if the
Accounting link to the BCM Account record was an after thought by MS quickly
put together and not thoroughly thought out completely! They can seem
contradictory depending upon how you look at and choose to use the BCM
Account record.

If I were King of the BCM design world I would consider rectifying this via
either more well thought out documentation and tutorials about the existing
design reality AND, in a future release, I would consider creating a separate
"Company" record from the Account record that would allow equal Account
linking status and function for an organization in contrast and compliment to
the separate Business Contact record for individuals. This could also enable
sub-company linking for divisions or various organization branch locations,
etc. Another design solution would be to enable Office Accounting to connect
its Customer record also to an individual BCM Business Contact in addition to
just the BCM Account record. Another nicety would add additional Accounting
to BCM item links beyond just the Office Accounting Customer record. Many of
my Business Contacts in BCM are Vendors in Office Accounting that I regularly
communicate and transact payables with. Having a vendor payables to business
contact link would be great. There is currently no way to link these 2 in
Office 2007.

Wow! Is this post long enough yet?!!

A final comment: BCM linkage to Office Accounting is not yet "seamless" and
my lengthy commentary here is intended as honest, real-world, end-user
feedback for consideration by whomever makes the design decisions for BCM. I
would encourage as much real world input as possible from folks who are NOT
just programming techs but rather, they are average Joe users like myself
that simply want a well designed, stable, and reasonably simple, yet robust
tool for common everyday usage. There are some glaring BCM omissions in
existance that really need to be more thoroughly thought out before next
release in order to make this Office combo a truly terrific rather than a
sometimes frustrating or confusing experience for its target market.

Best regards,

-THP
 
To paraphrase the immortal William Jefferson Clinton in testimony while under
oath ... "it all depends upon what the meaning of the word "Account" is!"

-THP


Joel,

This bizarre and potentially confusing design quirk that BCM / Office
Accounting presents an end user is something I wrestled with initially myself.
I have all the empathy in the world for your post to start this thread.
Looking at strictly the "Contact-management" function of BCM, the Account
Record is encouraged by MS to be used as an "all-in-one" repository to join
various Business Contacts into a "super-contact" record whereby all the
linked contact history conveniently rolls up into the one central Account
record location. Life is good so far. (as long as you don't need to link a
Business Contact to more than 1 Account Record!!!) The above is what I
personally think of and refer to as the "Super Business Contact" function of
the Account record.

Now comes the second tricky part: This second part I personally think of and
refer to as the "Accounting function" of the Account record. The BCM Account
record is the only current item through which it is possible for BCM to share
a link to Office Accounting (and ONLY to Customers, not Vendors). This
certainly seems logical enough on the receivables side of things. However,
if your particular business sales activity (like mine) involves a Business-to-
Person process rather than a Business-to-Business, your integration with
Office Accounting is potentially limited and confusing to work around. My
consulting service sales opportunities are always linked to a single person
using an individual Business Contact record (because MS documents and
educates us that Business Contact records are for Individuals... and "Trixs
are for Kids!").

Once my individual sales opportunity closes, I then had to evolve the
opportunity by creating an additional Account record to link the individual
Business Contact and opportunity to in order for my sale to have any relevant
connection to Office Accounting. Although this now linked Account record
shares the same title of "Account Record," this newly created Account record
is NOT for the same functional purpose of "super-business-contact-linked-by-
ORGANIZATION" relationship I mentioned above. My closed opportunity linked
Account record has NOTHING to do with a company or an organization. This
Account record relates to a PERSON not an ORGANIZATION. Confused yet? Well
I sure was for a long while until I stopped blindly following the MS
documentation and started logically thinking for myself.

I believe the problem lies in the semi-contradictory manner of how MS
documents the intended purpose for the Account record as an organization
related data entity. My own personal solution was to mentally purge from my
head the oft stated idea by MS that the Account record be a named company or
organization entity (The Super Business Contact Function). This shift in my
thinking allowed me to open up to flexibly understanding and adapting the
Accounting function. I now just use the BCM Account Record as appropriate
for either a single person AND/OR for an organization. The common purpose of
use for me is that the Account record be named for either the person or the
organization that is ultimately going to buy something from me. If you do
not choose to link BCM to the use of Office Accounting, this confusion does
not exist. Understanding and use of the "super-business-contact" function
will then suit the Account record just fine as a stand alone convenience.

The problem lies inherent in the fact that BCM has 1 separate and distinct
functional data purpose for the Account record which can be separate and
different from Office Accounting's purpose. It seems almost as if the
Accounting link to the BCM Account record was an after thought by MS quickly
put together and not thoroughly thought out completely! They can seem
contradictory depending upon how you look at and choose to use the BCM
Account record.

If I were King of the BCM design world I would consider rectifying this via
either more well thought out documentation and tutorials about the existing
design reality AND, in a future release, I would consider creating a separate
"Company" record from the Account record that would allow equal Account
linking status and function for an organization in contrast and compliment to
the separate Business Contact record for individuals. This could also enable
sub-company linking for divisions or various organization branch locations,
etc. Another design solution would be to enable Office Accounting to connect
its Customer record also to an individual BCM Business Contact in addition to
just the BCM Account record. Another nicety would add additional Accounting
to BCM item links beyond just the Office Accounting Customer record. Many of
my Business Contacts in BCM are Vendors in Office Accounting that I regularly
communicate and transact payables with. Having a vendor payables to business
contact link would be great. There is currently no way to link these 2 in
Office 2007.

Wow! Is this post long enough yet?!!

A final comment: BCM linkage to Office Accounting is not yet "seamless" and
my lengthy commentary here is intended as honest, real-world, end-user
feedback for consideration by whomever makes the design decisions for BCM. I
would encourage as much real world input as possible from folks who are NOT
just programming techs but rather, they are average Joe users like myself
that simply want a well designed, stable, and reasonably simple, yet robust
tool for common everyday usage. There are some glaring BCM omissions in
existance that really need to be more thoroughly thought out before next
release in order to make this Office combo a truly terrific rather than a
sometimes frustrating or confusing experience for its target market.

Best regards,

-THP
Problem: MS Accounting only integrates to Business Contact Manager under
"Accounts". "Accounts" don’t sync to a PDA.
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
 
Additional comment:

If you choose to mix and match the 2 separate BCM Account Record "functions"
that I outlined in my lengthy post above, you can keep them separate by
category. For example, with my consulting service, I have several referral
source organizations that I market my service to so they can refer individual
sales leads (people) to me that will eventually become a customer account
with me after I close the opportunity with a sale.

On these referral BCM Account Records, I relate to my referral organizations
as a strictly "super-business-contact-linked" function only. I do not
transact business sales opportunities with these companies. Accordingly,
these types of referral Account records are categorized as "Referral."

The BCM Account Records that I use for the individual leads that are referred
to me are categorized as "Customer" or you could use "Client." Using the
Account Record category of "Customer" provides with an immediate mental link
to the "Accounting Function" separate and distinct from the "Super Business
Contact Function" of the BCM Account record in use.

Best regards,

-THP


To paraphrase the immortal William Jefferson Clinton in testimony while under
oath ... "it all depends upon what the meaning of the word "Account" is!"

-THP
[quoted text clipped - 95 lines]
 
Thanks for this very detailed description. I can't say I followed all of it
but I thing I understand and actually think this is what I figured out for
myself.

For me the key is how to sync with my PDA phone because Active Sync only
works with “Business contacts†… of course. Anyway what I figured out is
that I can use the "Accounts" for all my customers and when I want to update
my PDA I simple delete all the current "Business Contacts" then drag and drop
all the "Accounts" into the now blank "Business Contacts" then sync my phone
and I'll have all the updated customer info on my phone. Of course this only
works for one-way syncing which is fine for me.

I'm not quite as upset now that I figured this out but still hope the
integration is improved.

Joel.
 
Joel,

The "upset" does subside over time with MS. The crazy-maker is that you even
have to be able to figure this out in the first place!

Another suggestion for you (and I will be brief!) is to keep using your
Business Contact records as you have been and if they become a customer, link
them to an Account record and then just redundantly name the linked Account
Record the exact same as the linked Business Contact who is your customer.
This way you can have the best of both worlds: You can still sync your
Business Contact record to your PDA and you can still link your Account
record to Office Accounting.

BTW, what kind of PDA and software sync opton are you currently using that
only allows 1 way sync?

-THP


Thanks for this very detailed description. I can't say I followed all of it
but I thing I understand and actually think this is what I figured out for
myself.

For me the key is how to sync with my PDA phone because Active Sync only
works with “Business contacts†… of course. Anyway what I figured out is
that I can use the "Accounts" for all my customers and when I want to update
my PDA I simple delete all the current "Business Contacts" then drag and drop
all the "Accounts" into the now blank "Business Contacts" then sync my phone
and I'll have all the updated customer info on my phone. Of course this only
works for one-way syncing which is fine for me.

I'm not quite as upset now that I figured this out but still hope the
integration is improved.

Joel.
[quoted text clipped - 108 lines]
 
Just stumbled across you post and although I do not profess to understand
some of the contecnt, I am struggling with what I consider would have been
one of the basic functions of Outlook/BCM/MSAccounting and that is once I had
installed BCM and integrated it into MSAccounting, I would be able to select
a client in MSAccounting from the Outlook Business Contacts. I have tried
several installation methods with the assumption that I am doing something
fundementally wrong but all to no avail. My hopes to switch from QuikBooks
are being dashed a t the moment. Any input here would be greatly appreciated
as I am losing sleep over this now. :)

mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com said:
Joel,

The "upset" does subside over time with MS. The crazy-maker is that you even
have to be able to figure this out in the first place!

Another suggestion for you (and I will be brief!) is to keep using your
Business Contact records as you have been and if they become a customer, link
them to an Account record and then just redundantly name the linked Account
Record the exact same as the linked Business Contact who is your customer.
This way you can have the best of both worlds: You can still sync your
Business Contact record to your PDA and you can still link your Account
record to Office Accounting.

BTW, what kind of PDA and software sync opton are you currently using that
only allows 1 way sync?

-THP


Thanks for this very detailed description. I can't say I followed all of it
but I thing I understand and actually think this is what I figured out for
myself.

For me the key is how to sync with my PDA phone because Active Sync only
works with “Business contacts†… of course. Anyway what I figured out is
that I can use the "Accounts" for all my customers and when I want to update
my PDA I simple delete all the current "Business Contacts" then drag and drop
all the "Accounts" into the now blank "Business Contacts" then sync my phone
and I'll have all the updated customer info on my phone. Of course this only
works for one-way syncing which is fine for me.

I'm not quite as upset now that I figured this out but still hope the
integration is improved.

Joel.
[quoted text clipped - 108 lines]
 
In Customers view (in SBA). Make sure you have "Current View: All" selected
in upper right. This will show you all the Accounts (not contacts) in BCM.
You can then open a contact and click save and close. This "activates" the
contact in terms of SBA. Account created in BCM will show up right away as
long as you view All and not just "Active". hth
--wjs

WightByte said:
Just stumbled across you post and although I do not profess to understand
some of the contecnt, I am struggling with what I consider would have been
one of the basic functions of Outlook/BCM/MSAccounting and that is once I
had
installed BCM and integrated it into MSAccounting, I would be able to
select
a client in MSAccounting from the Outlook Business Contacts. I have tried
several installation methods with the assumption that I am doing something
fundementally wrong but all to no avail. My hopes to switch from QuikBooks
are being dashed a t the moment. Any input here would be greatly
appreciated
as I am losing sleep over this now. :)

mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com said:
Joel,

The "upset" does subside over time with MS. The crazy-maker is that you
even
have to be able to figure this out in the first place!

Another suggestion for you (and I will be brief!) is to keep using your
Business Contact records as you have been and if they become a customer,
link
them to an Account record and then just redundantly name the linked
Account
Record the exact same as the linked Business Contact who is your
customer.
This way you can have the best of both worlds: You can still sync your
Business Contact record to your PDA and you can still link your Account
record to Office Accounting.

BTW, what kind of PDA and software sync opton are you currently using
that
only allows 1 way sync?

-THP


Thanks for this very detailed description. I can't say I followed all
of it
but I thing I understand and actually think this is what I figured out
for
myself.

For me the key is how to sync with my PDA phone because Active Sync only
works with “Business contacts†… of course. Anyway what I figured out
is
that I can use the "Accounts" for all my customers and when I want to
update
my PDA I simple delete all the current "Business Contacts" then drag and
drop
all the "Accounts" into the now blank "Business Contacts" then sync my
phone
and I'll have all the updated customer info on my phone. Of course this
only
works for one-way syncing which is fine for me.

I'm not quite as upset now that I figured this out but still hope the
integration is improved.

Joel.

Joel,

[quoted text clipped - 108 lines]

Thanks,
 
Thats what I needed, thank you sooooooooooooooo much


William Stacey said:
In Customers view (in SBA). Make sure you have "Current View: All" selected
in upper right. This will show you all the Accounts (not contacts) in BCM.
You can then open a contact and click save and close. This "activates" the
contact in terms of SBA. Account created in BCM will show up right away as
long as you view All and not just "Active". hth
--wjs

WightByte said:
Just stumbled across you post and although I do not profess to understand
some of the contecnt, I am struggling with what I consider would have been
one of the basic functions of Outlook/BCM/MSAccounting and that is once I
had
installed BCM and integrated it into MSAccounting, I would be able to
select
a client in MSAccounting from the Outlook Business Contacts. I have tried
several installation methods with the assumption that I am doing something
fundementally wrong but all to no avail. My hopes to switch from QuikBooks
are being dashed a t the moment. Any input here would be greatly
appreciated
as I am losing sleep over this now. :)

mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com said:
Joel,

The "upset" does subside over time with MS. The crazy-maker is that you
even
have to be able to figure this out in the first place!

Another suggestion for you (and I will be brief!) is to keep using your
Business Contact records as you have been and if they become a customer,
link
them to an Account record and then just redundantly name the linked
Account
Record the exact same as the linked Business Contact who is your
customer.
This way you can have the best of both worlds: You can still sync your
Business Contact record to your PDA and you can still link your Account
record to Office Accounting.

BTW, what kind of PDA and software sync opton are you currently using
that
only allows 1 way sync?

-THP



JoelHaggar wrote:
Thanks for this very detailed description. I can't say I followed all
of it
but I thing I understand and actually think this is what I figured out
for
myself.

For me the key is how to sync with my PDA phone because Active Sync only
works with “Business contacts†… of course. Anyway what I figured out
is
that I can use the "Accounts" for all my customers and when I want to
update
my PDA I simple delete all the current "Business Contacts" then drag and
drop
all the "Accounts" into the now blank "Business Contacts" then sync my
phone
and I'll have all the updated customer info on my phone. Of course this
only
works for one-way syncing which is fine for me.

I'm not quite as upset now that I figured this out but still hope the
integration is improved.

Joel.

Joel,

[quoted text clipped - 108 lines]

Thanks,
 
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