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How To: Export Order CSV Files For Use With Quickbooks or Other Software
How To: Export Order CSV Files For Use With Quickbooks or Other Software
Jovana T avatar
Written by Jovana T
Updated over 9 months ago

The Art Storefronts platform allows you the ability to export your orders for use with Quickbooks and other programs. This can be used by Artists, Galleries and Print Studios.

Before you actually complete this process you absolutely MUST read this entire article to make sure you are doing everything correctly. If you complete the steps and it does not work, you have done something incorrectly and will need to reread this article completely and follow it exactly.

Warning: Furthermore, we strongly suggest you back up your Quickbooks or Accounting Software before importing any file at all.

You also need to EXPORT ONE ORDER AT A TIME IN ORDER TO CONDUCT AN IMPORT TEST. THIS WILL ALLOW YOU TO CONFIRM THAT EVERYTHING IS WORKING BEFORE MASS IMPORTING YOUR ORDERS.

Please Note: The following points should be read carefully and followed completely or your Export will not work properly.

  1. The only orders that will be exported are the ones that have an order status of "Completed - Export to a File". You must set this status for each order.

  2. We recommend that you always save every export file, just in case you need to reference the file at a later date. Our system will not be able to go back and change nor reference anything related to the export, after you have performed an export.

  3. Given the above, we highly recommend testing only two orders and verifying that it is working according to your expectations. One order should be marked as "Paid", and the other as "Unpaid". These two transactions will export with slightly different information -- a "Paid" order will export as a "CASH SALE", and an "Unpaid" order will export as an "INVOICE". Orders with a payment status of "Refunded" will not be exported.

  4. For each order, we provide 3 critical lines of data. First, the "discounted subtotal" of the order (this is the order total, minus shipping and taxes). Next, the shipping total. Last, the tax total. This will allow you to track each of these key revenue elements separately.

Exporting Your Orders

  1. Navigate to your Art Storefronts Control Panel and in the Jump To Menu, select the option labeled Orders.


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  2. Find the button labeled Export and click on it.


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  3. A pop-up will appear and you will need to choose your date range.

    Please Note: As we mentioned before you should start with a single order for testing purposes as opposed to ALL of your orders.

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  4. For Order Status, you MUST choose Completed- Export To a File.


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  5. For the File Type, select CSV.


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  6. Click Export.


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  7. You will receive a message stating the file will be e-mailed to you. Click Ok.


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  8. Next, check your e-mail for the order Export and Download the file.


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Reviewing Orders In Quickbooks

  1. If you're going to be using the exported file in Quickbooks you will need to convert the file from a .CSV to a .IIF.

  2. After you've converted the file, you need to import it into Quickbooks. Completing this step may vary depending on the Quickbooks version being used, but generally you can import a file by going to File> Utilities> Import> IIF Files.

  3. After you import the file you'll notice a few things have happened within Quickbooks

    1. A Customer will be created for each order, unless that customer already exists. The Customer Name in Quickbooks will be based on the business name of your contact, if this field is filled out in your contact manager. If it is not, it will be based on the contact's first and last name as specified in the contact's user account.

    2. If the order was exported with a payment status of "Unpaid", an unpaid invoice will be imported, and your "Accounts Receivable" account will be automatically debited. If "Paid", a sales receipt will be imported, and your "Undeposited Funds" account will be automatically debited.

    3. Within an individual order, the discounted subtotal will be reflected in the "ASF Sales" line item, which will correspond to the "ASFProductSales" account in Quickbooks (this account is autogenerated if it does not exist already). The shipping total will be reflected in the "ASF Shipping" line item, which will correspond to the "ASFShippingSales" account in Quickbooks (this account is autogenerated if it does not exist already). The tax total will be reflected in the "ASF Tax" line item, which will correspond to the "Sales Tax Payable" liability account.

    4. For each of these entries, in the "memo" field, you will always see the corresponding Art Storefronts order number, along with the Website name and the Website's internal ID. This way, you will always have a record of which order the entry originated from, and can always look up the details within your Art Storefronts account.

Quickbooks Troubleshooting

  1. I received an error message stating “The Tax field cannot be left blank, even for non-taxable customers and sales which have no taxable items, so non-taxable sales will be correct for this district” and I don't know how to fix it.

    1. This is happening because you have "Sales Tax" turned on in your Company Preferences (under EDIT > PREFERENCES > SALES TAX > COMPANY PREFERENCES). What most people don't realize is that this is just a user friendly feature that quickbooks provides to make charging tax easy for those who are not accountants, and it can be turned off. Let us explain.

      When it is turned on, and you look at an invoice or a sales order with tax, you will notice that the tax amount is simply credited to your "Sales Tax Payable" account (you may have named this something else -- but either way it is all going into one liability account). Therefore, its a line item on the invoice that tracks your taxes into a liability account. Easy enough.

      Now, when you turn it off, instead of having that convenient little option at the bottom of the invoice or sales order, all you need to do is add it as a line item when creating the invoice -- no different than how you add other line items to the order. You will notice, that your sales tax item is right there in the drop down menu. And, if each item is set to be "taxable" (in the column on the far right), it will still conveniently calculate the tax automatically for you. This still puts the funds in the exact same tax liability account as the previous method. If you test it out, you will confirm this.

      Therefore, you can now turn the Sales Tax option OFF in the Company Preferences (as described above), and you will no longer see errors on your imports.

Reviewing Orders In Software Other Than Quickbooks

Since the export file is a CSV file, it should be usable with other accounting software. Because all software is different, you will need to map the fields from our export file into your own software. We recommend contacting your accounting software provider to find out exactly how this should be done.

Please Note: The added team member will be able to export products, contacts and orders. They will also be able to receive system emails if they export the information. Click here to learn more about How To: Invite Team Members To Work On Your Art Storefronts Site

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