External Accounting Overview

This article is part of a series on using Artisan with External Accounting Programs, such as QuickBooks. For the full series, see Working with External Accounting Software.

Intuit and QuickBooks are registered trademarks of Intuit Inc. Used with permission.

Artisan is a Point of Sale & Inventory Management System. As such, it has to deal with a number of accounting concepts, such as inventory asset calculations & cost accounting, but it is–by design–not a complete accounting system. Artisan does not track your complete expenses (payroll, facilities expenses, etc.); it does not help you balance your checkbook (though it can create your deposit transactions for you) or write checks (though it can create Due Bills for your received merchandise & consignment payables); it does not generate profit/loss statements or balance sheets (since it doesn’t have your complete expense, asset & liability information).

There are other programs, such as QuickBooks, that handle these functions very well. Artisan is designed to work in conjunction with these “external accounting programs” to form a complete accounting/bookkeeping solution. Alternatively, you can easily run reports in Artisan and give them to your accountant or bookkeeper to enter manually into their accounting system.

Artisan POS Built-In Accounting Functions

Accounting Functions Handle Outside of Artisan

We highly recommend that you use QuickBooks to help you keep track of these types of accounts. Artisan can send Sales, Receipts Deposited, COGS, Bills Due, Inventory Assets, etc. over to QuickBooks, saving you from laborious data entry.

At the end of a day (or for a range of dates), Artisan will export accounting summary transactions to QuickBooks (or other supported accounting program). This is an easy process and can be done daily, once a week, or any time interval you want. You can get started with QuickBooks as soon as you have your first day end or you can come back and export the information later.

Accounting summary exports include a set of transactions for each posted Day-End Closing in the selected date range (or, if invoked from a Day-End Closing directly, just that one closing). These include a “Daily Sales” journal entry, associated Deposits, Checks Paid Out, Bills, and, if requested, individual per-customer A/R (Accounts Receivable) journal entries. All the closings for a date range are included in one batch, but will appear in QuickBooks separated by closing date.

The “Daily Sales” journal entry is a summary of the account balance changes for the day, including sales, COGS, sales tax, inventory adjustments, etc. We don’t send individual sales transactions to QuickBooks.

The “Daily Sales” journal entry can be located by looking in the Journal Report in QuickBooks or in a Register or Report for one of the included accounts. You can also set a setting in Artisan to attach them to your primary bank account (with a zero amount) so you can see them when looking at the bank account register.

Although we are NOT accountants and we may refer you to speak with yours, we can answer basic questions. When it comes to explaining double-entry bookkeeping, though, you are best to consult your accountant or bookkeeper. For assistance with QuickBooks itself, our offerings are limited, and we may direct you to QuickBooks support.

Our experience with accounting and accounting programs is based on extended consultation with CPAs and bookkeepers. A big thanks to Lisa Lindsey, CPA, who consulted during the initial development of Artisan POS Software many years ago. Since then, we have consulted with numerous accountants and retail consultants over the years. From the beginning, it has been our goal to adopt generally accepted accounting practices and principles, and to adapt the software based on the experiences of our end users.