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Sending Transactions from Novi AMS & QuickBooks

Learn the differences between emailing invoices & sales receipts from Novi vs QuickBooks Online.

Pete Zimek, CAE avatar
Written by Pete Zimek, CAE
Updated over a week ago

Novi AMS uses QuickBooks Online's email functionality to send invoices and other transactions to members (customers). No matter which platform is used to send a transaction, QuickBooks' email servers will be sending it.

Transactions Created in Novi AMS

  • If a customer has a billing contact attached in Novi, then transactions will be sent to the email address attached to the billing contact (on the billing contact's details tab).

  • If a customer DOES NOT have a billing contact attached, then transactions will be sent to the email address attached to the customer.

  • If there is no email address attached to the customer, the transactions will be sent to the primary contact.

  • If there is no primary contact, you'll receive a message that states there are no email addresses to send the transaction to.

Transactions Created in QuickBooks

  • QuickBooks does not have a concept of "billing contact" like Novi AMS does. Because of this, any transaction created in QuickBooks will, by default, send to the email tied to the customer's record, not the customer's billing contact.

  • To override QuickBooks' default and use Novi's workflow, simply return to Novi's transactions page to email any unsent transactions.


Sending from Novi AMS vs QuickBooks Online

The transactions page within Novi AMS ({yourdomain}/admin/quick-books/transaction-list) shares remarkable similarities to the Sales page inside of QuickBooks Online (https://quickbooksonline.intuit.com/app/sales).  Both pages allow staff to send individual transactions and bulk transactions via email.

Additional Benefits of Sending Transactions from Novi AMS:

  1. Sending transactions from Novi AMS will follow business rules. Novi will look for a customer's billing contact and send the transaction to that person. If no billing contact exists, then Novi will send the invoice to the customer's primary email address.

  2. All staff members with access to Novi can send transactions. This allows more sensitive financials to stay safely locked down inside of QuickBooks Online.

  3. When sending renewal dues invoices, the default setting is to use Novi's Smart Renewal Notices emails. Check out this article to learn more about custom emails for membership renewals. Admins have the option to send the QuickBooks Invoice instead.

  4. When sending reminders for unpaid invoices, you can display the Last Sent Date column to see the last time the invoice was sent. The system will check for emails sent from Novi and QuickBooks Online so you can be sure you're not emailing members too often (or not often enough!).

  5. The filter inside of Novi AMS is built around the way Associations work. Admins can filter by Invoice Type (Dues, Events, Ecommerce, or QuickBooks), Transaction Status, Member Type, and more.

Additional Benefits of Sending Transactions from QuickBooks Online:

  1. QuickBooks has a "reminder" feature that allows you to send reminders in batch to your customers with outstanding invoices. To use this functionality, go to the transactions page, filter for the outstanding invoices, and use the batch action to "send reminders."  If you want to update the language being used in the reminder email, you can do that inside of your QuickBooks settings.


Member Experience: What Your Emails Look Like

Some of the benefits of this tight integration are:

  1. Email clients recognize the familiar QuickBooks emails, so they're less likely to get caught by spam filters.

  2. If your association is using QuickBooks Payments and Online delivery is set up, members will be able to pay invoices immediately through the QuickBooks Payments gateway, without having to log into their MemberCompass.

  3. The bottom line is that there is no difference between an invoice sent from Novi vs one sent from QuickBooks outside of the email rules discussed above. The only exception to this is for the Smart Renewal Notices for membership renewal dues invoices, which can be customized on each Member Type.

When sending a renewal dues invoice, the admin will have the option of sending a Smart Renewal Notice email (recommended) or the QuickBooks Invoice email:

Example Email for QuickBooks Invoice:

(can be sent from Novi or QuickBooks Online)

Example Email for Smart Renewal Notice Invoice:

(can only be sent from Novi, and only applies to renewal dues invoices)

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