Using SmartVault in Hosted QuickBooks Environments

If you are using QuickBooks in a hosted environment to run applications like QuickBooks and Microsoft Office, SmartVault is the smartest solution available for transitioning to a paperless workflow.

The SmartVault Toolbar integrates seamlessly into with your hosted QuickBooks environment, making it easy to attach and view documents for more than 30 types of entries in QuickBooks. For more information, see “Attaching Documents to QuickBooks Entries Using the SmartVault Toolbar” .

The SmartVault portal gives you and your users the ability to upload and view your documents anytime, anywhere from a web browser, both when you are working within your hosted QuickBooks environment, as well as when you are working outside of your hosted environment.

The SmartVault Inbox can be installed on computers used by clients or other users outside of your hosting environment. These users can then drag and drop files from drives on their local computer or network shares or drag and drop files from emails or email attachments from Microsoft Outlook into the SmartVault Inbox, where they are quickly and automatically uploaded into secure folders on your SmartVault portal. These users can also use the SmartVault Inbox and a scanner connected to their computer to go paperless by quickly and easily converting paper to digital format and seamlessly uploading scanned documents to secure folders in your SmartVault portal in just a few clicks.

The SmartVault Drive can be mapped and used on computers used by clients or other users outside of your hosting environment. These users can then use the SmartVault Drive to quickly, automatically, and securely upload their documents into secure folders on your SmartVault portal by dragging and dropping files from their local computer into folders on their SmartVault Drive using a familiar Windows Explorer interface. They can also save their documents directly from applications such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel to the SmartVault Drive. When they save their documents to the SmartVault Drive, their documents are automatically uploaded to the appropriate, secure folder in your SmartVault portal.

Once documents are uploaded into your SmartVault portal using the SmartVault Inbox, you can use the SmartVault Toolbar from inside your hosted environment to attach documents to the appropriate QuickBooks entry. For more information, see “Scanning and Uploading Documents” and “Uploading Documents Using the SmartVault Inbox” .

• Installation of the SmartVault Desktop software, which includes the SmartVault Toolbar and SmartVault Inbox, should be done in both your hosted environment and on your local computer. You must ask your hosting provider to install, or provision, the SmartVault Desktop software in your hosted environment. You should also install the SmartVault Desktop software on your local computer so you can use the SmartVault Drive on your local computer to upload documents to your portal or use the SmartVault Inbox on your local computer to scan and upload documents into a folder so you can later attach them to entries in QuickBooks in your hosted QuickBooks environment. For more information, see “Installing SmartVault Desktop Software in Hosted Environments” and “Installing SmartVault Desktop Software in Non-Hosted Environments” .

• Some hosting providers do not allow you to map a SmartVault Drive in your hosted environment. This is not a technical limitation of SmartVault, but rather is a limitation sometimes imposed by hosting providers. However, even if your hosting provider will not allow you to map a SmartVault Drive in your hosting environment, you should still map and use a SmartVault Drive on your local computer. When you use the SmartVault Drive on your local computer, any changes you make to documents or your vault or folder structure using the SmartVault Drive on your local computer are automatically available in your SmartVault portal and accessible when you work in your hosted environment and use the SmartVault Toolbar and SmartVault Inbox. For more information, see “Understanding and Mapping SmartVault Drives” .

• The process for scanning and attaching documents to QuickBooks entries and for scanning documents into SmartVault folders is different in hosted versus non-hosted environments.

In order to attach documents to QuickBooks entries in a hosted environment, first you must use the SmartVault Inbox that you installed when you installed the SmartVault Desktop software on your local computer to scan the document into a secure folder on the SmartVault portal. Then you can attach the document to the appropriate QuickBooks entry by using the paperclip icon on the SmartVault Toolbar inside QuickBooks and selecting the third option, Move from Inbox.

This two step process for scanning and attaching documents to a QuickBooks entry in a hosted environment is required because most hosting providers do not provide a way to directly scan into their hosted environments.

Note: There are technologies available that provide a way to directly scan into hosted environments. However, most QuickBooks hosting companies have not yet implemented this technology. Please contact your hosting provider to see if and when your hosting provider will support these scanning technologies in your hosted environment, and what additional fees, if any, you may have to pay in order to use these technologies in your hosted environment.

• Some hosting providers do not allow you to back up and restore QuickBooks company files using SmartVault. However, this is not an issue for most people working in hosted environments, as hosting providers who support QuickBooks typically already provide some other method for backing up and restoring QuickBooks company files. For more information about the specific QuickBooks backup method used in your hosted environment, contact your hosting provider.