Import Your QuickBooks Desktop Vendors and Customers

QuickBooks Desktop matches vendors and customers by name. There is no id in an IIF file — the text in the NAME column is the lookup key. That has one consequence worth knowing before you import anything:

If a vendor on your IIF file is not already in QuickBooks, QuickBooks creates it. It does not warn you and it does not reject the file.

That is convenient the first time and a problem the hundredth. An invoice header that reads JULINA FOODS INC DBA LEBLON FOODS one month and Julina Foods Inc. the next quietly becomes two suppliers in your books, each holding half the history.

Saving your vendor and customer lists in DocuClipper fixes that. Your real names become a dropdown in the invoice editor, so coding an invoice is a pick from a list instead of retyped text, and the export tells you in advance which names QuickBooks is about to create.

This is separate from your Chart of Accounts, which controls which account each line posts to. See Categorize invoice line items with your QuickBooks Desktop accounts for that.

Export the lists from QuickBooks Desktop

Both lists come out of the same place, in the same file:

In QuickBooks Desktop, go to File → Utilities → Export → Lists to IIF Files.
Tick Vendor List, Customer List, or both.
Save the .iif file somewhere you can find it.

You can tick your Chart of Accounts in the same export. DocuClipper reads whichever list it needs from a combined file and ignores the rest, so one export covers all three.

Save them in DocuClipper

Open the project, click the gear icon, and choose the QuickBooks Desktop tab.
Scroll to QuickBooks Desktop vendors.
Upload the .iif file, or paste the names one per line.
Click Save vendors. Repeat under QuickBooks Desktop customers.

The QuickBooks Desktop tab in Project Settings showing the QuickBooks Desktop vendors section with five saved vendors, the note explaining that anything not on the list is created as a new vendor on import, and the Replace list and Remove buttons

Each list is saved per project, so a bookkeeper working several companies keeps them separate. Vendors are used on bills (accounts payable); customers are used on sales invoices (accounts receivable) only.

The vendors and customers sections side by side, each showing its saved names, a search box, and its own note about QuickBooks creating unmatched names on import

Coding an invoice

With a list saved, the Vendor field on an invoice becomes a dropdown of your real QuickBooks vendors instead of a free-text box.

The Vendor field on an invoice open as a dropdown, listing the five vendors imported from QuickBooks Desktop

For a genuinely new supplier, type the name and choose Create new vendor. DocuClipper adds it to the project's saved list, so it is offered on every invoice from then on and you only type it once.

Typing a name that is not on the list reveals the Create new vendor option in the dropdown

Picking a vendor here always wins over one applied by an automation rule, so correcting a single invoice does not fight your rules. To make a correction stick for every future invoice from that supplier, use the Always do this for… link that appears after you change the name — that writes a rule.

What the export tells you

When you download the IIF, DocuClipper compares every vendor or customer against your saved list and adds a note at the top of the file:

; NOTE: the following vendors are not in your QuickBooks Desktop vendors list.
; QuickBooks will CREATE them on import. If one of these is a spelling of a
; vendor you already have, map it in DocuClipper first to avoid a duplicate:
;   - Julina Foods Inc dba Leblon Foods

Lines starting with ; are comments. QuickBooks ignores them, so the note never affects the import — it is there for you to read before you run it.

This is not an error. Everything on that list will import; the note simply tells you what is about to be added to your books so you can catch a near-duplicate first.

That is the opposite of how accounts behave, which is worth keeping straight:

Unmatched name	What QuickBooks does
Account (a line-item category)	Rejects the whole file — `The Account Name on a distribution does not exist in Quickbooks [11110]`
Vendor or customer	Creates it silently and imports normally

So an account warning is something you must fix before importing. A vendor note is something you should read and usually can ignore.

If you have not saved a list

Nothing breaks. The Vendor field stays a free-text box, the export works exactly as before, and no note is added. The lists are an accuracy aid, not a requirement.