When you get this error:
Error Adding QuickBooks Customer: John Doe
Detail: The name supplied already exists. : Another customer, supplier, or employee is already using this name. Please use a different name.,
Message: Duplicate Name Exists Error
This is because ContractorTools is attempting to create a customer named "John Doe" (for example), and there is already a vendor or employee named “John Doe”, or “Doe, John”.
Unfortunately, QuickBooks does not allow you to have customers, vendors or employees with the same name, even if it is set inactive.
To fix this problem, please search your list of vendors and employees in QuickBooks to find one with the same name (“John Doe”, or “Doe, John”) and change their name to something like “Doe - Vendor, John”, or “John Doe - Vendor”. You may also have to search your list of customers with the option to view inactive enabled. If the customer already exists, but is set inactive, you will need to set it active so that ContractorTools can sync to it.
Once you have done this, then you need to clear the QuickBooks errors before attempting to sync again. Here’s how:
Go into the QuickBooks Sync screen in ContractorTools,
Tap on Sync Errors.
For each error, tap on it, then tap Clear.
Now go back to the QuickBooks Sync screen and tap "Sync Now".
Another Reason You May Get This Error
It is possible to also get this error in the following scenario:
Customer "Bill Jones" already exists in QuickBooks.
You add "Bill Jones" to a job in ContractorTools and then attempt to sync with QuickBooks.
Each time you sync, ContractorTools pulls customers from QuickBooks and attempts to match them with customers in ContractorTools. It will only match a customer from QuickBooks to a customer in ContractorTools if the first names, last names, and organization (company) names match exactly. If any of the three of these do not match, then the sync process will add the QuickBooks customer as a separate customer in ContractorTools, and when you attempt to sync the job to QuickBooks, you will get the error above.
Why? Because QuickBooks uses "fuzzy logic" to determine whether a customer already exists. In other words, even if the first, last and company names do not match exactly, QuickBooks may still think they match. For example, if the first and last name in QuickBooks are blank, but the company name is "Bill Jones", ContractorTools will not consider this a match, but QuickBooks may.
So what to do when this happens?
To fix the situation where you have two similar customers, one that you entered in ContractorTools and the other you entered in QuickBooks, but ContractorTools does not think they match, and QuickBooks does think they match, first you will need to figure out which customer (in ContractorTools) came from QuickBooks and which is the one you entered in ContractorTools. Then you will need to delete the customer that you entered in ContractorTools and assign the customer that came from QuickBooks to the job in ContractorTools.
Once you have done this, then you need to clear the QuickBooks errors before attempting to sync again. Here’s how:
Go into the QuickBooks Sync screen in ContractorTools,
Tap on Sync Errors.
For each error, tap on it, then tap Clear.
Now go back to the QuickBooks Sync screen and tap "Sync Now".
Note that this problem can (and should) be avoided by not entering customers in QuickBooks. Only enter customers in ContractorTools and let it write them to QuickBooks. If you have pre-existing customers in QuickBooks, ContractorTools will pull those from QuickBooks when you sync, so you can assign those customers to jobs in ContractorTools and not re-enter them in ContractorTools.