What is the difference between mapping and pushing customers or products?

Tips to understand when to map and when to push data like customers & products in Shopify

Written by the MyWorks Team

Updated at September 27th, 2023

A common question we receive is understanding the difference between mapping data (in MyWorks Sync > Map) and pushing data (in MyWorks Sync > Push).

When to map products?

If products exist already in both Shopify and QuickBooks, they can be mapped in MyWorks Sync > Map > Products. This helps with two areas of syncing:

  • Syncing orders from Shopify to QuickBooks: this will determine the QuickBooks products used in the line items of the order we create in QuickBooks. 
  • Syncing inventory between Shopify and QuickBooks: this determines which products we'll sync inventory between.

When to map customers?

It's not a requirement to map your Shopify customers to existing customers in QuickBooks. As as long as a customer's name or email matches; we'll automatically find them when syncing an order. 

Mapping customers does become helpful when acting as an override: mapping a Shopify customer to a QuickBooks customer that does not contain a matching email/name, but still one you want their future orders to sync to.  

When to push products?

If you have products that only exist in Shopify, and you would like them to be created in QuickBooks, you may push them in MyWorks Sync > Push > Products. When pushing products, they will be automatically mapped to the resulting QuickBooks product in MyWorks Sync > Map, so there is no need to map them after pushing. 

When to push customers?

 It is not generally necessary to push customers in MyWorks Sync > Push > Customers , as we will always automatically sync a customer when necessary when a related order is being pushed or automatically synced.