If you have ever discovered that your contact information for a customer was different in Outlook and in Peachtree, and you weren’t sure which one was correct, Peachtree’s Outlook synchronization feature could be for you. It takes just a minute or two to set up. Just go to the File menu in Peachtree and choose Sync With Outlook. The Outlook Sync Settings window will open. At the top of the window, click the Browse button to select which contact folder in Outlook you want your Peachtree contacts to be sent to. Peachtree will set up 3 folders inside the folder you select. They will be named:
- Your Company Name Customers (Peachtree)
- Your Company Name Vendors (Peachtree)
- Your Company Name Employees (Peachtree)
The next setting is Conflict Resolution. If information for the same contact is changed in both Peachtree and Outlook between synchronizations, this setting determines which program’s data replaces the other’s. Whichever you choose here will be used automatically during synchronization.
The Contact Formatting option lets you choose whether contacts added to Peachtree from Outlook should be formatted as “First Name Last Name” or “Last Name, First Name”.
Once you have made your choices, click OK and, after a brief pause, the Outlook Sync window will appear. The Cancel button ends the process without syncing. The Settings button will bring up the previous screen so that you can review or change your setting. And, of course, the Sync Now button will start the synchronization process. When it is finished Peachtree will show a summary of how many contacts were synchronized.
If you have a contact in Outlook that you want to add to Peachtree, just copy or move that contact into one of the 3 Outlook contact folders that Peachtree created. Next time you synchronize, that contact will be imported into Peachtree.
Here are a couple of things to keep in mind about this feature. In my testing, it appears that it will only sync the primary (bill to) contact for a customer. It did not sync the additional contacts from Peachtree. And, the process is not continuous. You will need to remember to periodically go to the File menu in Peachtree and choose Sync With Outlook.
