The Limitation while Integrating Third Party Applications with Quickbooks

I firmly believe that an important feature of ANY accounting product is the ability to create an ecosystem of add-on products created by third-party developers. If an accounting product can’t let other companies expand its feature set, that product is severely limited. That is why I pay so much attention to the ways that you can integrate with Products QuickBooks (desktop and Online) and Xero. It’s a key point made by Greg Lam in his Cloud Accounting Comparison. It is also a major component of Doug Sleeper’s concept of Chutnification.

Before we dive into the changes, let’s review how add-on products have been able to work with QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online over the years. There are a lot of different terms and abbreviations, and Intuit has changed their terminology several times, so it can be confusing.

The integration between QuickBooks and a third-party application is transparent, the communication between the two programs takes place behind the scenes leaving very little to be seen – often only the end result of a report or task done outside of QuickBooks OR a transaction created in the 3rd party program that is posted into the data file.

Since around 2002 or so, Intuit has offered the “SDK” as a programming toolkit to work with QuickBooks desktop products (Windows only). You’ll see variations of this terminology, such as “QBSDK”, “QBXML”, and “QBFC”, which are all aimed at desktop products. There also is the “Web Connector” (which is different than “Web Connect” files) to allow a web application to connect to QuickBooks Desktop.

There are hundreds of third party mobile apps that integrate flawlessly with QuickBooks Online to help you grow your business, save time and reduce costs – you can browse all of these apps. We have chosen some of our favorite’s and outlined them below to help get you started:

Invoice Sherpa, Shopify, Receipt Bank, Square, TSheets, Plooto, Hubdoc.

 Today’s business administrator must embrace the rapid advances in technology if they want to remain relevant in their industry. That said, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. And when it comes to taking care of your small business accounting needs, there are literally thousands of options available for making your life easier to manage the good news is that, as virtual accountants, we spend a lot of time focused on the tools of the trade that make accounting more efficient and organized. We use many of these in our own business and know that they can work well for yours as well.

• As a consultant, you quickly realize that while QuickBooks is a robust accounting solution, it is packaged software and there are many different reasons why it may not be quite enough to meet the client’s needs. Intuit realized that they could have more, happy customers if they could leverage the resources of developers to fill in the gaps. In this article I’ll discuss the types of client needs that integrated applications can fill, how to evaluate a developer and their products, and how to get started expanding your practice by leveraging these solutions.

• Very Important thing which give you ease in mind that whenever you are working on the QuickBooks along with any third-party app make sure they should be legitimate and they have better QuickBooks customer support so when ever you have any glitch while working with the application should get the help cause may be the pro-advisor either intuit wont be able to help you.

• To learn more about the depth and breadth of integrated applications you can begin by visiting http://marketplace.intuit.com/. There are over 500 applications listed on the site that are available from developers who participate in the Intuit Developer Network (a group of trusted, independent developers and industry experts) and, as such, are using Intuit approved tools to create, read, edit, and/or delete transactional and list data in the QuickBooks Company file. There are several ways to search for applications, but for now let’s look at a high level of the types of applications which might be important to a small business.

• The need might be something very specific for an industry such as a Country Club or an Automobile Dealer; or it might be something specific for a particular business need, such as a robust time and billing solution. There are also tools included on the website for functionality such as transferring transactions from one QuickBooks file to another, removing transactions from a file, or importing transactions from a web store or Microsoft Excel.

What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Each Integration?

Like with everything, each method has its advantages and disadvantages. There’s no wrong or right answer for using REST or Web Connector.

API Advantages

• Well-defined
• Effortless to understand
• Easy output when using JSON input

API Disadvantages

• Scheduling jobs is manual with CRON
• Needs added security for using services
• Requires making sure data transfers through secure layer like HTTPS

Web Connector Advantages

• Built-in component of QuickBooks
• Secure
• Schedule jobs to run at intervals, fixed times, or dates automatically

Web Connector Disadvantages

• No API to help QuickBooks understand data it gets from Salesforce
• Lack of API can cause duplicates hence verify account names are identical in both systems
• Takes longer to process data because it uses XML tree

Simply integrating two systems is an imperfect process when using an out-of-the-box solution. It’s possible for developers to work with the APIs to iron out the kinks. The challenge will be thinking through all the possibilities and being prepared for any object mismatch.

After successful integrating QuickBooks and Salesforce, your organization will appreciate not having to repeatedly re-enter or copy-paste information. It’ll also cut down data entry errors. Your teams will have more information about your customers, which will enhance customer service and support. Best of all, team members can spend more time on the application they know best: Salesforce for sales and QuickBooks for finance.

Third-party application Limitations:

•         Query or Read data from a QuickBooks file
•         Add or Write information to a QuickBooks file
•         Modify existing information.
•         List Merge two accounts, vendors, customers/jobs, or classes.
•         Delete a list or transaction object from QuickBooks (while      following the same rules that you must use when deleting things)
• Void or change the transaction amount to zero but leaves a record of the transaction

QuickBooks integrated or 3rd party applications that you find on the Intuit Marketplace have been created by QuickBooks Gold and Silver Developers {with the Gold Developers being the “cream of the crop”}. These developers pay a fee, every 3 years, to have each of their software programs rigorously tested by an independent company hired by Intuit.

Gold Developers have gone the extra step and paid to have a ProAdvisor review their software and support.  These developers have invested a lot of time and money to ensure that their applications meet with the requirements that Intuit has put in place.

If you don’t trust a 3rd party application (or are unsure of exactly what it does and how), you can create a new user in QuickBooks with the application name and give it FULL access. When you are logged in as the Admin and granting permissions for the app to access the data file you’ll choose the newly created user. With QuickBooks CLOSED (unattended mode) work with the 3rd party program and then run an Audit Trail Report to SEE what it’s done. In many instances I’m sure that you’ll be surprised at what you do NOT see – many 3rd party applications do not leave any sort of footprint within the QuickBooks data file.

•         How to create a new user in QuickBooks for the application for testing its integration
•         How to grant permissions for the 3rd party application
•         What the Audit Trail looks like when an application can read, write, and modify pay rates
•         What the Audit Trail looks like when an application ONLY reads payroll data.

While there is a lot to think about when considering an integrated application, the benefits of providing a more well-rounded solution makes for a better client experience. This directly translates into making you a more valuable consultant which contributes to your practice growth and profitability.

We have tried to include all the necessary details that might aid you to rename the rules for downloaded transactions. In case you still require assistance, with a more personal touch, then please contact our QuickBooks Payroll Support number – 1-888-502-0363 or email us at support@accountantsquad.com