Recommendation for Quick Books Integration

[djc728]

I know there are a few plugins out there for Quick Books integration but could someone possibly recommend one they might have used or one that they've heard is a worth while tool.

I'm hearing and have been reading a lot on Productive Computing's plugin and I seem to be leaning towards them.

Anyone?

Thanks.

Dom

[Mike_B.]

I've been working with a lot of productive computing plugins (mostly exchange manipulator), There is a LOT of functions that control just about everything you could ever want to do. The sample files that come with the plugins are useful and intuitive.

I would only warn that it has a fairly steep learning curve for basic filemaker users to get it integrated into solutions.

I know this isn't specific to quickbooks, but we've also demo'd that file before for a potential client and it seemed to function great out-of-the-box by plugging in their info.

[bcooney]

Automatic message

This topic has been moved from "Database Schema & Business Logic → External Data Sources" to "Brain Food → Third Party Integration → Accounting".

[ejpvi]

I am dabbling with the QODBC driver that offers ODBC support with Quickbooks Enterprise, and there is also a POS version. While not perfect, it does seem to work. The driver doesn't work with the usual ESS capability that Filemaker can utilize... but you can use a direct "SQL Query" to import records. That is what I am going to use it for.

I am going to collect daily inventory and previous days sales on a daily basis, and set it up to run overnight.

So far, the client side works fine, as long as the driver is installed. It is horribly slow, which is why I am opting to import into a table only small amount of data.

The Server Scheduled Scripts can't seem to handle a call to the driver, and gets stuck in an infinite loop, which can only be fixed with a restart of the server. So I am going to use the Robot method of automating it. Setup a local FMP file, which has a script run on startup that executes the script in my main database which pulls the data with the driver..(has all the functionality of a client, and none of the limitations of the server side script). You can either leave it always running on that machine with an Ontime execution timer, or use the Windows Scheduler to open the FMP file at a certain time.. and at the end of your script put an "exit application" so it will close Filemaker upon completion.

I am in the middle of setting all this up.. pulling the data has been easy if you are familiar with the tables and sql commands. FMP has a great Calculated Text field which can build your query based on your own calculations.

This driver itself is inexpensive and has a 30 day trial, which I am utilizing for testing. If you own Quickbooks Enterprise, it should give you a free copy of the QODBC driver. I am testing the POS one, which I will have to purchase. By automating this with the robot, I should only need 1 license of it.

[bcooney]

Productive Computing's product is wonderful and I highly recommend it.