I see that FileMaker is offering a rebate on QuickBooks. Yet there is no standard solution for importing FileMaker into QuickBooks. Am I missing something here?

Comments appreciated - Sam

Where are you getting this information at. I went to FM site and do NOT see any reference to QuickBooks.

Lee

If you go to http://filemaker.com/promos/index.html it has information on all the current offers from FileMaker.

A great article on linking FM and accounting software can be found at http://filemakeradvisor.com/doc/09355

A plugin to link with QuickBooks can also be found at http://www.filebookslink.com/

Daniel

It looks like the rebate is actually going the other way: Buy QB and get $100 off of FM.

I use the filebookslink plugin and it works well. QuickBooks is putting a lot of emphasis on xml, as is FM, so maybe the 2 companies are cooking something up to overthrow the dominant paradigm. We can hope....

Dan

The plugin cost more than QuickBooks?: go figure that pricing.

Lee

Yeah, it is a bit expensive as plug ins go. But QuickBooks is probably underpriced. For what it does I think they could get a lot more for it.

A few years ago, Bob Cusick (now of ClickWare) gave a DevCon session on writing an interface between FM and QuickBooks. REALLY ugly! If the plug-in cost $1000, compared to the process he had to go through, it would be a bargain. Kind of like the FM to 4-Sight Fax interface, something you really want to buy.

-bd

The plug in is only $200 and the has a really flexible EULA: you only have to buy one copy per QuickBooks company file. Since most companies only have one file, this makes it really cheap. It can be installed on any computer that accesses the QB file, and its all covered by the $200.

I'm amazed that Intuit has never done more to make data exchange easier. It would be really simple for them to write a little executable that delivered xml commands to QB and returned the results to a text file. Yet there it isn't, and you need the plug in.

But I was also amazed that they never wrote an ODBC driver either. There is one written by a 3rd party, but it is outrageously expensive.

But now ODBC seems to be on its way out and xml is on the rise. So I learned xml (enough at least), got the FileBooks link plug in, and have come up with a good, reasonably-priced solution.

I'd love to chat with anyone else who has experience with the plug in.

Dan

Dan ...

Call me anytime ... well email me first at [email protected]. You can check out a application of the plugin at http:/www.e-fmpro.com