QuickBooks integration

Maximizing productivity, efficiency and security

QuickBooks integration can be accomplished through an application programming interface built into QuickBooks Pro 2004. The application programming interface enables developers and systems integrators to integrate desktop and web-based applications with QuickBooks to facilitate electronic data exchange and the creation and management of accounting and other business data. QuickBooks integration will change the face of small business because it will allow businesses to maximize productivity and efficiency by eliminating redundant data entry.

Many kinds of desktop and web-based applications can be integrated with QuickBooks. Good examples of businesses that can take advantage of QuickBooks integration are travel agencies who need to exchange data between booking reservation software packages and QuickBooks or an online web store that needs to transfer product order data from the online store database into QuickBooks.

Quickbooks integration package

Advanced Media Productions offers a QuickBooks integration package that provides an interface between the order database of an e-commerce web site and a Windows PC with a QuickBooks accounting package installed. The purpose of the interface is to eliminate the data entry procedures currently required to move order information from the web site into QuickBooks.

Through the QuickBooks integration package web site operators can transfer a file with new orders to QuickBooks and insert those orders into the QuickBooks database. As new orders for existing accounts are imported, any orders from new customers will also be inserted.

The following description outlines the actual process flow for the QuickBooks integration package:

1.	By activating a link on the QuickBooks integration page, implemented on the e-commerce web site, the user transfers a file with new orders, placed since the last transfer, to the QuickBooks accounting program.

2.	The QuickBooks Pro program, with the necessary integration files installed, loops through the set of incoming orders and performs the following tasks:

	Checks whether the order is from a current customer account already in the QuickBooks database. If so a new invoice or sales receipt will be added into QuickBooks for this account. If the account is not already in QuickBooks then QuickBooks will create a new account first, and then add the new invoice or sales receipt.

	Once all new invoices and new accounts have been added to QuickBooks, a message will be returned to the e-commerce web site confirming how many new accounts and invoices were inserted.

	The web site order database will then be updated to mark all orders that have been inserted into QuickBooks database.

System requirements

The QuickBooks integration package requires QuickBooks Pro/QuickBook Premier 2004, running on either Windows 2000 or XP and Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher.

Installation

To make the QuickBooks integration package operational various files first must be installed on the local PC and minor modifications must be implemented on the e-commerce web site.

About Quickbooks

QuickBooks is the product of choice for small and medium-sized businesses, who depend on it to manage business-critical data such as accounts receivable, accounts payable, customer, vendor and employee databases, and expense and time tracking. QuickBooks already has a massive 80 percent share in the small-business accounting software market. Through QuickBooks integration, Intuit, the developer of QuickBooks intends to increase that share and to open up new markets by making it easier for small businesses to tie highly customized applications into the QuickBooks product line.

QuickBooks integration

Maximizing productivity, efficiency and security