QuickBooks Plug In

Lounge (Discussions)
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Hey All,

Any recommendations, warnings, comparisons, key lessons, etc. on fmBooksConnector (Productive Computing) vs LedgerLink (Geist Interactive)?

Any thoughts on coding the connection directly?

Thanks!

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I would definitely use the QB APIs directly instead of a plugin...

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I believe LegerLink relies on the API. I have not used it. I am not sure for instance that it supports multiple currencies. Depending on what you need, rolling out your own could be best, but if you are looking for something closer to "vanilla", using a vendor product may save you some time.

Also, I believe FM Books Connector is for the desktop version of Quickbooks (something LedgerLink does not integrate with AFAIK). Productive computing has a separate product "FM Books Connector Online Edition".

I believe Geist Interactive discourages customizing their files as it makes updates harder, but it should be possible to reuse their code in your files to customize things. With the Productive Connector plugin, I do not know if it gets distributed with a companion file that is intended for production purposes or only for demo purposes. I would expect the plugin route to require more customization work to integrate with your own solution.

All the above is without ever being in direct contact with the products. I do not have warnings or key lessons, even less about a comparison.

Curious to see what others may share on this topic.

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Agreed. The Intuit Developer portal is really great, and they have everything you'd want in terms of auth methods and sandboxing etc. Keeps you independent of any plugin vendors.

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Thanks All,

Looking at the Intuit QB API, it seems pretty fairly straight-forward. Any gotchas I should be on the lookout for?

Cheers!

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I would add a couple things to this.

  • It was enough for Geist Interactive to build a fully fledged product to handle all of that for you.
  • Being able to not worry about when Intuit updates the API, and just being able to migrate in a new file, well... that's a pretty epic value.
  • Can you code it directly yourself, yes, absolutely. Just be mindful to consider the development time needed to maintain it. With something like LedgerLink, when a bug is found, or a change in the API happens, Geist Interactive will release an update.
  • For customization for LedgerLink, you can customize it in your own, separate from LedgerLink file, and then just send that call to LedgerLinks' file. That way, when they release an update, you don't need to rebuild all of your customizations. That is one of the major benefits of the API-first approach they use.
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I'm gonna chime in here too since I recently did a custom QBO integration.

It's worth looking at LedgerLink or another off-the-shelf product if any exist. If you go with LedgerLink, I'd talk to Geist Interactive about what it takes to keep it as "vanilla"/non-custom as possible (ideally you don't really embed any of their code in your file, and instead just sync your tables to a separate LedgerLink file).

The reason I say this is because, while the QBO API is very comprehensible, it has a lot of quirks, especially when it gets into the taxes and some strange line item JSON format, as well as other stuff that caught me off guard, like their sql-esque query format.

I guarantee it will take longer than you anticipate to roll your own integration except for the most minimal endeavor, so don't rule out an off-the-shelf, even if it costs a yearly subscription fee, it'll probably be cheaper.

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LOL, yeah, quirks for sure.

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How about Claris Connect? It lists Quickbooks under apps. Does it work well?

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Yes, but you have to do some homework and make sure that all your actions are covered. This is this current list:

Also - and this may be obvious - it only works with QBO and there may be limitations and probably just the US version of that.

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