Creative Financial Software

How Does QuickBooks Integrate with Other Software Solutions?

Because of the prevalence of QuickBooks in the marketplace, countless software developers have designed ways to share data between their products and QuickBooks. Until 2001, these other software solutions predominately imported data into QuickBooks using a format called Intuit Import Format or .IIF. The Intuit Import Format was not an efficient means of data import. At best, the imports were difficult to use and were particularly susceptible to import failures. At worst, importing data using the Intuit Import Format actually corrupted the QuickBooks data file!

Intuit recognized the problems with the Intuit Import Format and in 2002 began offering a Solution Developer Kit (SDK). The SDK allows other software developers to build tight integrations between their products and QuickBooks - using Extensible Markup Language or XML. Now, QuickBooks users do not have to import files or even open QuickBooks to exchange data with these other applications. The creation of the QuickBooks SDK created tremendous opportunities for developers, who can now leverage the popularity of QuickBooks to promote their products and expand their user bases. You can click here learn more about Intuit's QuickBooks SDK.

Creative Financial Software provides consulting on products that use the QuickBooks SDK to integrate with QB like Fishbowl Inventory and Intuit Warehouse Management ES.

Interested in Learning More?

Click here to access the official list of software solutions that integrate with QuickBooks.

Click here to access Intuit's Website for developers who use (or intend to use) the QuickBooks Solution Developer Kit to integrate their products with QuickBooks.

QuickBooks for the 21st Century - The Introduction of SQL

QuickBooks versions 2006 and later use a client-serve database engine – based on a SQL database product developed by Sybase called iAnywhere. SQL stands for Structured Query Language. Innumerable software developers use SQL, making integration between their products and QuickBooks easier than ever.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 6.0 and later include an ODBC driver that allows you to query an unlimited number of QuickBooks data files stored on your computer – or in a shared network folder on your local area network. Note: The ODBC driver included with Enterprise Solutions does not allow you to transfer data into QuickBooks. You can only extract (query) data.

If you do not use QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions – or if you want to use ODBC to transfer data into QuickBooks, you need to purchase the ODBC driver for each computer in your office that you will use to query the QuickBooks database. You can purchase the Intuit recommended ODBC driver at www.qodbc.com.

Building custom reports is perhaps the most prominent advantage of QuickBooks database queries. Small businesses running QuickBooks can now use products like Crystal Reports to significantly expand their reporting capabilities. Click here for more information on customizing QuickBooks reports.

QuickBooks users who do not have any background in information technologies (IT) or computer programming can still learn how to query the QuickBooks database. Though the process is somewhat technical, you can most likely learn how to perform at least simple database queries using products like Excel and Access - programs with which you are already familiar. You can then reformat and refresh the exported QuickBooks data easily using the Excel or Access human interface.

Software developers like Flexquarters (the developers of the Intuit-recommended ODBC driver) recognize the tremendous advantage of querying QuickBooks data and have begun developing applications for QuickBooks users that greatly simplify the query process. One reporting product favored by Creative Financial Software is called QReport Builder

Integrating QuickBooks with Microsoft Office

QuickBooks is programmed by Intuit to integrate with Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word.

Outlook. QuickBooks allows you to exchange contact information for customers and vendors with Microsoft Outlook. To synchronize your contacts in QuickBooks with Outlook, you must first download a program called QuickBooks Contact Sync for Outlook.
Word QuickBooks integrates with Microsoft Word, allowing you to create QuickBooks invoices as Word documents, create cover letters for your QuickBooks invoices, and print envelopes to mail QuickBooks invoices. You can also merge QuickBooks customer information into various correspondence templates including collection letters, or you can create your own custom correspondence templates.
Excel You can export QuickBooks list reports and accounting reports into Microsoft Excel. When you export accounting reports, QuickBooks sends not only the financial information, but also the formulas used to total and sub-total financial information in various areas of the reports. When you edit balances or insert new rows or columns, QuickBooks recalculates the sub-totals and totals. QuickBooks also includes an Excel import tool that allows you to import accounts, customers, vendors and items (e.g. inventory parts) from Excel spreadsheets. Some special formatting of the Excel spreadsheets is required. Refer to the QuickBooks help menu content for more information about these formats.

Integrating QuickBooks with Your Existing Software Applications

If you want to keep your existing infrastructure software (e.g. customer manage resources - CRM, point of sale, warehouse inventory management, etc.) you can probably build a custom link or integration between QuickBooks and your other software. However, you would probably need to purchase the QuickBooks SDK or contract with with a software developer who has access to thee SDK.

When our clients need to build customized integration between QuickBooks and other applications, we recommend an consulting firm called Accountigrate.