I recently had a need for a client interface with QuickBooks. I had used QODBC in the past, but I was not happy with it. First, it was a bit pricey and for this not-for-profit client I was working with they flatly refused to grant any kind of a discount. Second, although I liked the fact that the interface worked within Alpha5, the download was hard to do and I had no idea whatsoever of how to perform an upload of data. Their help forum was just over my head (I'm sure they knew what they were talking about, but I couldn't seem to get it, and I was afraid of corrupting the client's QuickBooks.) It just wasn't very friendly and helpful.
I looked around and came across Zed Axis and decided to give it a try. They provided a 30 day free trial. The negative on the product is that it doesn't interface with Alpha5, but instead connects to QuickBooks and then either imports or exports using Excel files. As most of you know, that's really no problem for A5.
The plusses outweigh the minuses, in that, if you want to download from QuickBooks, you can simply select the type of information you want and download it. In QODBC, you have to select a particular QB file and then hope you have all the fields you need. That happened to me while trying to download Invoices. I never could figure out exactly what files I needed from QODBC. When I got them into A5, I had to manipulate them in order to get what I needed. Zed Axis makes this very easy.
On importing into QuickBooks, you simply create the Excel file of fields you want to upload, create a mapping field and you're done. What I ended up doing was entering invoice data into a dbf, then creating a button on the form to output the data to an Excel file. I then simply opened Zed Axis and pointed it to that particular file. Zed Axis will import the data and let you know if any problems are encountered. You can select to overwrite or modify the data in QuickBooks and errors are displayed on your screen so that if you need to correct something you can. Or, you can back out of the whole thing if needs be.
They gave my client a nice discount for the purchase of the product. Other good news is that whereby QODBC requires a license for each machine you are on, Zed Axis actually lets you install the product on your main machine and also on your development machine. So, you get two for one! Very nice!
The company is located in New Zealand, and if you have a question, they are very nice about answering any questions. They really want you to succeed.
Anyway, that's my brief analysis. You can visit them at http://www.zed-systems.com
Good luck!
Charlie
I looked around and came across Zed Axis and decided to give it a try. They provided a 30 day free trial. The negative on the product is that it doesn't interface with Alpha5, but instead connects to QuickBooks and then either imports or exports using Excel files. As most of you know, that's really no problem for A5.
The plusses outweigh the minuses, in that, if you want to download from QuickBooks, you can simply select the type of information you want and download it. In QODBC, you have to select a particular QB file and then hope you have all the fields you need. That happened to me while trying to download Invoices. I never could figure out exactly what files I needed from QODBC. When I got them into A5, I had to manipulate them in order to get what I needed. Zed Axis makes this very easy.
On importing into QuickBooks, you simply create the Excel file of fields you want to upload, create a mapping field and you're done. What I ended up doing was entering invoice data into a dbf, then creating a button on the form to output the data to an Excel file. I then simply opened Zed Axis and pointed it to that particular file. Zed Axis will import the data and let you know if any problems are encountered. You can select to overwrite or modify the data in QuickBooks and errors are displayed on your screen so that if you need to correct something you can. Or, you can back out of the whole thing if needs be.
They gave my client a nice discount for the purchase of the product. Other good news is that whereby QODBC requires a license for each machine you are on, Zed Axis actually lets you install the product on your main machine and also on your development machine. So, you get two for one! Very nice!
The company is located in New Zealand, and if you have a question, they are very nice about answering any questions. They really want you to succeed.
Anyway, that's my brief analysis. You can visit them at http://www.zed-systems.com
Good luck!
Charlie
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