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QuickBooks Advice

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    QuickBooks Advice

    I created an A5 application for a customer 8 years ago. The application has the following main functions: 1) OrderEntry, 2) Payments / Invoices, 3) Payrole (fairly complicated with compensation dependent on monthly sales, who partnered in sale etc), 4) business reports

    The customer has asked me to find a way to work with Quickbooks so most of his accounting can be carried out in QB while still maintaining the current functions in his Alpha application.

    So... i read most of the info on this forum and downloaded QB Premier Trial along with the QODBC trial.

    It was relatively easy to import QB tables, create forms & modify Alpha DAO Action Script to poke rows back in the QBtables. (MUCH easier to READ QB tables... nevertheless).

    MY PROBLEM:

    {I am anxious to maintain an almost complete ignoance of accounting while at the same time meeting my customers needs}. What I need to know is: what is the necessary 'minimum' set of data that i need to fire over to QB?? I realize that this is highly dependant on my customers needs, however it is not clear what those needs are.

    Can anyone give me some guidance???

    #2
    Re: QuickBooks Advice

    Start here...
    Al Buchholz
    Bookwood Systems, LTD
    Weekly QReportBuilder Webinars Thursday 1 pm CST

    Occam's Razor - KISS
    Normalize till it hurts - De-normalize till it works.
    Advice offered and questions asked in the spirit of learning how to fish is better than someone giving you a fish.
    When we triage a problem it is much easier to read sample systems than to read a mind.
    "Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler."
    Albert Einstein

    http://www.iadn.com/images/media/iadn_member.png

    Comment


      #3
      Re: QuickBooks Advice

      Thanks Al... i have noticed your many posts on this forum. I am very impressed. I have viewed your presentations & i think that i understand the 'nuts & bolts' of actually getting AlphaDAO, Action Scripts, linking tables etc to do what they are supposed to do. Where i am lost is WHAT to do not HOW TO DO IT ie specifically which tables do i need to hit in QB?? which fields?? How do i manage QB data integrity if i am updating or posting records to QB but i do not know the primary key or how to populate the key fields in QB & maintaion relationships???

      How do i go about defining the subset of tables that i need to hit in QB?

      Comment


        #4
        Re: QuickBooks Advice

        David,
        I am anxious to maintain an almost complete ignoance of accounting
        This would be an ideal situation, but IMHO there is not going to be much of a chance of doing that!! In fact, I think that to do what you need to do you basically have to know more about some things than an accountant needs to know! To enter data into Quickbooks tables directly, I think that you will need to know all the tables/fields affected by such an entry (and make similar corresponding entries in them)--unless somehow QB will fill in the blanks automatically for you--the SDK does treat any connection via QODBC as just another user connecting but am under the impression that this is more for control than for actual data entry.

        Am hoping I'm incorrect in this as I only use passive link tables so far and have not ventured into an active link/write version yet.
        Mike
        __________________________________________
        It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
        It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
        Henry David Thoreau
        __________________________________________



        Comment


          #5
          Re: QuickBooks Advice

          Originally posted by David Boomer View Post
          Thanks Al... i have noticed your many posts on this forum. I am very impressed. I have viewed your presentations & i think that i understand the 'nuts & bolts' of actually getting AlphaDAO, Action Scripts, linking tables etc to do what they are supposed to do. Where i am lost is WHAT to do not HOW TO DO IT ie specifically which tables do i need to hit in QB?? which fields?? How do i manage QB data integrity if i am updating or posting records to QB but i do not know the primary key or how to populate the key fields in QB & maintaion relationships???

          How do i go about defining the subset of tables that i need to hit in QB?
          David

          The interesting part of the Intuit SDK interface is that the SDK works with the QB data through the QB program.

          You need to think of that whenever you are using the system..

          So you don't need to know all of the underlying techie stuff or the internal accounting stuff......

          You need to think of it like Alpha is doing keyboard entry to the program and you need to fill in the fields that are required if you were entering data into the program.

          It took a while for me to wrap my head around that concept and to appreciate the beauty and simplicity of the design. It also allows Intuit to control the data that is in the their tables.

          I had hoped that I had conveyed that idea in the presentations on my web site, but I do recall whenever I give a talk about this, I have to repeat the concept numerous times. Not only for the audience, but for the speaker who may fall back to the 'traditional' concept of talking directly to tables....

          That also means that there are a couple of techniques that are different. Ie adding a multiple line invoice. QB doesn't allow an invoice without at least one line in it. So you can't add the invoice header and then add a line. You add the line(s) and then add the header. It is controlled by a cache flag in the line table that you turn on for the lines, then when you add the header the internals take care of all the records getting in the right place with the right linkages....

          My papers reference the QODBC site for additional docs and a forum with many examples...

          Hope that helps...
          Al Buchholz
          Bookwood Systems, LTD
          Weekly QReportBuilder Webinars Thursday 1 pm CST

          Occam's Razor - KISS
          Normalize till it hurts - De-normalize till it works.
          Advice offered and questions asked in the spirit of learning how to fish is better than someone giving you a fish.
          When we triage a problem it is much easier to read sample systems than to read a mind.
          "Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler."
          Albert Einstein

          http://www.iadn.com/images/media/iadn_member.png

          Comment


            #6
            Re: QuickBooks Advice

            the internals take care of all the records getting in the right place with the right linkages....
            Now that is more than I expected obviously--with some of the limitations QB imposes it is nice that this "heavy lifting" occurs automatically!
            Mike
            __________________________________________
            It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
            It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
            Henry David Thoreau
            __________________________________________



            Comment


              #7
              Re: QuickBooks Advice

              Mike & Al; Thanks for your help... i am getting closer to wraping my mind around this QB - Alpha problem.

              I have asked the accountant to create a QB Company File for my client. When this has bee done i will have her take me through all of the screens / reports that she thinks that she will need to perform the accounting functions. I wull take screen shots of each of these & try to work my way back to the QODBC 'tables'( /views). When i have a 'mini-schema' of which QB views i need to perform INSERTS on i should have more intelligent questions to ask.

              Does this sound like a good approach?? or am i still missing the ease and simplicity of the interface??

              Comment


                #8
                Re: QuickBooks Advice

                Originally posted by David Boomer View Post
                Mike & Al; Thanks for your help... i am getting closer to wraping my mind around this QB - Alpha problem.

                I have asked the accountant to create a QB Company File for my client. When this has bee done i will have her take me through all of the screens / reports that she thinks that she will need to perform the accounting functions. I wull take screen shots of each of these & try to work my way back to the QODBC 'tables'( /views). When i have a 'mini-schema' of which QB views i need to perform INSERTS on i should have more intelligent questions to ask.

                Does this sound like a good approach?? or am i still missing the ease and simplicity of the interface??
                So you are going to build something like this?

                http://doc.qodbc.com/qodbc/20/tables...l?qbviewd_id=1

                and you can find all of these when you start from the QODBC site and get the technical references.

                or use this link:
                http://doc.qodbc.com/qodbc/Qodbc_20_us.html
                Al Buchholz
                Bookwood Systems, LTD
                Weekly QReportBuilder Webinars Thursday 1 pm CST

                Occam's Razor - KISS
                Normalize till it hurts - De-normalize till it works.
                Advice offered and questions asked in the spirit of learning how to fish is better than someone giving you a fish.
                When we triage a problem it is much easier to read sample systems than to read a mind.
                "Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler."
                Albert Einstein

                http://www.iadn.com/images/media/iadn_member.png

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: QuickBooks Advice

                  more or less...

                  My problem at this point is selecting a subset of QB functionality that will allow me to perform basic accounting in QB without having to post unnecessary data to QB.

                  When the accountant shows me the forms & reports that are needed i should be able to work back from the forms to the tables & fields listed on the QODBC website. However i get the feeling that just poking data via the QODBC driver will not be as easy as i am hoping.... we'll see.

                  I need to define a small-as-possible set of SQL INSERT and SQL UPDATE statements as possible. When i have a clear picture in my mind of which data fields are needed in QB to perform a basic set of acounting tasks for my clients company, i will be able to develop the necessary A5V9 forms.

                  Am i on the right track??

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: QuickBooks Advice

                    Originally posted by David Boomer View Post
                    more or less...

                    Am i on the right track??
                    yes
                    Al Buchholz
                    Bookwood Systems, LTD
                    Weekly QReportBuilder Webinars Thursday 1 pm CST

                    Occam's Razor - KISS
                    Normalize till it hurts - De-normalize till it works.
                    Advice offered and questions asked in the spirit of learning how to fish is better than someone giving you a fish.
                    When we triage a problem it is much easier to read sample systems than to read a mind.
                    "Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler."
                    Albert Einstein

                    http://www.iadn.com/images/media/iadn_member.png

                    Comment

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