Alpha 5 - Quickbooks

[David Aery]

I have Quickbooks Preimer 2004 Manufacturing.
I have Alpha 5 ver 5
I want to be able to move data both ways.
I was told that qlinker won't work with Qbks 2004 and that I need ver 6 and qodbc.
Intuit Develper Network has SDK. Will that work with Alpha 5?

I'm new to Alpha 5 with no experience on programing. I am learning the Alpha 5 now and was wondering which direction to go in order to move data back with Quickbooks and Alpha 5. The SDK looks like a challenge to learn.

Thanks for your comments!

David

[CALocklin]

RE: Alpha 5 - Quickbooks

I'm using QLinker with QB 2004 Pro but I don't know if it works with the Premier version - it seems like it should.

QLinker works through the SDK. But this is part of the "problem" for many people. Contrary to what I perceive to be popular belief, accounting is an EXTEMELY complex issue and, as a result, many operations are tightly integrated. It's this integration that gets in people's way.

I've had people ask me to "just put this data in that table" but you can't do that in double entry accounting. Everything has to go into two tables. For example, Rental Income might be balanced against Rental Sales. One request I've heard a number of times is, "Just put this deposit in the checking account." Unfortunately, as just described, this isn't possible. You must put a matching amount in another account as well. Or multiple accounts if it is a split entry; i.e., deposit $500 and 300 is for rental sales, $190 is for miscellaneous sales and $10 is for sales tax.

If you only want to pull info out of QB to create reports, that may be quite easy - it all depends on what info you are trying to get.

If you want to take sales from your A5 app and enter it into QB, that may be possible but it won't be easy. QB will have to be set up with all the appropriate accounts and any entries will have to consider both the credited and debited account. If anything is not correct, nothing will be entered. The amounts in each account must balance, the account names must match exactly, and all the correct fields (some of which you may not care about but QB does) must be entered. This is sometimes the hardest part - figuring out which fields are needed.

For what it's worth, most of my input to QB so far has been via a Journal Entry because the other built-in methods were not appropriate to what I was doing.

So far, I have no experience in working with QB via ODBC but you should be very careful and realize that anything that bypasses the SDK opens up a myriad of possibilities for ruining the data.

Best of Luck,
Cal Locklin
www.aimsdc.net

[CALocklin]

RE: Alpha 5 - Quickbooks

Please note that many of these issues are accounting/QB related and not A5/QLinker issues.

QLinker has it's idiosyncrasies but even when you get past those, interfacing with QB is still not something for the faint of heart. Unless it's something you do on a daily basis, it takes a lot of patience and determination to get it right.

[David Aery]

RE: Alpha 5 - Quickbooks

Hey thanks Cal.

I run a manufacturing business.
I am trying to set up a Work order system in Alpha 5.
I buy items and assemble them and create new items.
For the time being, I am creating reports in Qbks, printing as a comma delimited file and importing into Alpha 5.
I am using QBks because I know how to use it and it has all of my data, but QBks has no good way of giving me a Cost of Manufacture.
I don't know if I need the Qlinker and SDK.
Here are some of the things I need out of Qbks:
Average purchase price of Inventory Items not just a purchase total but price per each.
Then put those numbers in Alph 5 and then create a Cost of Manufacture.
Then create a price list; Cost, Distributor, Wholesale, Retail.
Then import back to Qbks.
Now with all of that said, I may end of using Alpha 5 for my accounting and not need Qbks, SDK or QLinker. it sounds like for the time spent on learning SDK why not use that on learning more about Alpha 5.
I tried MS Access but never could get over the hump with it but Alpha 5 seems so much easier and more enjoyable to learn.

Again thanks,

David

[William R Schone]

RE: Alpha 5 - Quickbooks

David,

I don't know if this answer will help or confuse - but this is what we do.

I have a small accounting practice. We use accounting software for our general ledger and payrolls.

However, we use A5 extensively to create accounting "front-ends" either for our clients to use or that we use in-house to prepare client data to be included in the accounting process. Our method of including that data, is as Cal's, and that is simply creating a Journal Entry into the General Ledger. The JE's created from A5 aren't a problem in terms of the number of entries. To be able to go directly from the A5 application to the accounting module, just isn't worth the effort or data risk to attempt.

Interestingly enough, Intuit now owns the accounting package that we use and I've toyed with the "direct" link between quickbooks and our package but have not gotten too far. (Other pressing matters) However, there are some functions of Quick books that I don't care for.

Our logic is to use our accounting package at what it does best and use A5 when we need a custom solution.

If I were in your situation, (and that doesn't mean I'm correct) I would determine which functions Quick books perform well, and which functions it doesn't perform well. Then I would try and determine the amount of effort that it would take to create an A5 solution. And then see what it would take to marry the two systems.

This analysis may yield an all A5 solution, or an all Quickbooks solution, or something in between.


Bill Schone
WRS Accounting & Computer Services, Inc