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I'm looking for an existing Java (or JVM'able language) library that will create IIF files for import into Quickbooks. Free or Commercial. Anyone know of something?

UPDATE:

After reading a comment on this question, I looked at the IPP and SDK options that Intuit provides and they could not have made this more difficult. So here is what I need to do. I need to take data from my database and export it into some sort of format that I can then import into Quickbooks. This doesn't really even need to be an automatic process as the Quickbooks application/database won't be on the server (linux) that the web applications runs on.

Gregg
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  • You know that IIF files are deprecated, offer very limited functionality, and often corrupt QuickBooks files, right? You should be using IPP/IDS or the SDK instead. – Keith Palmer Jr. Jan 25 '11 at 19:21
  • No Keith, I didn't know that. Google led me to believe IIF files were it. Do you have any links to that info? Specifically the SDK? – Gregg Jan 25 '11 at 19:36
  • I found the QB web site with info on IPP/IDS and the SDK. All I can say is that they couldn't have made it more difficult for what I need to do. All I want to do is take data from my database and get it imported into Quickbooks. The import is a manual process. I'm going to update my question. – Gregg Jan 25 '11 at 19:48
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    Yeah, welcome to QuickBooks. :-) Integration with QuickBooks is a pain in the butt. – Keith Palmer Jr. Jan 25 '11 at 19:49
  • Are you still looking for a Java solution (even if the solution lives on your Linux web server?)? i.e. Your web app is Java on Linux? – Keith Palmer Jr. Jan 25 '11 at 20:12

6 Answers6

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There are a number of free options as well if you're comfy rolling your own (or using Intuit test apps).

If you download the QuickBooks SDK, it includes examples of sending QuickBooks XML documents which instruct QuickBooks to add customers, add transactions, etc. etc. etc. The examples could easily be extended to allow you to copy/paste in an XML document or load an XML document from disk.

You could then build the actual XML files in Java. If you wanted to get really fancy, use JAXB (or an equivalent XSD to Class generator) to generate Java classes from the included .XSD documents, and be able to do things like: InvoiceAdd inv = new InvoiceAdd();

There's documentation about the XML format included in the QuickBooks SDK. You can also find some QuickBooks XML examples on our QuickBooks integration wiki.

Keith Palmer Jr.
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You should be able to use QODBC for this. According to the QODBC newsgroup, some people are using this QuickBooks database driver with JDBC.

Paul Keister
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2

Last but not least CoreObjX is a popular QuickBooks API wrapper for development (faster than QODBC) and OpenSync is an effortless QuickBooks data replication engine.

http://synergration.com/software/coreobjx
http://synergration.com/software/opensync

RyanMac
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Just wanted to add to this because ive been looking into it recently. (what a pita)

It seems there are some main choices:

  1. Using the quickbooks SDK which means dealing with COM
  2. Using one of the poorly implemented libraries available:
    • /n Software QB Integrator to connect and do transactions on QB object (Invoice, Customer). You will need to run a little app while QB is open for this one called QBConnector. There is very limited documentation for this.
    • Dragon Quickbooks Java Connector which is a lower level connector for dealing with the XML responses for Quickbooks. qbXML
  3. Using an importer as listed above which really means you have to still do an external step although it can be batched.
  4. QODBC as mentioned above which is what I am probably going to go with. You can read and write (but not to all tables) with this. Full QB Table schema for US version

I am very surprised at the extremely poor support Intuit is giving small business for integrating their software with QB. If any COM devs are out there that want to design a nice java library I am sure there are lots of small business out there that would happily pay for a well designed one. (More intelligent access mechanism and search ability)

Good luck to all your brave QB Spelunkers.

Arthur Thomas
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There are several companies offering transactional importing in QuickBooks:

I have not used any of these - so do your due diligence.

Cosmin
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Doug Millington
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This is another good option. JQBConnector

It generates QBXML from POJO's, so it makes manipulating the quickbooks format super easy. It also can connect directly to quickbooks to send and retrieve information.

Lenny Markus
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