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QuickBooks integration for Foxycart!

consolibyteconsolibyte Member, Integration Developer, Consolibyte Quickbooks
in Bugs & Feature Requests edited June 2008
I'm now offering Foxycart QuickBooks integrations, where orders placed in Foxycart are automatically pushed to QuickBooks within a few minutes of the order being placed. It's an automated process, and has been in testing for the past few months.

Please see here for more details (or to sign up!):
https://secure.consolibyte.com/saas/signup/
http://consolibyte.com/

- Keith
keith@ConsoliBYTE.com
www.ConsoliBYTE.com
«13
Comments
  • brettbrett FoxyCart Team
    edited June 2008
    Hey Keith.
    There's _definitely_ interest. There's currently a XML -> IIF script that is functional in theory, but the IIF format is so picky that it's definitely tricky to get set up.

    I know at least one or two of our users that'd be very interested. I'll tell them to check this thread out, but I'm positive we could get some people to help you test things.
  • consolibyteconsolibyte Member, Integration Developer, Consolibyte Quickbooks
    edited June 2008
    Interesting... IIF is definitely *not* the way to go for QuickBooks integration, it's unbelievably messy.

    My solution would be based in qbXML and the QuickBooks Web Connector, which is a really slick solution.

    If I get some people interested, I'll definitely work on this. Is there any documentation available as to the format of the FoxyCart XML data feed? Is it just a big XML file that I could grab, look for new orders in, and then use that data to push to QuickBooks?

    - Keith
  • consolibyteconsolibyte Member, Integration Developer, Consolibyte Quickbooks
    Ooops, nevermind, I found the feed format. This is very slick, FoxyCart is a pretty neat product!

    I could, without a doubt, push things over to QuickBooks from this data feed. The solution would:
    - require you have QuickBooks SmartStart, Pro, Premier, or Enterprise (US, UK, and CA should all be fine)
    - require you to install the QuickBooks Web Connector (it's really easy to install, and it's free from Intuit's website)
    - push over Orders to QuickBooks
    - push over Customers to QuickBooks
    - push over Items to QuickBooks
    - ... what else should it do?

    Anyone willing to help test if I start developing this?
  • brettbrett FoxyCart Team
    That sounds good. I, for one, will definitely test. I have at least 1 store I help admin that would be willing to test as well, and there should be at least 2 or 3 more FoxyCart users that will chime in soon.

    I'm curious how the web connector functions though, since the FoxyCart XML gets "fed" automatically, and it needs to post to a website. How does the web connector access the data? (I'm guessing you'd have to have a script set up on your own website that processes the XML and gets it ready for the Web Connector to grab, but that's just a hunch.)
  • consolibyteconsolibyte Member, Integration Developer, Consolibyte Quickbooks
    Yeah, that's more or less what I'm thinking.

    We'd have one script which receives the POSTed XML data from FoxyCart, and that script would parse the XML and queue up requests for the Web Connector to handle.

    I'll start working on this as soon as I get a chance (probably not for a few days at least), and post any updates in this thread.

    - Keith
  • brettbrett FoxyCart Team
    Make sure you check out the existing XML scripts here: http://wiki.foxycart.com/integration
    There's one that'll take the XML and write it to a file, and the XML->IIF could actually be modified to do CSV or other formats quite easily, if that'd be useful to you.
  • rthrashrthrash Member
    edited June 2008
    You DEFINITELY have a tester waving his hands wildly saying "pick me!" ... if that doesn't work I'll shake your hand with some extra bills stuffed in the exchange. I was just reviewing the QB Web Connector last night and was really hoping it is going to be as straightforward as it sounds like it could be. What type of effort do you think it will take to get this to work for basically recording sales/invoices?
  • consolibyteconsolibyte Member, Integration Developer, Consolibyte Quickbooks
    edited June 2008
    Well... since I have at *least* two testers now... I think I'll start working on it this weekend. :-)

    Can you guys do me a favor and send me an e-mail with some information, so that I know what I'm dealing with? I need to know...:
    - What versions of QuickBooks you're running (Pro, Premier, etc.)
    - What years of QuickBooks you're running (2006, 2008, etc.)
    - How you're currently entering orders (are they put in as Sales Receipts, Invoices, Sales Orders, etc.)
    - How you're currently entering payments (if you are... as Received Payments applied against Invoices, or...?)
    - How you're currently entering items (are they Inventory Items, Services, Non-Inventory Items, etc.)
    - Whether or not you have a separate hosting account with PHP 5 and MySQL support
    - Any other comments/notes about your set-up/how you do things in QuickBooks that might be relevant

    If you send an e-mail to: keith@uglyslug.com, I'll start looking into things this weekend and e-mail you when I have something worth testing with.

    The only other thing I require from you... you need to keep in touch and make sure you tell me how well (or not well) everything is working!

    - Keith
    keith@uglyslug.com
  • lukeluke FoxyCart Team
    Keith. You're my new hero.

    speechless.

    :)
  • consolibyteconsolibyte Member, Integration Developer, Consolibyte Quickbooks
    Hey guys, just wanted to keep everyone in the loop: This is something I'm still working on, I meant to get to it last weekend but I just got too busy. However, I should have at least something in the next week or two. I'll post back here when I do.

    - Keith
  • cmlawsoncmlawson Member
    If you need another tester, I'm in!

    CML
  • lukeluke FoxyCart Team
    Thanks Keith!
  • rthrashrthrash Member
    Any luck or update Keith?
  • consolibyteconsolibyte Member, Integration Developer, Consolibyte Quickbooks
    Hey guys. Just to keep everyone in the loop, I've been *super* busy lately with other QuickBooks related stuff, so I havn't had a chance to work on this yet.

    However, it's definitely do-able, I have working plugins for Zen-Cart and osCommerce. FoxyCart will come soon, I promise. I'm on vacation until August 15th, and then I'll get back on this.

    - Keith
  • lukeluke FoxyCart Team
    Thank you so much Keith!

    I was worried we lost you. :)

    Have a great vacation. I'm sure the Foxy community will be anxiously awaiting your return.
  • cmlawsoncmlawson Member
    Any updates on this project? I have a client who needs this so I could probably pay for a little of the development costs if that helps out any?

    Let me know.
  • sandysandy Member
    Thanks for looking at this Keith.
    Any more news on this? I have a client who REALLY, REALLY wants this, too.
    Thanks,
    Sandy
  • FuzionMonkeyFuzionMonkey Member
    Is this project dead? The OP hasn't posted for months....

    This would be really nice to have.
  • entropicentropic Member
    Just figured i would throw my hat in here to say that we are VERY interested in this... We would be willing to test as well... I'm certain that getting solid integration with QB would be VERY beneficial to Foxy... adding "Seamless Integration with QuickBooks" to the index or features page would DEFINITELY help convince ppl and attract ppl who don't have or aren't developers...
  • MeristemMeristem Member
    We're very interested in this too. I'll email you right now actually to see if you're making any progress.
  • FuzionMonkeyFuzionMonkey Member
    Be sure to vote for Quickbooks Integration here: http://requests.foxycart.com/

    Right now its about the 4th most popular request on the list. Lets bring it to the top!
  • talontalon Member
    Is there any progress on this? We are looking for a shopping cart with tight integration to quickbooks. Right now, were leaning toward using a third party product called T-Hub.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]
    Has Keith found the edge of the Earth, and fallen off its face?
  • lukeluke FoxyCart Team
    Looks like an opportunity for someone to get a development team together, build an integration product and release it for sale to make some money. We'll get to it "eventually" but it's not part of our core functionality which is the cart itself. With the XML datafeed, an integration could be built today by anyone who has the motivation.

    Here's hoping someone out there is motivated. :)
  • brettbrett FoxyCart Team
    Fwiw, I've pinged Keith to see if he's still interested.
  • consolibyteconsolibyte Member, Integration Developer, Consolibyte Quickbooks
    edited June 2009
    Wow, it looks like I really need to get my butt in gear and get on this. I've just been so busy for so long now, I haven't had time to even think about it.

    OK, let's build a list and I'll find some time to work on this in probably 3 weeks-ish. It's on my calendar! What do you guys need for features?

    Push items from FoxyCart to QuickBooks
    Push customers from FoxyCart to QuickBooks (does anyone need nested customers or Job support?)
    Push orders from FoxyCart to QuickBooks (as Sales Receipts? does anyone need Invoice support?)
    What versions of QuickBooks are you guys using?
    Would people be interested in an open-source version, or a paid-hosted version, or a purchased-plugin version, or...?
  • tookingstookings Member
    edited June 2009
    It would be nice if it was aware of recurring customers/accounts. (And could add a new customer, etc.)

    I would vote for open-source by nature, but wouldn't be opposed to paid if you wanted to pursue this as a business.

    I'm guessing many people using this will also be using the datafeed elsewhere...so "passthrough" ability might nice. (We would just write our code to submit the datafeed we processed to the QB script as if we were foxycart sending it...others using it with other premade scripts may need your system to "forward" the datafeed on to another system.) Just thinking out loud on this one.
  • brettbrett FoxyCart Team
    A "passthrough" functionality would definitely be good. Nice thought on that, tookings.
  • consolibyteconsolibyte Member, Integration Developer, Consolibyte Quickbooks
    tookings,

    Do you handle recurring billing differently vs. regular billing? I'm unclear as to what it would need to be aware of... it would work something like:

    When a new orders is received, check if the customer exists in QuickBooks
    If they exist, update them
    If they do not exist, add them
    Check if each item used on the order exists in QuickBooks
    If it exists, do nothing
    If it does not exist, add it
    Add the new order

    (Does the data feed send updated orders as well? In that case I'd have to check if the order exists and update it if it does.)

    Does FoxyCart have any plans to support QuickBooks Merchant Service as a payment gateway? I have code that I could contribute if they are considering QBMS as a gateway option...
  • tookingstookings Member
    superwormy...your flow seems spot on to me.

    (I think an order either is or isn't...if you change a one-time order by hand, foxycart wouldn't know about it...and if you change a subscription, you'll get the new information when the next order is sent as usual. Don't trust me as the final word on that though. :)
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