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Major API - a RESTful API for QuickBooks

30 points by zacharydanger 14y ago

leftnode 14y ago
We just launched this and I can answer questions if anyone is interested. MajorApi is a RESTful wrapper around QuickBooks. QuickBooks is notoriously difficult to work with. Yes, they do have some REST APIs you can use with their IPP platform, but for developers making custom QuickBooks integrations you're almost stuck using WebConnector. WebConnector requires you to write your own SOAP server which is not fun. We've written a nice REST service on top of this, so all you have to do is download the WebConnector software from QuickBooks and install the .qwc file we provide, and you can start sending customers and invoices to QuickBooks in under 5 minutes. Let us know if you have further questions. Thanks!
- aarondf 14y ago
  As a developer and Texas-licensed CPA, this makes me so giddy. Is there an API for logging time yet? I'm working on a web app in that space and would love REST integration instead of a csv middleman
  - leftnode 14y ago
    No time logging yet. We focused on what we perceived were the two biggest use cases: customers and invoices. Prioritizing our integrations next, we'll look into time clocking.
    - vangale 14y ago
      Similarly to aarondf, we have a bunch of CPA's who will want time clock, task, and projects in the API. We don't need realtime.
- mountaineer 14y ago
  How are you recommending deployment of MajorApi for applications needing to read from Quickbooks? I've written a Quickbooks integration web service using the desktop SDK, not web connector, and ultimately we had to abandon any reads from Quickbooks in favor of essentially mirroring the data in a SQL database. Can the combination of MajorApi and web connector handle real-time QB reads under moderate load?
  - leftnode 14y ago
    Right now when you create a new MajorApi QuickBooks Application, it reads in your items and sales reps so they can be references in invoices you create. Then we have a database in the middle of the two because you can't have real time reads from QuickBooks with the WebConnector. Edit: So to answer your question, there's no such thing as real time reads using the WebConnector. You have to send an XML query to QuickBooks which returns the data. We plan on integrating with QuickBooks online soon which will allow real time reads.
- jsdalton 14y ago
  Thanks for making this. Is there a pricing structure or the like? If not how do you plan on making money?
  - leftnode 14y ago
    Sure thing! We don't have one yet, and we're hoping to use this initial beta launch to determine best how to launch it.
- skorgu 14y ago
  I (and I'm sure many others) wrote something ugly in this space years ago in php and have spent much time since attempting to drown the remaining relevant neurons in whiskey. Good luck!
jasonjei 14y ago
There's also Levion - we don't have a documented API but we use Ruby on Rails that has JSON and XML out of the box. If there are interested users of our API, we would like to hear from you. Send me a shout at jason at levion c o m
mbell 14y ago
This would make my life much easier, glad your tackling it. Any idea where Vendors and Bills are on the priority list to add to the API? Our business model is similar to a consignment transaction so every time I generate an Invoice to a customer I also need to generate one or more bills to vendors.
- leftnode 14y ago
  I don't know yet. There's so many different working parts of QuickBooks it's tough to determine where to prioritize. Some of our initial customers use vendors extensively, so they're a bit higher on the list.
  - mbell 14y ago
    Oh, believe me I know. The JaxB XML mappings for the QBWC api in my project are are 302,976 lines of code in 1122 files. Its auto-generated of course but still creates a messy with permgen space. I'd love to dump it all for a REST api only using what I need.
danomite40 14y ago
This looks excellent! And stunned to see that Quickbooks is the first one being tackled here. I just recently started rolling my own API to QuickBooks Web Connector. It's Coldfusion backed and assembling and parsing the SOAP XML going back and forth. It's pretty miserable. However, there's no way my company is going to authorize or financial data flowing through an intermediary 3rd party. Is there any other solution?
narcissus 14y ago
How many different countries has this been tested with? I assume it's mainly targeted at US, but what about CA or AU? I can understand why the AU may be harder to do, but as far as CA is concerned I remember having quite a few problems using the Intuit PHP SDK so just curious if that is supported or not?
- leftnode 14y ago
  As long as the QuickBooks WebConnector software can run with your QuickBooks installation, you should be good to go, we're not restricting it to any specific countries.
  - narcissus 14y ago
    OK, but it hasn't specifically been tested with Canadian builds, for example, right? I get that in theory this should work but like I say, when I was using the PHP SDK there was definitely some interesting 'issues' (I believe tax rates for one). Was just curious if this was tested at all. I'm glad to see some developments in this area, that's for sure.

30 points by zacharydanger 14y ago

We just launched this and I can answer questions if anyone is interested. MajorApi is a RESTful wrapper around QuickBooks. QuickBooks is notoriously difficult to work with. Yes, they do have some REST APIs you can use with their IPP platform, but for developers making custom QuickBooks integrations you're almost stuck using WebConnector. WebConnector requires you to write your own SOAP server which is not fun. We've written a nice REST service on top of this, so all you have to do is download the WebConnector software from QuickBooks and install the .qwc file we provide, and you can start sending customers and invoices to QuickBooks in under 5 minutes. Let us know if you have further questions. Thanks!

aarondf 14y ago
As a developer and Texas-licensed CPA, this makes me so giddy. Is there an API for logging time yet? I'm working on a web app in that space and would love REST integration instead of a csv middleman
- leftnode 14y ago
  No time logging yet. We focused on what we perceived were the two biggest use cases: customers and invoices. Prioritizing our integrations next, we'll look into time clocking.
  - vangale 14y ago
    Similarly to aarondf, we have a bunch of CPA's who will want time clock, task, and projects in the API. We don't need realtime.
mountaineer 14y ago
How are you recommending deployment of MajorApi for applications needing to read from Quickbooks? I've written a Quickbooks integration web service using the desktop SDK, not web connector, and ultimately we had to abandon any reads from Quickbooks in favor of essentially mirroring the data in a SQL database. Can the combination of MajorApi and web connector handle real-time QB reads under moderate load?
- leftnode 14y ago
  Right now when you create a new MajorApi QuickBooks Application, it reads in your items and sales reps so they can be references in invoices you create. Then we have a database in the middle of the two because you can't have real time reads from QuickBooks with the WebConnector. Edit: So to answer your question, there's no such thing as real time reads using the WebConnector. You have to send an XML query to QuickBooks which returns the data. We plan on integrating with QuickBooks online soon which will allow real time reads.
jsdalton 14y ago
Thanks for making this. Is there a pricing structure or the like? If not how do you plan on making money?
- leftnode 14y ago
  Sure thing! We don't have one yet, and we're hoping to use this initial beta launch to determine best how to launch it.
skorgu 14y ago
I (and I'm sure many others) wrote something ugly in this space years ago in php and have spent much time since attempting to drown the remaining relevant neurons in whiskey. Good luck!

jasonjei 14y ago

There's also Levion - we don't have a documented API but we use Ruby on Rails that has JSON and XML out of the box. If there are interested users of our API, we would like to hear from you. Send me a shout at jason at levion c o m

mbell 14y ago

This would make my life much easier, glad your tackling it. Any idea where Vendors and Bills are on the priority list to add to the API? Our business model is similar to a consignment transaction so every time I generate an Invoice to a customer I also need to generate one or more bills to vendors.

leftnode 14y ago
I don't know yet. There's so many different working parts of QuickBooks it's tough to determine where to prioritize. Some of our initial customers use vendors extensively, so they're a bit higher on the list.
- mbell 14y ago
  Oh, believe me I know. The JaxB XML mappings for the QBWC api in my project are are 302,976 lines of code in 1122 files. Its auto-generated of course but still creates a messy with permgen space. I'd love to dump it all for a REST api only using what I need.

danomite40 14y ago

This looks excellent! And stunned to see that Quickbooks is the first one being tackled here. I just recently started rolling my own API to QuickBooks Web Connector. It's Coldfusion backed and assembling and parsing the SOAP XML going back and forth. It's pretty miserable. However, there's no way my company is going to authorize or financial data flowing through an intermediary 3rd party. Is there any other solution?

narcissus 14y ago

How many different countries has this been tested with? I assume it's mainly targeted at US, but what about CA or AU? I can understand why the AU may be harder to do, but as far as CA is concerned I remember having quite a few problems using the Intuit PHP SDK so just curious if that is supported or not?

leftnode 14y ago
As long as the QuickBooks WebConnector software can run with your QuickBooks installation, you should be good to go, we're not restricting it to any specific countries.
- narcissus 14y ago
  OK, but it hasn't specifically been tested with Canadian builds, for example, right? I get that in theory this should work but like I say, when I was using the PHP SDK there was definitely some interesting 'issues' (I believe tax rates for one). Was just curious if this was tested at all. I'm glad to see some developments in this area, that's for sure.