Does V9 link to Quickbooks Pro 2008

[Tickle]

I'm probably answering my own question here but I've not seen any specific mention about Verson 9 working working with Quickbooks Pro 2008. Can the Dev's give any indication of timescales for this please?

Thanks

John

[RuralWeb]

This may answer your question http://community.actinic.com/showthr...books+Pro+2008 - V9 is basically the same as V8 so I would imagine the same answers apply

[Tickle]

Thanks Malcolm. I've subscribed to that thread so hopefully the answer will come through soon. After many long evenings of manual accounting I am now living in hope that the near release of V9 would enable more clarification on QB Pro 2008 too.

I found from previous attempts that Sage is just too restrictive, too complex, and too expensive for my needs. And the cheaper and easier versions have no link.

[cdicken]

You are right in that v9 doesn't link to QuickBooks 2008. I can't give any ideas for timescale I'm afraid, as we basically have to write a new integration as they no longer support the previous format of *.iif files. Sorry about that. We'll let you know as soon as there is news.

[Philip M]

Four weeks down the line are we any closer to a timeline on this? - my conversion to v9 will depend upon it. Sorry, No Pressure but . . . .

[cdicken]

Sorry - there's no news on this at the moment. We are having to basically rebuild the link from scratch to work with QB 2008 so it's going to be a while.

[tantronics]

Another 4 weeks on, so Just a little nudge to see where this is up to.

It also lets you know there are more of us out here with QB2008 ready to go, but still battling on with QB2002 while we wait for the link.

[cbarling]

Here's what has happened:

- we built a link into QuickBooks some time ago, using standard QuickBooks functionality. At the time that we did this, the only integration method available in the UK was to use an IIF file. In the US, an API was available. Therefore we had to develop two integrations, one for the UK and one for the US

- with the latest version of QuickBooks, the IIF file import has had the ability to import VAT removed, thus breaking our integration. In the meantime, an API is now available in the UK version, but doesn't appear to be clearly supported or documented. This API is similar to, but not identical to, the US version

- we have found it hard to get support from Intuit, and have had some very difficult experiences with them in the US, resulting in months (literally) of additional and unnecessary work when they decided not to fix a critical bug and we had to largely rewrite an integration in a diferent technology

- we have tried to establish a dialogue with Intuit in the UK. This is because we would like to see if there is a way around the issue, and if not we would like to be assured of adequate support if we decide to integrate using the new API. We have been unable to speak to anyone in authority, and have frankly been fobbed off

So right now, there is no action and we are tending towards a decision to drop QuickBooks support for the latest version of Quickbooks onwards. This is because a new integration will be a lot of work with some big risks. The biggest thing that might influence this thinking would be if every Actinic QuickBooks user lobbied Intuit about the situation, and we were able to open a dialogue with them.

Chris

[tantronics]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reply, but this is a BIG issue for us, we are currently using QB2002 with the link from Actinic 8.5.2.

QB2002 has a problem that requires us to rebuid each night so we have no choice but to change. We looked at Sage and (ignoring the extra financial cost) it is hugely more complex to use and would take us about twice as long to acieve anything - horrible piece of software!

So, based on your comments, QB2008 is not likely to be supported by Actinc Link.

I understand that this could be a "Big Risk" for you to invest in the time to get this working, but for us it critical to our business.

I also think that in fairness, it Actinic gets no response from Intuit, the rest of us have little hope.

In the mean time, as we are within our 30 day return time for QB2008, I will get it sent back till we find some way forward.

[cbarling]

I think that it's true that no one customer can have that much influence on Intuit.

However, if there are several customers that say the same, it's likely to have an impact. If you return the product and give the reason that "QuickBooks no longer interfaces to Actinic", I think that it's very likely that Intuit would look further into it if others had said the same.

Apologies for all of this. It's a very frustrating situation.

Chris

[tantronics]

So, I have just been talking to Intuit.....

They say that IIF import of Sales Receipts/Cash Sales is no longer supported and that the API is the way to go.

They said that developers (like Actinic) should build their interfaces through the Intuit Developer Network (which I guess you have for the US) and that the UK version is now on the same platform as the US version.

I had a quick look on the http://developer.intuit.com site and it looks like the SDK is now the same for UK, US and Canadian versions, so I wouldn't have expected it to be a huge task to modify the US interface to work in the UK. That said I'm not a developer – just a customer!

So as we have no idea when (or if) this will be resolved, we will be sending QB2008 back with our reasons made clear, along with a copy of your comments Chris.

The problem, as I see it, is that users like us are the ones caught out. Intuit don’t support developers like Actinic well enough, Actinic are reluctant to commit lots of effort without this support.

Chris, I do think you need to look at the API again and perhaps with a real commitment to try and get it working rather than just consider dropping it. There are lots of Actinic users with QB that at some point will be upgrading to the latest version. You are actively marketing and selling Actinic as supporting and interfacing with:

“QuickBooks 2002 / QuickBooks 2001 Pro, Premier and Accountant (and higher)”

which it clearly doesn’t.

As you said we (the customer) have to badger Intuit but also, in my opinion Actinic, into making this work.

(As you may have guessed, I really, really, really don’t want to use Sage!)

[HD Direct]

Just upgraded to QB 2008 and can't believe what I am reading on this thread.

Spoke to Actinic about epos and whilst it links to Actinic Ecommerce it wont link to Quickbooks (We are moving back to Quickbooks from Mamut). Bought Accupos EPOS to link to Quickbooks and planned on using Actinic ecomm to link into Quickbooks so that we were only running one stock database.

Does anyone have any ideas that will allow us to sell across three channels, with full accounting capabilities but allow us to keep using Actinic. (kinda glad we havent spent money to upgrade to version 8 or 9 now)

Oh and cbarling, on the subject of dialogue the guys at Mamut kinda made the same claims against Actinic that you are making about Intuit when we enquired about integrating Mamut with Actinic.

[Jan]

We have had a few people asking us about this at Mole End and have come up with a workaround. Over the next month or two we will be developing a simple interface as well. It won't be a full interface like the one that Actinic provide but may help some people in the interim. Details can be found at the URL below :

http://moleend.helpserve.com/index.p...barticleid=109

Regards,

[tantronics]

Hi Andy,

As yet we have fond no way round the problem for QB 2008, so we ended up sending back our copy of 2008 and reverting to QB2002. This was the only way we could continue to use both QB and Actinic.

In reality the improvements accross the versons of QB are less significant to us than the improvements to Actinic, so we took the stance that for now we will live with using an older version of QB.

But Actinic ahave only recently added the note about not supporting QB2008, and when we upgraded it was clearly stated as being compatible and supported.

I am enclined to think that Actinic and Intuit are just not prepared to go to the trouble of making this happen for us.

Jan, great to hear you are looking at ways of helping out with this, but I can't help but think that if you are successfull, then why couldn't Actinic have made the effort to make their software do "What It Said On The Tin".

[Jan]

Jan, great to hear you are looking at ways of helping out with this, but I can't help but think that if you are successfull, then why couldn't Actinic have made the effort to make their software do "What It Said On The Tin".

This is a workaround not a solution - there is a big difference.

Regards,