Does V9 link to Quickbooks Pro 2008

[tantronics]

I agree entirely and a workaround would be most welcome, but Actinic have failed to offer either possibility and simply decided to drop it.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Actinic package is great, we have taken the decision that the Actinic developments are more important to us than the Quickbooks ones.

But (to get on my high horse for a moment) we pay our maintenance, we get our support and upgrades and Actinic advertised and promoted support for Quickbooks 2008 until one of their customers pointed out that it didn't work. Now rather than try and fix it, they have simply dropped it, which does seem to be taking the easy option.

I do understand their position and perhaps I am biased as we really don't like Sage, but I do feel like we have just been left in the lurch.

[uh_vm]

David

Few month down the line - did any news come back from Actinic?

I am in a similar situation as yours. Would very much wanted to stay with Quickbooks.

[tantronics]

Hi Vincent,

I'm afraid not, Actinc are blaming Intuit for not being clear on thier interface for the UK product and Intuit are saying they advise all developers to use the Quickbooks SDK.

Bottom line, I believe Actinic have abandoned any plan to interface to QB2008 or later and simply have no concern for those of us who rely on this interface.

We will ultimately be left with the choice to either move to Sage or change our On-line shopping system.

You should be OK up to QB2006 which I believe uses the same interface as QB2002, but if you have already bought QB2008 then you may have to return it to Intuit for a refund (or drop actinic ).

We got a refund from Intuit and received a letter back confirming the refund, the change to the interface and the advice to developers to use the SDK - which I guess is just too much trouble for Actinic to make it work for us.

[markburley]

The lack of interface to QB2008 is also causing us a massive amount of extra work. We were advised to move to QB2008 to help us with the VAT and we were very upset to find the interface did not work.

I know that QB changed the specification but would hope that Actinic will work towards a solution for all their users.

Earlier versions of QB will not be supported for much longer and a move to QB2008 could be forced on many more users.

[Stereo Steve]

My take on this is that if you can't afford to hire writers to do a custom integration for you then you need to choose software that works together off the shelf. My company has just been down an expensive dead end with Iris Accounts Office after being persuaded (against my better judgement) by our accountants that it was the way to go. Actinic started out with a link to Iris Exchequer I believe but this has been dropped. The Iris software is very good in accounting terms but fitting it together with any other package is a pig and we gave up in the end, many grands down the line (drain). We moved to Sage and have not looked back. It just works.

So, unless you can afford to have your integration done for you by serious pros, learn from our mistakes and buy what works out of the box. Harsh but true.

You can't expect Actinic to spend their own pennies on something they don't think is worth it. They have a business too. If you want a pre built link to an accounting package with Actinic then you HAVE to go to Sage. It's not as bad as they make out.

[tantronics]

My take on this is that if you can't afford to hire writers to do a custom integration for you then you need to choose software that works together off the shelf.

So, unless you can afford to have your integration done for you by serious pros, learn from our mistakes and buy what works out of the box. Harsh but true.

You can't expect Actinic to spend their own pennies on something they don't think is worth it. They have a business too. If you want a pre built link to an accounting package with Actinic then you HAVE to go to Sage. It's not as bad as they make out.

But up to the latest release of Quickbooks it did work "Off The Shelf" Actinic have an interface that works fine for UK versions up to and including QB2006 and one that works for the US version (which is the same platform as the UK QB2008 version).

To put it into perspective, it is like Actinic dropping the interface for the 2008 version of Sage because it is too much trouble for them to adapt it to some new feature Sage introduce. How would you and other Sage users manage if that happened!

[Stereo Steve]

I would stick with an older version of Sage. If that was not viable then a total re-think would be in order. I did verify that Sage 2008 worked with V9 before buying and I can't see any reason to upgrade as it does everything we want so far. There are still loads of people using very old versions of Sage I think so hopefully 2008 will last us a good few years.

Maybe Actinic V10 won't work with Sage 2008, who knows? It's one of the perils of buying off the peg software, you can't expect new versions of each program to be constantly matched to the new version of the other program.

I stand by my point that if you want a tailored solution, you have to pay to have it built. If not, you have to choose what's out there. I would also re-itterate that we have had to bin a £2000 accounts package as it wouldn't easily tie into our systems. Sage works off the shelf so we have gone with that.

[cbarling]

This is not a situation that we are at all happy with.

As has been stated:
- previously Actinic interfaced into QuickBooks (UK)
- Intuit/QuickBooks changed the interface so the current method not only didn't but couldn't work
- Actinic tried to get into a dialogue with Intuit about this but couldn't

Unfortunately, the potential development of a new interface (based on the existing Actinic to Quickbooks US interface) has to compete with other priorities. With a ratio of Sage to QuickBooks users of heading for 10 to 1, this development currently isn't scheduled and to be honest I think is unlikely to be scheduled in the near future.

Chris

[tantronics]

I did verify that Sage 2008 worked with V9 before buying.

As did we with Quickbooks, the Actinic site stated that it worked with QB2002 and later.

With a ratio of Sage to QuickBooks users of heading for 10 to 1, this development currently isn't scheduled and to be honest I think is unlikely to be scheduled in the near future.

Which is the conclusion we had come to.

As a QB user I can't say I'm happy with it, but as a Businessman I can see why you have made the decision, that said I do think Actinic could have made some effort to give us a workaround.

I know Mole End were looking into possible workarounds. In the absence of anything from Actinic, perhaps they can come up with something to help - any hope Jan?

[Reefdreams]

I wrote an access query in the end and exported the sales to csv and used this bit of sofware to import them into quickbooks in the end.

http://www.baystateconsulting.com/pr...1TxnWizard.htm

But having now converted to sage and link, I wouldn't look back, so much easier and stock control with assemblies that works.

Steve

[uh_vm]

So for those of us wanted to stay with QuickBooks - we can only upgrade as far as 2006 version

Added to the insult - Support for QuickBooks Regular 2006 and QuickBooks Accountant 2006 will end during April 2009.

Intuit have confirmed that QuickBooks Pro 2006 will continue to be supported beyond April 2009 until multi-currency feature has been added back in future versions.

By that time I might have dropped Actinic and gone with ClickCartPro. At least I have an option to upgrade my accounting software.

Sage Line 50 simply just too expensive for small business like us.

Perhaps it is time to cross over to Mac with MYOB and ClickCartPro combination.

Anyway thanks for all pointers.

[Darren B]

I tend to agree with this thread as integration with external accounting packages is shit, and the fact that it is still only linkable to line 50 is poor IMHO.

All that said and done trying to keep up with the ongoing changes software companies make is never going to be easy and i can understand actinic's reasons for not wishing to spend there time pushing rocks up hills.

Perhaps actinic need to make / run some forum or survey, they have many 1000's of users and i would guess lots are using some form of accounting package so maybe it would be a good idea to actually find out what packages are there, which ones people use and how they integrate with them.

Sage instant accounts would probably suit many, can it be integrated ? i dont know never looked, but i can remember posts about account linking going on for years.

Actinic this is another selling tool, compatibility, you have done it with AP which lets be honest was not done because you like us Get your marketing boys back to work, thats what they are paid for it is not just about selling its about finding out what your customers want.

[tantronics]

I think we probably have to accept that there is not likely to be any improvement in the dialogue between Actinic and Intuit and so there will be no interface between the two.

So moving on, I think I will have a look for threads about users moving from QB to Sage.

We did have a good look at Sage and even had our Accountant in for half a day and ,though there is no doubt it is a very capable piece of software, it is also very complex and not user friendly when compared to QB - and no guarantee that Actinic won't drop this link too if it proves too much trouble to maintain (Sorry Chris.)

So long and thanks for all the fish.

[tantronics]

i would guess lots are using some form of accounting package so maybe it would be a good idea to actually find out what packages are there, which ones people use and how they integrate with them.

Hi Darren,

I missed your reply whilst typing my own, I agree this could be a great selling point.

If Actinic don't do this, then perhaps this is an opportunity for Mole End, something like the "Mole End MASH" but for accounts packages.

[Stereo Steve]

Can you import csv files into QB? Mole End OSOP can create custom single csv files for your orders. This is the route we were going with when we close Iris.
At the end of the day though, Sage link seems pretty fool proof and in my opinion, any manual intervention is going to lead to mistakes sooner or later. If it can be automated, do it.

On Sage, I find it very easy to work with so far. I think it's improved quite a bit of late. Certainly, order processing is a doddle and it's easily possible to customise your invoices to include integrated labels / PPI etc. I like it.