Developer Track presentation from QuickBooks Connect San Jose (Nov 2017). Explore how staged transactions improves app experience for developer and customer alike.
Data Integrations that Delight! QuickBooks Connect San Jose 2017
1. Tony Chang
Senior Product Manager, Intuit Developer group
@tonychang107
Naren Sulur
Senior Software Engineer, Intuit Developer group
Data integrations
that delight!
11/16/2017
#QBConnect | WiFi: QBConnect Password not required
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What it takes today to build a high quality data integration with
QuickBooks
How we’re reimagining our integration platform to provide easier ways
for developers to integrate, with better results for our users.
Learning objectives
6. It doesn't sync customer information and
does not correctly sync sales - I might as
well manually enter them if I have to make
the above corrections”
- App disconnect feedback
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App developer tasks
Get available app data
into QuickBooks
Ensure QuickBooks
accounting entries are
complete and correct
Ensure each user is
satisfied with the way data
is imported
To build a great integration with QuickBooks, I need to:
Accounting related QuickBooks company
related
App related
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Challenges
Multiple API Errors
Name already exists
Account period closed
Duplicate doc number
Invalid reference id
Business validation error
Difficult to build
Multiple pieces of information need to
be fetched from QuickBooks in order to
push data to QuickBooks
User facing issues
Missing transactions, duplicated data
Complex mapping/settings
Apps need additional settings or
configuration to ensure data can be
passed to QuickBooks correctly
Results in
‘Strongly typed’ schema
Data must adhere to QBO definitions
such as an ‘invoice’, a ‘sales receipt’
etc.
Multiple data feeds
Data may come from different apps, banking
feeds, manual methods
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An ideal integration
Easy to build
Through APIs that are simple
to understand and use
Complete and correct
Gives the user complete confidence while reducing
manual work
Tailored to the user
Easy to customize and personalize for different
types of users and use cases
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Simplified API interface
Weakly Typed
No obligation to decipher / decide on which
QuickBooks transactions type to use
Light validation
No business logic validation, only formats
Data instead of references
No obligation to use reference IDs
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Intelligent automation
Matching
Incoming data is matched against manually entered data or
other incoming data (from apps/banks) to prevent
duplication of transactions and to associate related data.
Entity resolution
Raw data is compared against existing QuickBooks lists
(customers, vendors, employees, products, taxes, etc.) to
identify likely matches or allow for adding new objects on
the fly.
Auto categorization / Auto recall
Based on the data available, and based on prior user
behavior, QuickBooks infers the account/category that
transactions should be recorded to in the user’s books.
Sales data
(what/who)
3P app
Payment data
(amount/ processing
fees)
Processor
Deposit amount
Bank
Last time
Customer: John
Amount $100
Category: ?? -> Field Services
Next Time
Customer: John
Amount $110
Category: Field Services
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User control and confidence
App settings
Custom key/value pairs for developers to use. User can configure within QuickBooks.
No need to build additional settings pages on 3P apps.
Rules
If/then conditional automation that runs on incoming data. Can be set up by users OR
by app developers. Customized integration logic can be placed in QuickBooks rather
than in 3P apps.
Reviews and approvals
Users can trace incoming data back to its source and decide whether to auto-add data
into their books or to review and edit.
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App developer tasks
Get available app data into
QuickBooks
Ensure QuickBooks
accounting entries are
complete and correct
Ensure each user is
satisfied with the way data
is imported
To build a great integration with QuickBooks:
App developer can
focus here
Responsibility of QuickBooks platform with
contribution from app developer
27. The QuickBooks Connect 2017 Conference App
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