QODBC News December 2004

QODBC News December 2004

December, 2004
Issue 2

Contents - In This Issue:

QODBC Version 5 Released/New Features
Special Limited Time Savings Offer
Intuit SDK4 Utilizes FLEXquarters QuickBooks Data Schema
FLEXquarters Products Called “Awesome Add-ons” by Sleeter Group
New Help Desk System Implemented for Tech Support
Tech Tip from the Support Desk
Pass It Along

QODBC Version 5 the plug-in for QuickBooks data has been released for all USA & Canada versions of QuickBooks 2005 Pro and higher editions. One of the major issues that Intuit has addressed in QuickBooks 2005 is ability to limit response data returned from add, modify, and query operations to specified field(s). This eliminates time spent handling unwanted data and decrease memory requirements which has been an issue with the previous versions of QuickBooks applications using the SDK and increases the response speed of QODBC Version 5. 

Remote access is included in this version, so a QuickBooks user no longer has the constraints of having QuickBooks loaded on the same machine as QODBC & your front-end application of choice! A QuickBooks user can now be running anywhere - on a local area network, or even over the Internet, and has the ability to read and write QuickBooks data via QODBC Version 5. Now a CPA or Pro Advisor has the ability to read/write their clients QuickBooks data or do reporting without the need of doing time consuming file transfers. Best of all the clients simply need to have the Free Basic Edition of QODBC installed on their machines to use the unencrypted remote product. See our QODBC Remote page for more information.

Also supported in this version is the QuickBooks Online Edition, a web browser based version of QuickBooks that is paid for monthly. At this time the number of tables that QODBC Version 5 supports is limited, but will be expanded to handle more tables in very soon. See our QuickBooks Online page for more information.

Existing QODBC users can download QODBC Version 5 for free. Those upgrading QuickBooks to the 2005 version can purchase a discounted QODBC upgrade.

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Special Limited Time Savings Offer

Special… From now until January 15, 2005 receive special savings on all new QODBC Purchases!
 

Purchase the QODBC Read Only edition on-line and save $10.00 off the retail price
by entering DEC1 in the source/offer code on the secure ordering page!

Purchase the QODBC Read/Write edition on-line and save $20.00 off the retail price
by entering DEC1 in the source/offer code on the secure ordering page!

Purchase the QODBC Web/Server edition on-line and save $50.00 off the retail price
by entering DEC1 in the source/offer code on the secure ordering page!

Upgrades…If you have previously purchased the USA or Canada version of QODBC, you can upgrade to QODBC Version 5 for the following:

2002-2004 Read Only Edition $50.00
2002-2004 Read/Write Edition $100.00
2002-2004 Web/Server Edition $250.00

Click to order from the web, if you have any ordering questions, call 248-620-2400.

Please Note: Proof of purchase is required for upgrades. All editions of QODBC prior to Version 5 will not work with QuickBooks 2005. Offer for USA and Canada regions only.

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Intuit SDK4 Utilizes FLEXquarters QuickBooks Data Schema

Our technical team at FLEXquarters Solutions Group has spent a great deal of time documenting the structure of QuickBooks data in an effort to help determine where field information comes from in QuickBooks, which tables contain the information you want, how tables can be related and sample SQL statements. All this documentation of the underlying data structure of QuickBooks was done so our QODBC customers would have a better understanding of the “behind the scenes” of QuickBooks and help better utilize our products.

Brad Waddell President of FLEXquarters was contacted by Harvey Alcabes, Intuit SDK Product Manager regarding our QuickBooks documentation and Harvey was very impressed with the work put forth on the project. After further conversations and some guidelines from Intuit, we are very pleased to announce that the Intuit SDK4 installer will link more than 30,000 IDN members to our web site for comprehensive QuickBooks documentation. Many kudos to those involved with our documentation!  Click to view the full data schema.  The Intuit SDK page refers to our tool as the "QBSDK Field Explorer."

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FLEXquarters Products Called “Awesome Add-ons” by Sleeter Group

Brad Waddell, President of FLEXquarters.com LLC and Chuck Vigeant, Director of  FLEXquarters Solutions recently attended the Intuit CA Conference for Pro Advisors in Niagara Falls and the Sleeter Group Conference for QuickBooks Consultants in Boca Raton. Both were pleasantly surprised with the knowledge gained by talking to the attendees, and learned “how we as a company could best assist them and their clients needs by providing total solutions, not only the tools & utilities.”

The Sleeter Group a nationally recognized leader specializing in QuickBooks software training for accountants, bookkeepers and small business owners, held a QuickBooks Consultants Conference in Boca Raton FL on Nov. 3-5 2004 where a demonstration of their "Ten Awesome Add-ons" for QuickBooks included FLEXquarters products. Dawn Scranton, a well know QuickBooks Pro Advisor and author demonstrated the QReportGrabber and QTableGrabber to the attendees and both products were greeted with great reception.

Doug Sleeter, one of the most respected QuickBooks consultants in the country had this to say: “Chuck's products are fantastic. Live links between Excel and QuickBooks means that you can create your own Excel templates for whatever report you want, and then "HOOK" it into QuickBooks so the data gets refreshed in your excel spreadsheet as the QuickBooks data changes. That's what I call awesome... Our definition of an Awesome add-on is an SDK application that enables the QuickBooks consultant to do their job more professionally, efficiently, and profitably. Awesome add-on is an SDK application that enables the QuickBooks consultant to do their job more professionally, efficiently, and profitably.

These Applications:

  • Apply Horizontally Across Industry Markets

    •

  • Solve What QuickBooks Doesn’t

  • Make Consultants Look Better

  • Make Consultants Richer (or Less Poor)

  • Improve Consultants Efficiency

  • Make us say “OK” - When we used to say “No Way”

There were many more awesome add-ons we discussed. For a complete list of addons we presented at the conference, go to the Sleeter Group Awesome Add-ons page.”

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New Help Desk System Implemented for Tech Support

With the increased amount of pre-sales and technical questions due to the popularity of our products we had to rethink our previous methods of handling these types of phone calls and email. Many times email to us or from us was being eliminated by spam filters and answers to questions or resolutions to problems were not resolved. Our sales office was also getting inundated with pre sales technical questions that only one of our tech staff could answer with certainty. So to serve you in a more efficient manner we have implemented a new support system which is a web based ticket system, that you as a customer can input into directly with a much faster response time. 

The new Help Desk system has an FAQ which ranks questions by popularity and our knowledge base can be searched by key words for results, often finding the answers immediately. The FAQ and knowledge base are growing on a daily basis, since this is a newly implemented system it will take time to populate, so if you can’t find what you’re looking for within the Help Desk, submit a support ticket. Your question or technical problem will receive a same day reply even if you are just evaluating the products or a fully registered user. We now have 5 technical people monitoring this system in order to provide you with resource direction or answers to your questions. Click to learn more about the Help Desk System.

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Tech Tip from the Support Desk

One of the most frequently asked questions submitted to our technical staff is “How do I join the Invoice table to the InvoiceLine?”

The SQL statement would be:

SELECT * FROM {OJ Invoice INNER JOIN InvoiceLine ON (Invoice.TxnID = InvoiceLine.TxnID)}

 But, this is not necessary. In QODBC all the child tables, like InvoiceLine contain all the fields from the Invoice (parent table). Simply do your select using InvoiceLine and reference the same fields you would in the Invoice table. This will increase your performance by many times.

As a general rule of thumb, if you need to reference any field from a table that has the child table name in it, like InvoiceLineItemRefListID, then use the child table (InvoiceLine) otherwise use the parent table (Invoice)This applies to all other parent, child (line and txn) tables.

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Pass It Along

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Send comments using our feedback form. FLEXquarters.com LLC is located at 2620 S maryland Pkwy #557 Las Vegas NV 89109 USA. Ph: 248-620-2400

Copyright © 2004, FLEXquarters.com LLC All rights reserved. FLEXquarters, the QODBC logo are trademarks and/or service marks of FLEXquarters.com LLC in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners and should be treated as such.

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