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The company I work for has a massive online catalog with real time inventories from several distributors. Each one of our clients can also add their own products to sell on their Web site. To help each retailer keep track of sales and their own inventories we offer various export functionalities.
For example, in your order management section you can click to download a Quickbooks file (IIF format) which holds all the latest orders since your last download. The download script builds the IIF file and prompts you to save it. Once saved, you can import the file in Quickbooks.
The IIF file is built exactly according to the specifications provided in Quickbooks' help file, with all the headers and everything. When our client goes to import the file, Quickbooks happily reports that "the data was imported successfully".However, the actual invoice is not generated. There's no trace of the transaction.
Anyone who has any clue what's going on? When I called Intuit's support number (which, by the way is way too expensive) they simply told me that they "do not support this particular functionality in Quickbooks. It's there, in the manual, but we don't support it." Why? Well, finally he admitted that the functionality is too buggy in Quickbooks, that transaction imports are unstable.
Ok, I know this can be done. I've read about it in the past, and I know that others have been able to do it successfully. Anyone who has a clue? Anyone who has worked with invoices/transactions in Quickbooks before? All other imports work just fine (customer lists, item lists, etc - just not transactions).
Any help is appreciated... I'm at my wits' end :(
bigredconsulting.com/downloadpages/DownloadNow.htm
If it works, you could try examining the file it outputs and adjusting your code accordingly.
Still, it puzzles me... especially since the other imports work fine. And they are rendered by the same engine
In 1999 I wrote a commercial Affiliate Tracking System that allowed the affiliate program manager to export commissions in IIF format. It was extremely frustrating trying to figure out the format and integrating it with Quickbooks. The support on the Intuit website wasn't very good, they do provide examples, but without much of an explanation.
I'm not an accountant, and have very little experience with QB, so I had no idea if the fields were formatted properly, or if all required fields were being sent. I could see they were making their way into QB, but I didn't know if it was complete enough to meet other accounting needs.
Over a three week period through trial and error, I finally produced an IIF file that imported into QB '99, and allowed us to print commission checks. Apparently it still works with newer versions of Quickbooks, but I've moved onto other projects and haven't gotten a chance to test it myself.
At one time I believe Intuit provided a developer package that goes into more detail about the IIF format and other Intuit systems. I don't know if they still offer it, but its work a shot.. even if they can get you an older copy. I don't think the basic IIF structure has changed much in the last few years.
Feel free to sticky me if you need a hand.
[edited by: Travoli at 6:46 pm (utc) on Nov. 12, 2003]
[edited by: sun818 at 7:57 pm (utc) on Nov. 12, 2003]
And, there are no other characters than ASCII and tabs.
Quickbooks has no problem importing other IIF files rendered by the same engine... Just this one.
The funny thing is that Quickbooks complains about "line 9", which is ENDTRNS.
I can sticky you a copy of the file if that would help.
It's a mess :(
Here’s what happens when importing invoices:
Imagine an order with two items, shipping, and tax...
I go to import it in Quickbooks...
It lists the two items and shipping in the item list...
And in the tax field it enters the tax amount
It prints and looks all pretty
All is well
Imagine the same order... But this time it has just one more item
Otherwise everything is exactly the same. There's just ONE more item line
This time, the three items are listed in the item list..
Shipping is now listed in the tax field...
And tax isn't listed at all
However, the order total is still correct
And, it still prints correctly...
And it still puts all the info into the correct accounts and stuff...
Now, imagine the same order with a total of fifteen items...
Only the first item shows up in the item list...
The second item shows up in the tax field...
And nothing else
Still prints correctly though...
Now, how about an order with just one item?
Quickbooks crashes...
I wish I could help with the problems you're having with QBs, but the comment above sounds ALL too familiar. I bought QB Pro 2003 in January of this year. It worked great. Until October. When it stopped emailing forms from the program to the email recipient, EVEN THO it reports that the form was sent successfully, forcing me to WRITE OUT the invoice, receipt or statement in an EMAIL message. I have searched for an answer to this problem, and like it's been noted, QUICKBOOKS TECHNICAL SUPPORT FEE IS LUDICROUS! planetfeedback.com provides an area where you can complain by sending a letter to the president of the company. I recently found that INTUIT has more than a handfull of unhappy customers.
Now it works like a dream.
2) Create the invoice the way you normally would, with one line for each line item in the order, lines for shipping and taxes
3) At the very end of your invoice, create a number of lines that are absolutely blank (except for the required SPL) other than ENDGRP in the EXTRA field. The number of lines depends on the number of lineitems. Count the number of actual SPL lines (non-blank ones), and subtract 1. That gives you the number of these ENDGRP lines you need. So, for an invoice with three line items, one shipping line, and one tax line, you would need four ENDGRP lines. For an invoice with 38 line items, one shipping line, some other misc. charge line, and one tax line, you would need 40 ENDGRP lines.
