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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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Naren Sulur
Senior Software
Engineer,
Intuit Developer Group
Today’s speakers
Tony Chang
Senior Product
Manager,
Intuit Developer Group
@tonychang107

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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

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The Current State of
App Integrations

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The QuickBooks Ecosystem
E-commerce
Expense
management
Time tracking
Invoicing
Bill/vendor
payments
Payments
gateways
Verticals Payroll
Funding /
Capital
Reporting /
Insights
Tax

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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The QuickBooks Ecosystem
E-commerce
Expense
management
Time tracking
Invoicing
Bill/vendor
payments
Payments
gateways
Verticals
Payroll
Funding /
Capital
Reporting /
Insights
Tax
Accounting API
IN OUT

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Accounting API
Accounting API
Data is stored into QuickBooks database
Data changes the companies books/ledger
Complex business logic ->Strong validations -> API errors
Apps

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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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Designing a Better
Integrations Platform

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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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A new system
Accounting
Apps
Simplified API interface
(V4 Integrations)
Rules
Matching Mapping
Settings
Personalized
Data Approval / Review
Data -in
App configuration /
setup
Smart Platform

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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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Auto categorization
results appended to
data
Entity resolution found
the right customer

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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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User control and confidence – App Settings

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User control and confidence – App Settings
3P App
1. Read settings
2. Push appropriate data

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User control and confidence – App Settings
3P App
1. Push data
Rules

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User control and confidence – Rules
If
Account line description equals
“PayPal Fees”
Then
Set account to ExpenseAccount
from settings

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User control and confidence – Rules

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User control and confidence – Rule hierarchy
Autocategorization
App-defined rules
User-defined rules
Autorecall

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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

26.
Questions?

27.
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