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The QuickBooks SDK

There has been some confusion recently around the future of the QuickBooks SDK.  We currently have no plans to retire the SDK.  We have thousands of SDK developers who rely on that technology to deliver applications and services to our collective customers – So again, it's not going away.

However, this is a good chance to reiterate our strategy.  Our customers are rapidly moving to SaaS and mobile apps to solve a variety of their business needs.  As we think about providing the best experience and the strongest ecosystem for small businesses to find apps that work with their QuickBooks data, we believe the Intuit Partner Platform (IPP) will provide a superior experience for customers and a distinct advantage for Intuit's developer community in the future.

IPP is not perfect today.  The data available is improving, but it's not complete nor simple yet.  We have some apps doing very well on Intuit App Center, but the traffic and first use experience are not yet best in class to deliver great results for developers.  That is why it remains a big priority within our organization, one that we will continue to invest in heavily.  Our platform future is in IPP and our investments will reflect that.

It is my hope to provide a platform that developers are passionate about leveraging.  This is a platform that is easy to adopt, provides beneficial services to improve a developer's offering, and exposes great offerings to lots of relevant customers.  I believe we have the right strategy and are on the right journey to achieve this vision.  But we also know, until our ecosystem chooses to adopt it, we need to continue support to all the great ways to integrate with QuickBooks.

If you look at the improvements in QuickBooks 2013 (improved data sync, one-click attach and launch of 3rd party apps, recommendation engine and more prominent exposure of My Apps, etc.) we are well on our way – but there is much more work to do.  I appreciate your passion for our customers and your patience as we deliver what I believe will be the best SMB platform in the world.

Alex Chriss

Director, Intuit Partner Platform

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Comments

6 responses to “The QuickBooks SDK”

  1. Paul Keister Avatar
    Paul Keister

    It’s nice to hear unqualified support for the SDK. While the IPP is the way of the future and a better application model, there are plenty of things that you can still only do with the SDK, in particular custom development. The commitment expressed in this post is borne out by the latest SDK release, SDK 12, which has substantive improvements over SDK 11.

    Reply
  2. Alex Barnett Avatar
    Alex Barnett

    Paul – thanks for the comment.
    re: IPP’s lack of custom development support. We agree. We’ve actually been spending a good amount of time thinking through how we support this scenario (it’s very common), with best developer and end-customer experience. We’ve got a solution design there, but don’t have it committed on the IPP roadmap. We know we need this! We’ll be asking the developer community for feedback prior to rolling out…so watch this space!
    re: SDK 12 improvement — great to hear this feedback.
    thx!
    Alex Barnett
    Group Manager
    Developer Relations.

    Reply
  3. Charlie Russell Avatar
    Charlie Russell

    Alex, Intuit has stated, many times since the first introduction of IPP, that the SDK will continue to be supported. Anyone who keeps an eye on this must be aware of the continued commitment. As Paul says, with SDK 12 you show that there is continued support. That is great!
    For my part, the issue at this time is the diminished support of the Intuit Marketplace, where SDK developers list their products. Until the IPP is fully developed, many SDK developers still depend on the Intuit Marketplace. If I can’t list a new product there, that product gets no exposure. And, at this point, my applications cannot be moved to the IPP system, as features I need are not supported.

    Reply
  4. John Power Avatar
    John Power

    Thanks for the update Alex. It helps both developers and our mutual customers. For our orginization it provides guidance around how we should allocate resources and plan for the future in a way that continues to support the present.

    Reply
  5. Samuel Dass Avatar
    Samuel Dass

    Do we have to create the IIP application using QuickBase? My company has a web application (created using C#) and I was wondering if we can just link with the IPP without having to learn another environment.
    Also another issue I did not understand is that Intuit will charge developers $5 per month for each customer connection. So if the customer uses two different QB files to sync with, will it be $10 (or $5 because it is just one customer)?
    Thanks

    Reply
  6. Alex Barnett Avatar
    Alex Barnett

    @Samuel – QuickBase has nothing to do with IPP (we did provide QuickBase as a development platform years ago, but not now).
    IPP / Intuit Anywhere is a language agnostic platform for allowing 3rd party apps to integrate with QuickBooks, so as long as your app conforms to the technical guidelines and policies, etc then that’s all that is required.
    Please see https://ipp.developer.intuit.com/0010_Intuit_Partner_Platform/0025_Intuit_Anywhere for details on how to implement
    Re: the Intuit Anywhere pricing. You asked:
    “Also another issue I did not understand is that Intuit will charge developers $5 per month for each customer connection.
    So if the customer uses two different QB files to sync with, will it be $10 (or $5 because it is just one customer)?”
    It will be $10 per month (2 x $5 per QB file connected).
    More details around billing here: https://ipp.developer.intuit.com/0010_Intuit_Partner_Platform/0025_Intuit_Anywhere/0050_Managing_Your_App/2000_Billing_for_IA
    And FAQs here: https://ipp.developer.intuit.com/0010_Intuit_Partner_Platform/0025_Intuit_Anywhere/0080_FAQ
    thanks,
    Alex.
    Alex Barnett
    Group Manager
    Intuit Developer Relations

    Reply

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