Access Transactions in Quickbooks Online

Question

I'm using trying to interface with Quickbooks Online for an internal application that will push and pull transactions using qbXML. My problem is that I can't figure out which message I need to send in order to list and add the items listed under the "Banking" > "Registers" page. I've gone through the messages listed in the Onscreen Reference for Intuit Software Development Kits and none of them seem to give me this information.

Also, does anyone know of a list that explains what each message does?

Answer 1

If you're in a bank account register, you're writing checks. There are 3 kinds of checks in QuickBooks:

1. Expense checks - if you added a check directly in the register window, you would be adding an expense check.
2. Bill payment checks - these appear in a check register, but you can only add them with a bill payment operation.
3. Payroll checks - these appear in the check register, but they can only be added using the Intuit Payroll Service or by enabling manual payroll (almost no one does manual payroll in actual practice, but it is good to know about for testing purposes).

The first 2 types of checks have their own message type: the Add/Mod Check and Add/Mod BillPayment messages respectively. Payroll checks can't be added by the SDK. You can query all 3 types using a Transaction query message. I should also mention that it's possible to add an entry in any register using a journal entry, but that's not a good idea unless you are certain you know what you're doing.

I hate to tell you this, but the best reference for QuickBooks messages is the one you're already using. There are also XML files in the <sdk root>\docs directory that describe SDK operations. But there is really no substitute for understanding how QuickBooks operates from a user's perspective.

If you're going to be working with QuickBooks integration, it's a good idea to make friends with one or more QuickBooks Pro Advisors so you can run these kinds of issue by them. The relationship is generally mutually beneficial, since QuickBooks Pro Advisors often find it handy to have access to an SDK programmer.