Quickbooks-Ruby

Integration with Quickbooks Online via the Intuit Data Services v3 REST API.

NOTE: If you are looking for the v2 API then you need to use my other library - Quickeebooks:

https://github.com/ruckus/quickeebooks

This library communicates with the Quickbooks Data Services v3 API, documented at:

Data Services v3

Changes in 0.1.x from 0.0.x

0.1.0 introduced a backwards-incompatible change in how boolean attributes are handled. As of 0.1.0 any boolean like:

xml_accessor :active?, :from => 'Active'

will be accessible via active?. Thereby eliminating custom code like:

def active?
  active.to_s == 'true'
end

Now a call to active? that is not set will return nil. Otherwise it return true / false. Moreover, there is no longer a getter method e.g. active (without the trailing ?).

Requirements

This has been tested on 1.9.3, 2.0.0, and 2.1.0.

Ruby 1.8.7 and 1.9.2 are not supported.

Dependencies

Gems:

• oauth
• roxml : Workhorse for (de)serializing objects between Ruby & XML
• nokogiri : XML parsing
• active_model : For validations

Sandbox Mode

An API app provides two sets of OAuth key for production and development. Since October 22, 2014, only Sandbox Companies are allowed to connected to the QBO via the development key. The end-point for sandbox mode is https://sandbox-quickbooks.api.intuit.com.

By default, the gem runs in production mode. If you prefer to develop / test the integration with the development key, you need to config the gem to run in sandbox mode:

Quickbooks.sandbox_mode = true

Getting Started & Initiating Authentication Flow with Intuit

What follows is an example using Rails but the principles can be adapted to any other framework / pure Ruby.

Create a Rails initializer with:

QB_KEY = "your apps Intuit App Key"
QB_SECRET = "your apps Intuit Secret Key"

$qb_oauth_consumer = OAuth::Consumer.new(QB_KEY, QB_SECRET, {
    :site                 => "https://oauth.intuit.com",
    :request_token_path   => "/oauth/v1/get_request_token",
    :authorize_url        => "https://appcenter.intuit.com/Connect/Begin",
    :access_token_path    => "/oauth/v1/get_access_token"
})

To start the authentication flow with Intuit you include the Intuit Javascript and on a page of your choosing you present the "Connect to Quickbooks" button by including this XHTML:

<!-- somewhere in your document include the Javascript -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://appcenter.intuit.com/Content/IA/intuit.ipp.anywhere.js"></script>

<!-- configure the Intuit object: 'grantUrl' is a URL in your application which kicks off the flow, see below -->
<script>
intuit.ipp.anywhere.setup({menuProxy: '/path/to/blue-dot', grantUrl: '/path/to/your-flow-start'});
</script>

<!-- this will display a button that the user clicks to start the flow -->
<ipp:connectToIntuit></ipp:connectToIntuit>

Your Controller action (the grantUrl above) should look like this:

  def authenticate
    callback = quickbooks_oauth_callback_url
    token = $qb_oauth_consumer.get_request_token(:oauth_callback => callback)
    session[:qb_request_token] = token
    redirect_to("https://appcenter.intuit.com/Connect/Begin?oauth_token=#{token.token}") and return
  end

Where quickbooks_oauth_callback_url is the absolute URL of your application that Intuit should send the user when authentication succeeds. That action should look like:

def oauth_callback
	at = session[:qb_request_token].get_access_token(:oauth_verifier => params[:oauth_verifier])
	token = at.token
	secret = at.secret
	realm_id = params['realmId']
	# store the token, secret & RealmID somewhere for this user, you will need all 3 to work with Quickbooks-Ruby
end

NOTE: If you are using Rails 4.1, you will need to wrap the token in Marshal.load and Marshal.dump:

session[:qb_request_token] = Marshal.dump(token)

Marshal.load(session[:qb_request_token]).get_access_token(:oauth_verifier => params[:oauth_verifier])

⭐ Also, check out regular Quickbooks-Ruby contributor, minimul's, article Integrating Rails and QuickBooks Online via the version 3 API for a step-by-step guide along with screencasts.

Creating an OAuth Access Token

Once you have your users OAuth Token & Secret you can initialize your OAuth Consumer and create a OAuth Client using the $qb_oauth_consumer you created earlier in your Rails initializer:

access_token = OAuth::AccessToken.new($qb_oauth_consumer, access_token, access_secret)

Persisting the Credentials

Most likely you will want to persist the OAuth access credentials so you don't have to connect to QBO each and every time.

QBO allows the access credentials to live for 6 months, and after 5 months they can be renewed. You will get an error if you try and renew prior to 5 months. Thus, you will need to keep track of the dates and manage the renewal process yourself.

An example database table would have fields likes:

access_token varchar(255),
access_secret varchar(255)
company_id varchar(255),
token_expires_at datetime # Set to 6.months.from_now upon insertion
reconnect_token_at datetime # Set to 5.months.from_now upon insertion

Then you will want to have a scheduled task / cron which runs nightly and runs thru your tokens and checks for records where reconnect_token_at >= now() and it then performs the following logic:

expiring_tokens.each do |record|
  access_token = OAuth::AccessToken.new($qb_oauth_consumer, record.access_token, record.access_secret)
  service = Quickbooks::Service::AccessToken.new
  service.access_token = access_token
  service.company_id = record.company_id
  result = service.renew

  # result is an AccessTokenResponse, which has fields +token+ and +secret+
  # update your local record with these new params
  record.access_token = result.token
  record.access_secret = result.secret
  record.token_expires_at = 6.months.from_now.utc
  record.reconnect_token_at = 5.months.from_now.utc
  record.save!
end

Getting Started - Retrieving a list of Customers

The general approach is you first instantiate a Service object based on the entity you would like to retrieve. Lets retrieve a list of Customers:

service = Quickbooks::Service::Customer.new
service.company_id = "123" # also known as RealmID
service.access_token = access_token # the OAuth Access Token you have from above

# Equivalent to Quickbooks::Service::Customer.new(:company_id => "123", :access_token => access_token)

customers = service.query() # Called without args you get the first page of results

# yields

customers.entries = [ .. array of Quickbooks::Model::Customer objects .. ]
customers.start_position = 1 # the current position in the paginated set
customers.max_results = 20 # the maximum number of results in this query set

Under the hood Intuit uses a simple SQL-like dialect for retrieving objects, the above no-arg use of query() issued a Select * From Customer.

You can issue your own query by passing the complete and valid query as the first argument:

customers.query("Select Id, GivenName From Customer")

Each Entity has different fields you can retrieve & filter on. Refer to Intuit documentation for details.

Pagination

Do not pass pagination parameters in your query - pass them as additional options, using :page and :per_page:

# to use the default query
customers.query(nil, :page => 2, :per_page => 25)

# to use a custom query: find customers updated recently and only select a few attributes
query = "Select Id, GivenName From Customer Where Metadata.LastUpdatedTime>'2013-03-13T14:50:22-08:00' Order By Metadata.LastUpdatedTime"
customers.query(query, :page => 2, :per_page => 25)

Querying in Batches

Often one needs to retrieve multiple pages of records of an Entity type and loop over them all. Fortunately there is the query_in_batches collection method:

query = nil
Customer.query_in_batches(query, per_page: 1000) do |batch|
  batch.each do |customer|
    # ...
  end
end

The first argument to query_in_batches is the query (which can be nil to retrieve the default items in that collection). If you're are running a custom Query then pass it instead.

The second argument is the options, which are optional. By default, the options are per_page: 1000.

Retrieving a single object

You can retrieve a specific Intuit object like so:

customer = service.fetch_by_id("99")
puts customer.company_name
=> "Acme Enterprises"

Updating an object

By default updating an object will un-set any attributes that are NOT specified in the update request. That is, the update is NOT sparse by default. Thus, be careful as you might accidentally unset attributes that you did not specify.

Example:

# fetch a Customer to change their name
customer = service.fetch_by_id("99")
customer.company_name = "Neo Pets"
service.update(customer)

In the above example since we retrieved all fields and then just changed a single attribute, we have given the "complete" entity back to Intuit and effectively only the name is changed.

If you don't have the complete object on hand and only want to change a couple of attributes without un-setting what you are not specifying than you want to use a sparse update:

# update a Customer's name when we only know their ID
customer = Quickbooks::Model::Customer.new
customer.id = 99
customer.company_name = "New Company Name"
service.update(customer, :sparse => true)

Generating an Invoice

A complete example on generating a basic invoice:

# Given a Customer with ID=99 lets invoice them for an Item with ID=500
invoice = Quickbooks::Model::Invoice.new
invoice.customer_id = 99
invoice.txn_date = Date.civil(2013, 11, 20)
invoice.doc_number = "1001" # my custom Invoice # - can leave blank to have Intuit auto-generate it

line_item = Quickbooks::Model::InvoiceLineItem.new
line_item.amount = 50
line_item.description = "Plush Baby Doll"
line_item.sales_item! do |detail|
  detail.unit_price = 50
  detail.quantity = 1
  detail.item_id = 500 # Item ID here
end

invoice.line_items << line_item

service = Quickbooks::Service::Invoice.new
service.company_id = "123"
service.access_token = access_token
created_invoice = service.create(invoice)
puts created_invoice.id
=> 234

Notes: line_item.amount must equal the unit_price * quantity in the sales detail packet - otherwise Intuit will raise an exception.

Generating a SalesReceipt

#Invoices, SalesReceipts etc can also be defined in a single command
salesreceipt = Quickbooks::Model::SalesReceipt.new({
  customer_id: 99,
  txn_date: Date.civil(2013, 11, 20),
  payment_ref_number: "111", #optional payment reference number/string - e.g. stripe token
  deposit_to_account_id: 222, #The ID of the Account entity you want the SalesReciept to be deposited to
  payment_method_id: 333 #The ID of the PaymentMethod entity you want to be used for this transaction
})
salesreceipt.auto_doc_number! #allows Intuit to auto-generate the transaction number

line_item = Quickbooks::Model::Line.new
line_item.amount = 50
line_item.description = "Plush Baby Doll"
line_item.sales_item! do |detail|
  detail.unit_price = 50
  detail.quantity = 1
  detail.item_id = 500 # Item (Product/Service) ID here
end

salesreceipt.line_items << line_item

service = Quickbooks::Service::SalesReceipt.new({access_token: access_token, company_id: "123" })
created_receipt = service.create(salesreceipt)

Notes: In order to auto-generate transaction numbers using salesreceipt.auto_doc_number!, the 'Custom Transaction Numbers' setting under Company Settings>Sales Form Entry must be unchecked within the Quickbooks account you are posting to.

Deleting an Object

Use Service#delete which returns a boolean on whether the delete operation succeeded or not.

service.delete(customer)
=> returns boolean

Email Addresses

Email attributes are not just strings, they are top-level objects, e.g. EmailAddress on a Customer for instance.

A Customer has a setter method to make assigning an email address easier.

customer = Quickbooks::Model::Customer.new
customer.email_address = "[email protected]"

Batch Operations

You can batch operations such creating an Invoice, updating a Customer, etc. The maximum batch size is 25 objects.

How to use:

batch_req = Quickbooks::Model::BatchRequest.new

customer = Quickbooks::Model::Customer.new
# build the customer as needed
...

item = Quickbooks::Model::Item.new
# build the item as needed
...

batch_req.add("bId1", customer, "create")
batch_req.add("bId2", item, "create")

# Add more items to create/update as needed, up to 25

batch_service = Quickbooks::Service::Batch.new
batch_response = batch_service.make_request(batch_req)
batch_response.response_items.each do |res|
  puts res.bId
  puts res.fault? ? "error" : "success"
end

For complete details on Batch Operations see: https://developer.intuit.com/docs/0025_quickbooksapi/0050_data_services/020_key_concepts/00700_batch_operation

Query Building / Filtering

Intuit requires that complex queries be escaped in a certain way. To make it easier to build queries that will be accepted I have provided a basic Query builder.

util = Quickbooks::Util::QueryBuilder.new

# the method signature is: clause(field, operator, value)
clause1 = util.clause("DisplayName", "LIKE", "%O'Halloran")
clause2 = util.clause("CompanyName", "=", "Smith")

service.query("SELECT * FROM Customer WHERE #{clause1} AND #{clause2}")

Logging

Quickbooks.log = true

By default, logging is directed at STDOUT, but another target may be defined, e.g. in Rails

Quickbooks.logger = Rails.logger
Quickbooks.log = true
# Pretty-printing logged xml is true by default
Quickbooks.log_xml_pretty_print = false

Entities Implemented

Entity	Create	Update	Query	Delete	Fetch by ID	Other
Account	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Attachable	no	no	no	no	no
Bill	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Bill Payment	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Class	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Company Info	n/a	n/a	yes	n/a	yes
Credit Memo	yes	yes	yes	yes	no
Customer	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Department	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Employee	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Entitlements	no	no	no	no	no
Estimate	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Invoice	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Item	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Journal Entry	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Payment	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
PaymentMethod	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Preferences	n/a	no	yes	n/a	yes
Purchase	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Purchase Order	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Refund Receipt	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Sales Receipt	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Sales Rep	no	no	no	no	no
Sales Tax	no	no	no	no	no
Sales Term	no	no	no	no	no
Tax Code	no	no	yes	no	no
Tax Rate	no	no	yes	no	no
Term	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Time Activity	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Tracking Class	no	no	no	no	no
Vendor	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Vendor Credit	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes

Related GEMS

quickbooks-ruby-base: Complements quickbooks-ruby by providing a base class to handle routine tasks like creating a model, service, and displaying information.

TODO

• Implement other Line Item types, e.g. DescriptionLineDetail for Invoices

Author

Cody Caughlan

Contributors

quickbooks-ruby has been a community effort and I am extremely thankful for all the amazing contributors.

License

The MIT License

Copyright (c) 2013

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.