If you are wanting to build the new Web 2.0 RIA's, then the Adobe FlexBuilder 2 product shows great promise in developing cross-platform applications which will run on Windows, MacIntosh, and Linux. I am absolutely amazed at how easy it makes the development process for creating mashups that can access data from multiple datasources.

I have built a sample application which accesses Quickbooks data live thru webservice calls to our the Is2 QB webservice server that I built to analyze the possibilities of being able to develop Quickbooks interface applications.

You may check out the wsdl for the xml webservice server by clicking here:
http://shop.is2software.com:24000/wsdl.

View the application at http://shop.is2software.com/is2qb/bin/is2qb.html.

( Note: You will need the latest FlashPlayer 9 Beta to run the application. This is available at www.adobe.com in the Labs section. I have found that uninstalling your existing Flashplayer and then installing the Flashplayer 9 is best. ) .

The program demonstrates several capabilities which should intrigue anyone who develops applications with the Quickbooks SDK.

1. Browse accounts, customers, vendor, and service items.
2. Enter new customer, vendor, account, service item.
3. Modify a customer, vendor, account or service item.
4. Enter a new or edit a customer invoice with line items chosen from a item lookup. Lookup customer terms, sales rep, and shipper method. Modify line items. Add new items when editting an invoice.
5. Run a raw xml statement. Make it anything. Host query. Customer query. Add a new account. Anything that is valid.
6. See returned xml message responses for queries, adds, and modifies.

Question? Can the xml webservices be accessed by programs other than a Flex 2 application. Answer: Absolutely. This is a soap server that is returning QBxml responses. We just thought it would be interesting to show it with a web interface that is similiar to a windows interface. But we originally built a Windows client to test the webservice methods retrieving account, customer, vendor, and invoice data.

Question? What is the setup being used for this demonstration?
Answer: We are running a Quickbooks 2006 Premier on a VMware partition. The Is2 QB Xml server is running on port 24000. The application was built with Adobe Flex Builder 2 beta 3 which generates a flash player 9 application. FlexBuilder 2 beta 3 is currently available as a FREE download to test with.

Our soap server is in constant development at this point in the attempt to surface all the needed functionality to build a full accounting frontend that could be used in creating mashups from multiple data sources in addition to the Quickbooks data. Each day new functionality is added. I am concentrating on the accounts receivable areas in order build a Flex 2 shopping cart capable of showing items with DataExt custom fields for the picture urls that would be able to process a credit card purchase and store immediately to Quickbooks as a sales receipt invoice.

Let me know what you think.

You can email me directly at billbrittain@is2software.com if you have questions.