"Developers have quickly realized that Intuit's 'Right for My Business' strategy is a gateway to reaching small business owners who want specific solutions geared to their respective industries," said Mark Bercow, vice president of the Intuit Developer Network. "Providing enriched tool sets for these developers is just one way Intuit is working to better serve the needs of the developer community and our QuickBooks customers. With this release, we are one step closer to realizing our NED2 - Never Enter Data Twice - vision, resulting in a more seamless user experience."

The QuickBooks SDK v2.1 includes tools that provide remote data sharing with QuickBooks, and expanded support for employee and company objects and modifying transactions. Based on developer demand, Intuit has included support for QuickBooks: Online Edition in the QuickBooks Foundation Class Library. The QuickBooks Foundation Class Library enables developers to write applications that exchange data with QuickBooks without the need to code in XML.

New SDK Features in Detail:

• Remote Data Sharing (RDS) with QuickBooks - This feature allows developers to provide remote data sharing across a local area network from their integrated application to QuickBooks. This new feature will give customers added flexibility to manage their businesses, as the third-party application will no longer need to reside on the same PC as QuickBooks. Existing applications created using the QuickBooks SDK do not need to be re-coded to take advantage of RDS.
• Support for QuickBooks: Online Edition - The QuickBooks Foundation Class Library (QBFC) now includes support for QuickBooks: Online Edition. With this capability, software developers can now design applications that integrate with both the desktop versions of QuickBooks and QuickBooks: Online Edition, without the need to code in XML. Version 2.1 also includes standard merge modules for QBFC, which result in more flexible installation options for the QBFC.
• Modifying Transactions - With QuickBooks SDK v2.1, QuickBooks customers gain the ability to modify invoice and purchase order transactions.
• Sales Order Transaction - Integrated applications for QuickBooks will be able to add, query and delete sales orders through this latest version of the SDK.
• Expanded Support for Employee and Company Objects - The Employee object has been expanded to include the ability to add, query and modify the mobile, pager, pager PIN and fax fields. In addition, software developers will be able to query the notes field. The Company object has also been expanded to include the ability to query social security number and tax form fields. In addition, v2.1 of the SDK allows users to add data extensions creating the ability to include global data that applies to the company file as a whole.
• Expanded Support for Reports - With QuickBooks SDK v2.1, QuickBooks customers will be able to filter reports by class and specify the basis for report requests. In addition, reports will include a transaction column for detailed transaction information.

Intuit Developer Network members express their excitement over the new SDK features. "We often have many people who ask us for data sharing where QuickBooks is on one computer, and our Timecard Software is on another," said Brent Larsen, a senior developer with Count Me In LLC, a provider of biometric software solutions for small to medium-sized businesses. "With the Remote Data Sharing capability, we can now add this feature with minimal additional development. Our customers will be very happy about this update."

"Many of our QuoteWerks sales quoting customers have been begging us for the ability to export quotes and orders over to QuickBooks as sales orders," said John Lewe, president of Aspire Technologies, Inc., the developers of QuoteWerks sales quoting software. "With the QuickBooks SDK v2.1, we will be able to write this new functionality. The result: our customers will save lots of time using this new feature, and our revenue will increase by selling upgrades to most of our QuickBooks link customers!"

Development is also currently underway for SDK 3.0, which is expected to be available with the QuickBooks 2004 line-up later this year. It is expected that SDK 3.0 will include, among other features, event notification and limited user interface integration.