Getting started

The Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver provides real-time access to QuickBooks Desktop data from any application that supports ODBC.

The following section shows you how to install the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver and configure the ODBC data source that stores the connection details for your QuickBooks Desktop file. You’re then ready to work with QuickBooks Desktop data in your application.

Installing the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver

Install the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver on the computer where the application you want to connect to QuickBooks Desktop is running.

Installing on Windows

The Windows installation can be done by anyone with local administrator privileges.

  1. Download the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver installer.

  2. Follow the onscreen instructions to progress through the installation wizard.

Updating files that are in use

To avoid rebooting your computer, the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver installer prompts you when files that it needs to update are in use by another application or service. This frees the locked files and allows the installation to complete without a system restart. The installer uses the Restart Manager to locate the applications that are using files that need updating. These applications are displayed in the Files in Use dialog box. To avoid a system restart, choose Automatically close applications and attempt to restart them after setup is complete. The Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver installer then uses Restart Manager to try to stop and restart each application or service in the list. If possible, Restart Manager restores applications to the same state that they were in before it shut them down.

Licensing

By default, the installer starts the Easysoft License Manager, because you can’t use the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver until you have a license. If you choose not to run Easysoft License Manager as part of the installation process, run License Manager from the Easysoft group in the Windows Start menu when you’re ready to license the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver. These types of license are available:

  • A free time-limited trial license, which gives you free and unrestricted use of the product for a limited period (usually 14 days).

  • A full license if you have purchased the product. On purchasing the product you are given an authorization code, which you use to obtain a license.

To license the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver:

  1. In License Manager, enter your contact details.

    You must complete the Name, E-Mail Address, and Company fields.

    The e-mail address must be the same as the one used to register at the Easysoft web site. Otherwise, you won’t be able to obtain a trial license.

  2. Choose Request License.

    You’re prompted to choose a license type.

  3. Do one of the following:

    • For a trial license, choose Time Limited Trial, and then choose Next.
      -Or-

    • For a purchased license, choose Non-expiring License, and then choose Next.

  4. Choose your product from the drop-down list when prompted, and then choose Next.

  5. For a purchased license, enter your authorization code when prompted, and then choose Next.

  6. Choose how to get your license when prompted.

  7. Do one of the following:

    • Choose On-line Request if your machine is connected to the internet and can make outgoing connections to port 8884.
      With this method, License Manager automatically requests and then applies your license.
      -Or-

    • Choose View Request. Then open a web browser and go to https://www.easysoft.com/support/licensing/trial_license.html or https://www.easysoft.com/support/licensing/full_license.html, as appropriate. In the web page, enter your machine number (labelled Number in the license request). For purchased licenses, you also need to enter your authorization code (labelled Ref in the license request).
      We’ll automatically email your license to the email address you supplied in License Manager.
      -Or-

    • Choose Email Request to email your license request to our licensing team.
      Once we’ve processed you request, we’ll email your license to the email address you supplied in License Manager.

  8. Close the License Manager windows and then choose Finish.

If you chose either View Request or Email Request, apply your license by double-clicking the email attachment when you get the license email from us. Alternatively, start License Manager from the Easysoft folder in the Windows Start menu. Then choose Enter License and paste the license in the space provided.

Once you’ve licensed the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver, the installation is complete.

Repairing the installation

The installer can repair a broken Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver installation. For example, you can use the installer to restore missing Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver files or registry keys. To do this:

  1. In the Windows Taskbar, enter Add or remove programs in the Windows Search box.

  2. Select Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver in the list, and then choose Repair.

Uninstalling on Windows

This section explains how to remove the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver from your system.

Removing Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver data sources

Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver data sources are not removed when you uninstall the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver. You don’t therefore need to recreate your Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver data sources if you reinstall or upgrade. If you don’t want to keep your Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver data sources, use Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to remove them, before uninstalling the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver:

  1. In the Windows Taskbar, enter Run in the Windows Search box.

  2. In the Windows Run dialog box, enter:

    odbcad32.exe

  3. Locate your data source in either the User or System tab.

  4. Select the data source from the list, and then choose Remove.

    If the Remove button isn’t available, close ODBC Data Source Administrator, and then, in the Windows Run dialog box, enter:

    %windir%\syswow64\odbcad32.exe

    Repeat the previous two steps.

Removing the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver

  1. In the Windows Taskbar, enter Add or remove programs in the Windows Search box.

  2. Select Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver in the list, and then choose Uninstall.

Easysoft product licenses are stored in the Windows registry. When you uninstall, your licenses are not removed, so you do not need to relicense the product if you reinstall or upgrade.

Connecting to QuickBooks Desktop

Applications that support ODBC interface with an ODBC Driver Manager, which is included with the operating system, and also the Easysoft ODBC driver distribution on some platforms. One of the jobs that the ODBC Driver Manager does is to manage ODBC data sources. A data source specifies which ODBC driver to load, which data store to connect to, and how to connect to it.

Before setting up a data source, you must have successfully installed the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver.

Connecting from Windows

Creating an ODBC data source

QuickBooks Desktop is a 32-bit application, which can only be used with 32-bit libraries. The Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver is a library and is therefore 32-bit as well. The implications of this are:

  • You need to use the 32-bit version of Microsoft’s ODBC Data Source Administrator, which you can access by typing the following command in the Windows Run dialog box:

    %windir%\syswow64\odbcad32.exe

  • If you want to use the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver to connect a 64-bit application to QuickBooks Desktop, you also need to install the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge and turn on the Application is a Service Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver attribute.

Start the 32-bit version of ODBC Data Source Administrator and then follow these steps:

  1. Do one of the following:

    • To create a data source that only the user you’re currently logged in as can access, choose the User tab.
      If your application is a Windows service (for example, SQL Server or Oracle) creating a user data source won’t work, unless the service is running as the same user you’re logged in as.

    • To create a data source that all users on this computer can access, choose the System tab.

  2. Choose Add.

  3. In the list of ODBC drivers, select Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver, and then choose Finish.

  4. Complete the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver configuration dialog box.
    To find out how to do this, refer to the Connection attributes section.

  5. To test the connection to QuickBooks Desktop, choose Test.
    Note that this doesn’t test that the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver is licensed. If you haven’t yet licensed the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver, this ODBC data source won’t work with your application, even if the Test button succeeds.

Connection attributes

Setting on Windows

The Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver data source configuration dialog box, accessible when you create or edit an Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver data source in ODBC Data Source Administrator contains a number of attribute fields:

Name Value

DSN

The name of the data source. You’ll need to specify this in your application. For example, your application may prompt you to choose this from a list of DSNs.

Description

Some applications display this to help users identify a particular data source.

Company File

The full path to your QuickBooks Desktop file (.qbw). For example:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\Intuit\ QuickBooks Desktop Sample Company Files\ QuickBooks Desktop 2014\Sample_Pro_ServiceBased.qbw

If you choose to specify a file, QuickBooks Desktop does not have to be running. (Although connecting to a named file will cause a QuickBooks Desktop instance to be launched in the background.)

By default, the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver will open the company file that’s currently open in QuickBooks Desktop, which means that you can switch between files without having to create separate data sources for each company file.

Connection Mode

How to open a QuickBooks Desktop file.

If you choose Same as Quickbooks, the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver will use whatever mode is currently set on the company file.

If you choose Multiuser, the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver will set the file to Multi-user mode, where multiple users can update the file simultaneously.

If you require exclusive write access to the file (for record deletes for example), select Single User.

Application ID

The Application ID is a text value that identifies the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver to QuickBooks Desktop. When you first connect, Quickbooks asks you to allow the driver to access your QuickBooks Desktop data. The Application ID (and Application Name) are then stored in QuickBooks Desktop. The Application ID is used internally in QuickBooks Desktop and is exposed in the QuickBooks Desktop log file qbsdklog.txt.

Application Name

The Application Name is a descriptive text value that identifies the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver to QuickBooks Desktop. After you allow the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver to access your QuickBooks Desktop data, the Application Name is stored in QuickBooks Desktop under Edit > Preferences > Integrated Applications > Company Preferences.

Although you can use the same Application Name and Application ID across multiple Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver data sources, you may choose to use different values. For example, you might use one pair of application IDs and names to identify a connection from Excel, and another pair to identify a connection from Access.

QB Edition

The QuickBooks Desktop editions supported by the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver. Different editions of Quickbooks have different tables, and so you need to make sure that you choose the correct edition.

QB Reply Format

How non ASCII characters returned by the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver are encoded.

If you set this to HTML, a non ASCII character is returned as an HTML entity. For example, a pound symbol (£) is returned as £.

If you set this to HTML (Modified), a non ASCII character is returned as an extended ASCII character. For example, a pound symbol (£) is returned as £.

Application is a Service

Turn on this setting if the application you want to connect to QuickBooks Desktop is a Windows service. For example, the Oracle listener (DG4ODBC) or the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge server.

Driver Tracing

If you experience a problem when using the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver, Easysoft Technical Support may ask you to enable driver tracing to help provide you with a solution.

Logging

Whether to turn on Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver logging. Normally, you’ll only do this if so directed by the Easysoft support team.

Log File

The file name and path of the file you want the driver to write log information to. For example:

C:\Windows\Temp\Easysoft.log

If the file doesn’t exist, the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver creates it.

DSN-less connections

Some applications allow you to make an ODBC connection without configuring a data source. To do this, you supply a connection string that contains the ODBC driver name and other driver-specific attribute-value pairs.

Connection string attributes have different names to the ones shown in the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver data source configuration dialog box. Use these attribute names in a connection string:

  • COMPANYFILE = value

  • MODE = 0 | 1 | 2

    0 is Single User

    1 is Multi User

    2 is Same as QuickBooks

  • APPID = value

  • APPNAME = value

  • EDITION = 0 | 1 | 2

    0 is UK

    1 is US

    2 is Canada

  • RESPONSE = 0 | 1 | 2

    0 is UTF-8

    1 is HTML

    2 is HTML Modified

  • SERVICE = Yes | No

  • LOGGING = Yes | No

  • TRACING = Yes | No

  • LOGFILE = value

Here’s an example Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver connection string:

"DRIVER={Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver};appid=QBFROMEXCELID;AppName=QBFROMEXCELID;Mode=2;""

Logging

If you report an issue to us, we may ask you to turn on ODBC Driver Manager or Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver logging, to help us diagnose the cause of the issue.

To turn on logging, refer to the following sections.

If your application is a service (for example, Oracle or SQL Server), you may need to restart the service before enabling logging takes effect. To do this on Linux or UNIX, use service, systemctl, or a vendor-supplied script. To do this on Windows, use the Windows Services app.

ODBC Driver Manager logging on Windows

  1. In the Windows Taskbar Search box, enter “Run”.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • If your application is 64-bit, in the Run dialog box, enter:

      odbcad32.exe

      -Or-

    • If your application is 32-bit, in the Run dialog box, enter:

      %windir%\syswow64\odbcad32.exe
      If you’re not sure whether your application is 32-bit or 64-bit, start your application, then in Windows Task Manager check whether your application’s process name contains (32-bit). For example, the process name for the 32-bit version of Excel is Microsoft Excel (32-bit); the process name for the 64-bit version of Excel is Microsoft Excel. On older versions of Windows, 32-bit applications contain *32 in the process name rather than (32-bit).
      For applications such as Oracle or SQL Server that run as a service, check the *Background processes* list rather than the Apps list in Task Manager.
      If you’re running a programming language from within a Windows command-line shell (for example, Command or PowerShell), in your shell, run the .exe file for the programming language. For example, run perl, php, python, or node. In Task Manager, expand the process list for Windows Command Processor or Windows PowerShell, as appropriate, and check whether the process for your programming language contains (32-bit).

  3. Choose the Tracing tab.

  4. Select Machine-Wide tracing for all identities.

  5. Enter a log file name and path in the space provided. For example:

    C:\Windows\Temp\SQL.log

  6. Choose Start Tracing Now.

With SQL Server, you may get two Driver Manager log files, we need both. The first log file is in the folder that you specify in ODBC Data Source Administrator. The second file’s location is defined by SQL Server. Two possible locations are the top-level folder (for example, C:\SQL.log) or the SQL Server temporary folder (for example, C:\Users\MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS\AppData\Local\Temp\SQL.log). If the Driver Manager log file isn’t in these folders, search for it on the drive where SQL Server is installed.

Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver logging on Windows

  1. In the Windows Taskbar Search box, enter “Run”.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • If your application is 64-bit, in the Run dialog box, enter:

      odbcad32.exe

      -Or-

    • If your application is 32-bit, in the Run dialog box, enter:

      %windir%\syswow64\odbcad32.exe
      If you’re not sure whether your application is 32-bit or 64-bit, start your application, then in Windows Task Manager check whether your application’s process name contains (32-bit). For example, the process name for the 32-bit version of Excel is Microsoft Excel (32-bit); the process name for the 64-bit version of Excel is Microsoft Excel. On older versions of Windows, 32-bit applications contain *32 in the process name rather than (32-bit).
      For applications such as Oracle or SQL Server that run as a service, check the *Background processes* list rather than the Apps list in Task Manager.
      If you’re running a programming language from within a Windows command-line shell (for example, Command or PowerShell), in your shell, run the .exe file for the programming language. For example, run perl, php, python, or node. In Task Manager, expand the process list for Windows Command Processor or Windows PowerShell, as appropriate, and check whether the process for your programming language contains (32-bit).

  3. Do one of the following:

    • If you configured a system data source, choose the System DSN tab.
      -Or-

    • If you configured a system data source, choose the System DSN tab.

  4. Choose your Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver data source from the list, and then choose Configure.

  5. In the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver data source configuration dialog box, turn on Driver Logging.

  6. Enter a log file name and path in the space provided. For example:

    C:\Windows\Temp\Easysoft.log

Finding out what product version you have on Windows

If you have an issue with the Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver, we may ask you to tell us what your product version is. To find this out:

  1. In the Windows Taskbar, enter “Add or remove programs” in the Windows Search box.

  2. Select Easysoft ODBC-QuickBooks Desktop Driver in the list.

    The product version displays below.