Connector Details

Name	Value
Platform	QuickBooks Desktop
Auth Type	On-Premise
Direction	Bidirectional
Tap Metrics	Usage:
Target Metrics	Usage:
Unified Schema

Overview

Quickbooks Desktop is on-premise accounting software. It is a distinct product from Quickbooks Online. The hotglue Quickbooks Desktop connector is an installed program (.exe) that is run on the same machine that manages the Quickbooks company file. While running, the connector allows you to read and write data like you would with a normal cloud connector.

Enable and set up your connector in hotglue

Set up your flow

To utilize the Quickbooks Desktop connector, you first need to add Quickbooks Desktop to a flow. You only need to do this once.

Click Add Flow on the left-side toolbar.
Give your flow a name and description, and choose Source Flow.
After creating your flow, go to the Sources tab and click on Quickbooks Desktop.

If you would like to write data back to QBD, you will also need to generate a target flow. If you only need to pull data out of QBD, you can skip this step:

Click Add Flow on the left-side toolbar.
Give your flow a name and description, and choose Target Flow.
After creating your flow, go to the Targets tab and click on Quickbooks Desktop.

Set up your tenant

Unlike cloud connectors, which offload authentication to the user, Quickbooks Desktop authentication requires you to make two API requests per tenant.

Link the tenant

The first request is a POST to /linkedSources with a config object. This request “links” the tenant to your read flow, and creates the tenant if it doesn’t already exist.

cURL

curl 'https://client-api.hotglue.xyz/<ENVIRONMENT_ID>/<READ_FLOW_ID>/<TENANT_ID>/linkedSources' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'x-api-key: <SECRET_API_KEY>' \
--data '{
    "source": {
        "tap": "quickbooks-desktop",
        "config": {
            "company_file_name": "C:\\Users\\Public\\Documents\\Intuit\\QuickBooks\\Company Files\\hotglue.QBW",
            "tables": {
                "account": {
                    "sync": true,
                    "replication_key": "TimeModified"
                },
                "bill": {
                    "sync": true,
                    "replication_key": "TimeModified"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}'

source

object

required

Hide child attributes

tap

string

required

quickbooks-desktop

config

object

required

Hide child attributes

company_file_name

string

required

The full path to the Quickbooks Desktop Company file

tables

array

required

Defines which tables to sync and their properties. the keys (e.g., account, bill) are table names that can be customized dynamically.

Hide properties

<table>

string

required

Each table can have the following fields

Show child attributes

sync

boolean

required

Set to true to sync the table.

replication_key

string

Set to the datetime field you would like to incrementally fetch records based on. Usually TimeModified if present.

Generate the connector password

The next request will return the “connector password” for your configured user. Your tenant will use the connector password to authenticate their connector on their machine.

curl 'https://client-api.hotglue.xyz/<ENVIRONMENT_ID>/<READ_FLOW_ID>/<TENANT_ID>/taps/quickbooks-desktop/token?write_flow_id=<WRITE_FLOW_ID>' \
--header 'x-api-key: <SECRET_API_KEY>'

If you haven’t generated a signing key before, this request will error with: No signing key has been created for this environment. To resolve, go to Settings > API Keys, and click Generate Signing Key.

Once your connector password is generated, you are ready to run the connector and start running jobs!

Optional: Enable additional Quickbooks company files

After you generate a config and password for one company, you can add additional company files for the connector to sync. This is done by utilizing subtenants.Every time the connector runs on its cycle (usually every 60 seconds), it checks if the connected tenant has subtenants. If subtenants exist, it iterates through processing for each subtenant.Once enabled in Settings > Widget, you can create subtenants via the syntax:

root_tenant_id + {subtenant delimeter} + {any string}

The default subtenant delimeter in all hotglue environments is _. That means if your initial POST /linkedSources looks like:

/dev.hg.test.com/AAAAAA/test-user/linkedSources

then the URL of a subtenant creation request should look like:

/dev.hg.test.com/AAAAAA/test-user_1/linkedSources

NOTE: Do not generate connector passwords for subtenants. Subtenants are created via new linkedSource entries (Step 1) ONLY.

End-user instructions

Requirements

1. The Quickbooks Desktop Connector and Password 2. QuickBooks Desktop application Only Windows versions are supported. You can obtain a 30-day free trial via Intuit’s website. 3. QuickBooks SDK This must be downloaded on the same machine as the connector. You can install the latest from Intuit’s Website.

Run the connector

The Quickbooks Desktop connector is packaged as a .exe file. It is signed with an Extended Validation Code Signing Certificate issued by Sectigo, meaning it is verified and cannot be tampered with.

Download the connector launcher file.

(Optional) Move the connector launcher to your startup folder

This ensures that the connector runs automatically when you restart your machine. To configure this:

Right click the windows icon on the bottom left
Select run, then type shell:startup > OK
This will open your startup folder. Drag the launcher from your downloads folder to here.

Run the connector launcher

Right-click > Run as administrator

Enter the connector password

After the connector boots up, you will see a dialog requesting the connector password. Enter the password.

If the pop-up closes, that means the password is accepted, the connector is installed, and you are ready to begin syncing data.

Connector Capabilities

The QuickBooks Desktop connector supports both read and write. Learn more below.

Read

To read data from QuickBooks Desktop, you simply configure the tables section in the config. A list of supported objects for read is provided below.

Supported Objects

profit_and_loss
balance_sheet_detail
transaction_list
balance_sheet_summary
profit_and_loss_budget
bill
class
customer
vendor
account
check
item
invoice
journal_entry
sales_receipt
purchase_order
credit_memo
sale_order
price_level
unit_of_measure_set
sales_tax_code
item_sales_tax

Write

The QuickBooks Desktop connector also supports writing objects, using JSON files that follow the qbXML raw schema.

When writing data to QuickBooks Desktop, ensure that the .json files are written to the etl-output folder in your jobs. Otherwise the connector will not process them.

File Formatting

Currently the connector supports only JSON files, and must follow the following criteria:

Files must be named following the convention <object>(-<suffix>).json, where:
- <object> is the lowercase name of the connector object (e.g., customer, invoice)
- -<suffix> is optional and can be any descriptive string (e.g., -may, -20250715)

✅ Valid File Names	❌ Invalid File Names
`customer.json`	`Customer.json`
`customer-may.json`	`CustomerAddRq.json`
`customer-20250715.json`

All keys in the JSON file must appear in exactly the same order as shown in the official qbXML documentation. For example:

[
    {
        "CustomerRef": {
            "FullName": "EAST NEW YORK HARDWARE"
        },
        "RefNumber": "00026420",
        "InvoiceLineAdd": [
            {
                "ItemRef": {
                    "FullName": "NFR-SH86150"
                },
                "Quantity": "1",
                "Amount": "100.00"
            }
        ]
    }
]

Supported Objects

Below is a list of the hotglue QBD connector object name, and the corresponding qbXML request that it uses.

Connector Object Name	qbXML Request
`customer`	CustomerAddRq
`invoice`	InvoiceAddRq
`bill`	BillAddRq
`sales_order`	SalesOrderAddRq
`credit_memo`	CreditMemoAddRq
`vendor`	VendorAddRq
`vendor_credit`	VendorCreditAddRq
`item_inventory`	ItemInventoryAddRq
`item_noninventory`	ItemNonInventoryAddRq
`sales_receipt`	SalesReceiptAddRq
`journal_entry`	JournalEntryAddRq
`item_sales_tax`	ItemSalesTaxAddRq

Getting Started

Key Concepts

Managed authentication

Transformation

Custom Connectors

Unified Schema

Environment Settings

CLI

Connectors

QuickBooks Desktop

Connector Details

Overview

Enable and set up your connector in hotglue

Set up your flow

Set up your tenant

End-user instructions

Requirements

Run the connector

Connector Capabilities

Read

Supported Objects

Write

File Formatting

Supported Objects

Getting Started

Key Concepts

Managed authentication

Transformation

Custom Connectors

Unified Schema

Environment Settings

CLI

Connectors

​Connector Details

​Overview

​Enable and set up your connector in hotglue

​Set up your flow

​Set up your tenant

​End-user instructions

​Requirements

​Run the connector

​Connector Capabilities

​Read

​Supported Objects

​Write

​File Formatting

​Supported Objects

Connector Details

Overview

Enable and set up your connector in hotglue

Set up your flow

Set up your tenant

End-user instructions

Requirements

Run the connector

Connector Capabilities

Read

Supported Objects

Write

File Formatting

Supported Objects