Posted by Michael Vilain on 05/11/06 03:40

In article <1147306028.513803.142360@q12g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"NC" <nc@iname.com> wrote:

> NC wrote:
> >
> > Quite a few companies out there have figured out ways
> > to expose QuickBooks data via ODBC. Once you get
> > that done, you become more or less version-independent.
> > Check this out:
> >
> > http://www.qodbc.com/
>
> I completely forgot about the Web Connector:
>
> http://developer.intuit.com/QuickBooksSDK/Resources/?id=403
>
> It's a Web service add-on to QuickBooks.
>
> Cheers,
> NC

Thanks for the pointers. However, if you look at these sites, they only
run on Windows. Using ODBC to access MySQL would require the ISP
hosting the MySQL database to allow remote connections. The one we
currently have doesn't, so that's out of the picture. I guess if this
non-profit does go to a web hosting company, they'll have to hire
someone to figure out how to do this integration.

On the bright side (for me), the president got a quote from one of the
ASP houses that specializes in non-profits. As predicted, she was
shocked at the cost. They were quoted $8K-10K setup, $3295/year in
licensing, and $95/month to host the site. I don't know if you get the
web-site authoring tools to make your own changes to your site with
this. If you have to buy ASP or .NET development tools, it would be
even more.

I think the middle ground here is to find a design house that can help
with the pretty part of the site and help me architect a better approach
with open-source tools. The hard part is allowing the non-technical
office people to make updates to the site. If we go to a templating
system, that should be pretty easy.

--
DeeDee, don't press that button! DeeDee! NO! Dee...

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