QuickBooks Desktop and Orderful integration

What moves between them

Purchase orders and invoices flow from QuickBooks Desktop to Orderful. The QBWC polling agent calls ml-connector's SOAP service on a regular interval; ml-connector queries QuickBooks Desktop for PurchaseOrder and Invoice records modified since the last check, extracts vendor and line-item details, and posts each as an EDI 850 (purchase order) or 810 (invoice) to Orderful, tagged with the matching vendor's ISA identifier. Data flows one direction (QuickBooks Desktop to Orderful); Orderful acknowledgments and status changes can be polled back into QuickBooks Desktop on a separate schedule if needed.

How ml-connector handles it

ml-connector implements the QBWC SOAP service interface, accepting the authenticate() handshake from QBWC with the customer's QBWC username and password, and returning a session token. For each polling cycle, it accepts QBXML requests for PurchaseOrder and Invoice, queries modified records using ModifiedDateRangeFilter, and extracts vendor names, line items, and amounts. Each record is mapped to the vendor's ISA identifier (stored in a configuration lookup per customer) and posted to Orderful as an 850 or 810 EDI document via the /v4 create endpoint with the correct stream (test or live) and region (US or EU). Because QuickBooks Desktop supports concurrent edits and requires the current EditSequence version on modify requests, ml-connector re-queries before any update. QBWC has a 60-second request timeout, so ml-connector keeps queries under that limit by paginating large result sets. Every record carries an audit trail and can be retried if the Orderful API returns a non-2xx response.

A real-world example

A mid-sized B2B distributor uses QuickBooks Desktop for accounting and order management, and ships to 50+ suppliers across the country who require EDI documents. Before the integration, the order team manually exported purchase orders from QuickBooks Desktop to CSV, re-keyed ISA codes, and uploaded them to each supplier's portal or AS2 address, consuming 4-5 hours per week and introducing typos that broke recurring orders. With QuickBooks Desktop and Orderful connected, each new purchase order in QuickBooks posts to Orderful automatically, routed to the correct supplier ISA number, and converted to X12 850 or EDIFACT D96A format on the fly. The order team stopped manual exports, and supplier orders process in real time.

What you can do

• •Post QuickBooks Desktop purchase orders to Orderful as EDI 850 documents, mapped to the correct vendor ISA identifier and delivery channel.
• •Convert QuickBooks Desktop invoices to Orderful EDI 810 documents for supplier payment and reconciliation.
• •Authenticate QBWC with session tokens and map QuickBooks Desktop vendors to Orderful ISA codes via a configuration lookup per customer.
• •Poll QuickBooks Desktop on a configurable interval (minimum 1 minute) and filter for modifications since the last run using ModifiedDateRangeFilter.
• •Handle QBWC request timeouts and pagination, retries on Orderful API errors, and full audit trail on every document routed to a trading partner.

Questions

How does ml-connector authenticate to QuickBooks Desktop and Orderful?

ml-connector implements the QBWC SOAP service endpoint that QuickBooks Desktop calls. It receives the customer's QBWC username and password, returns a session token, and uses that token for the polling session. For Orderful, ml-connector stores the API key encrypted and includes it in the orderful-api-key header on every REST request. Each customer provides both credentials during setup.

Which direction does data move between QuickBooks Desktop and Orderful?

Purchase orders and invoices move from QuickBooks Desktop to Orderful only. ml-connector polls QuickBooks Desktop for records modified since the last run, then posts each to Orderful as an EDI document routed to the correct trading partner. Orderful acknowledgments and status updates can be polled back into QuickBooks Desktop on a separate schedule if the customer enables it.

How does ml-connector handle the QuickBooks Desktop requirement that the company file must be open and running?

QuickBooks Desktop must be running on the customer's Windows machine with the company file open for QBWC polling to succeed. ml-connector has no control over this; it is the customer's responsibility. If QuickBooks is closed or the file is locked, QBWC will not call ml-connector, and polling will pause. When QuickBooks is back online, QBWC resumes calling ml-connector on the next scheduled interval.