Quickbooks Webhooks Integration: 6 Easy Steps

Quickbooks is a leading accounting and bookkeeping software solution that allows enterprises to maintain their accounts info a lot better. It offers features like Accounting, tax calculators, and tracking tools that help enterprises in automating financial tasks efficiently. Webhooks is an application that provides real-time information transfer to other applications. The data transfer is real-time in the webhooks. Integrating Quickbooks Webhooks together allows to receive information in real-time and then perform accounting operations on it so that the results achieved are up to date.

In this article, you will learn about Webhooks, and Quickbooks along with steps to integrate Quickbooks Webhooks together. 

Table of Contents

• What are Webhooks?
  • Benefits of Webhooks
  • Use cases of Webhooks
• What is Quickbooks?
  • Key features of Quickbooks
• Steps for Quickbooks Webhooks Integration
  • Step 1: Set up OAuth 2.0
  • Step 2: See Webhooks implementations
  • Step 3: Verify supported API entities
  • Step 4: Configure webhook endpoints
  • Step 5: Validate webhook notifications
  • Step 6: Verify the webhooks notifications
• Conclusion

What are Webhooks?

Webhooks are automated messages that are sent from applications on your device when an event is triggered inside the interface of the application. These messages ( also known as payloads) are sent to a unique URL which is usually the mobile device’s phone number or app address.  Webhooks function as an SMS, which makes it faster than polling and also reduces efforts to transfer the information.

Webhooks employs an architecture from software applications that enable these apps to send a web-based electronic notification to the receiver application whenever an event occurs. The Webhooks application enables the users to modify the calls from the application interface and connect them to various events like the creation of a new user, a new account creation or when the order is placed or an order is shipped and delivered, and many more.

Webhooks employs the structure of IFTTT – if this then that statements. When an event is triggered by the application, the webhook fires an API call to an external connection. This allows the flow of information from the application to the third-party API which is then further sent to other destinations. It also connects to enterprise architecture Integration platforms as well.

Webhooks uses HTTP and HTTPS to transmit the messages, utilizing the POST request on a URL. This POST data message is interpreted by the API of receiving application. The data is sent in the form of JSON or XML.

To use the Webhooks efficiently, you can build and use a small web application that can accept HTTP requests. The server-side frameworks can be used to create the application. Examples of server-side languages are ASP.NET, MVC for c#, Spark for java, and many more. PHP is a web application framework. Frameworks like symphony and Yii are also used.

Benefits of webhooks

Webhooks is software that enables users to create notifications for event occurrences, or define the changes that are event-driven. These changes are mostly real-time transfers. This platform can be combined with a continuous integration system to create a real-time push notification system. For example, when a build failure occurs there will be a push notification to the security team so that it can be resolved in real-time. It can also help in the synchronization of systems rather than converting the processes into batches. 

Webhook helps in solving the issues of the polling process. In the polling process, the program has to wait for 5-10 minutes after the event has occurred to call the API of all the recent transactions, then in case, a new API is required, then adding them and then the processing starts. This is all a very cumbersome process and webhooks ease this process.

Uses and examples of webhooks

Webhooks is an easy tool that enables making an API accessible to applications so that real-time communications of receiving calls and sending text-based responses to users are done in event-based situations. Platforms that support Webhooks include Facebook, Github, Trello, Confluence, and Google Calendar. 

Use cases of Webhooks

• Email reminders that are automated and repeated on a daily basis
• All the payment information and its confirmations
• Synchronization of customer data among different applications.

What is QuickBooks?

QuickBooks is a leading Account management tool that is specialized i Bookkeeping, payroll management, inventory management, accounting, and many more financial tasks associated with an enterprise.  It has tens of thousands of users ranging from small businesses to large enterprises around the world. QuickBooks was created by Intuit, which is based in California. Its main motto was to automate traditional operations that enterprises perform to save time and make tasks like bookkeeping and paperwork easy. 

Quickbooks enables the creation of custom reports that can be created based on companies’ requirements. This tool also assists in the creation of statements for profit and loss and these are highly accurate. This information helps in determining if the company is profitable at a given timeframe. These statements can also help in customizing the requirements and preferences of the user to determine the unique business information.

Quickbooks allow you to completely picture the enterprise information like sales data, customer information, product information, project status, and geographic information. This tool also helps in retrieving the GST information and also computing taxes. This allows avoiding any tax-filing problems. When the bank and credit card info is added to QuickBooks, it also tracks payments and expenses.

Key Features of QuickBooks

Some of the key features that make QuickBooks popular among small businesses are listed below:

• Accounting Reports: Quickbooks enables the users to create custom reports which makes it easier to monitor the company’s progress. It stores and manages all the information in a single location which makes it readily available when required. The accounting reports make the tax filing process very easy.
• Multiple Users Access: Quickbooks enables you to grant several levels of access to QuickBooks Online to your employees. This allows a good collaboration between various teams of the organization
• Payments and Cash Flow Management: Quickbooks has its own online payment system that allows faster payments from clients when the invoice or statement is provided. This allows for faster bill payments to the partner banks as well.
• Online Banking: When the bank account is linked with QuickBooks the bank transaction are uploaded and categorized. This eliminates the process of data inputs regarding bank statements.
• Support: QuickBooks has a large support base and its support team responds to all the queries and free help is provided. It even provides guides, video lectures, and seminars on improving the knowledge base on QuickBooks.  

To explore more about QuickBooks, visit the QuickBooks HomePage.

Steps for Quickbooks Webhooks integration

Step 1: Set up OAuth 2.0 

• Set up the OAuth for the app by clicking on the set up OAuth 2.0. for the Quickbooks Webhooks application to run.

Step 2: See Webhooks implementations

• In this step of Quickbooks Webhooks Integration, you need to look at Webhooks Implementation in various languages and then select the one best suited for your Quickbooks Webhooks application
• webhook implementations:
  • Java
  • Node.js

Step 3: Verify supported API entities

• In this step of Quickbooks Webhooks Integration, verify all the API entities that are supported by Quickbooks Webhooks Application

	Create	Update	Delete	Merge	Void
Account	✓	✓	✓	✓
Bill	✓	✓	✓
bill payment	✓	✓	✓		✓
Budget	✓	✓
Class	✓	✓	✓
CreditMemo	✓	✓	✓		✓
Currency	✓	✓
Customer	✓	✓	✓	✓
Department	✓	✓		✓
Deposit	✓	✓	✓
Employee	✓	✓	✓	✓
Estimate	✓	✓	✓
Invoice	✓	✓	✓		✓
Item	✓	✓	✓	✓
JournalCode	✓	✓
journal entry	✓	✓	✓
Payment	✓	✓	✓		✓
PaymentMethod	✓	✓		✓
Preferences		✓
Purchase	✓	✓	✓		✓
PurchaseOrder	✓	✓	✓
RefundReceipt	✓	✓	✓		✓
sales receipt	✓	✓	✓		✓
TaxAgency	✓	✓
Term	✓	✓
TimeActivity	✓	✓	✓
Transfer	✓	✓	✓		✓
Vendor	✓	✓	✓	✓
VendorCredit	✓	✓	✓

Step 4: Configure webhook endpoints

• Sign in to your developer account of the Webhooks.
• Click on the Dashboard option
• In the new window select the app you want to connect for webhooks and click on open. For Quickbooks Webhooks Integration, select Quickbooks. 

There are two different types of Quickbooks Webhooks applications namely live and sandbox. The process is slightly different for both follow the steps based on the requirements

For live, in-production apps

• Select the Webhooks, in the production section. 
• Input the Endpoint URL. This is the location where the server will send notifications. 
• Click on the Event frequency, in the dropdown menu select the time required for aggregate events.
• Click on the Show webhooks link.
• On the next page, Review the events and operations of the Quickbooks Webhooks application.
• Select the parameters that you want notifications for the Quickbooks Webhooks Integration.
• Select Save.

For sandbox and developer environments

• Click on the Development section, and select Webhooks.
• Input the Endpoint URL. This is the location where the server will send notifications. 
• Click on the Show webhooks link.
• On the next page, Review the events and operations of the Quickbooks Webhooks application.
• Select the parameters that you want notifications for the Quickbooks Webhooks Integration.
• Select Save.

Step 5: Validate webhook notifications

• After the endpoints for webhooks are configured in Quickbooks Webhooks application, an app-specific token is sent for verification. After the verification is done, you will receive a callback from Intuit.

To find verifiers tokens: 

1. Sign in to your developer account of Webhooks.
2. Click on the Dashboard option.
3. Open the app you selected in the previous step which will be QuickBooks for the Quickbooks Webhooks Integration.
4. In the Production or Development section, select Webhooks.
5. You will find a Verifier Token field.

verifier tokens can be used following the below steps:

1. Hash the notification payload with HMAC_SHA256_ALGORITHM using the <verifier token> value as the key.
2. Convert the intuit-signature header from base-64 to base-16.
3. Compare the original payload value with the intuit-signature header from the notification. The values should be identical.

import javax.crypto.Mac;
import javax.crypto.spec.SecretKeySpec;
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.security.InvalidKeyException;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;
import java.util.Base64;
import java.util.Map;

public class VerifySignatureExample {
   private static final String sign = "intuit-signature";
   private static final String algo = "HmacSHA256";
   public boolean isRequestValid(Map<String, String> headers, String payload, String verifier) {
      String SIGN = headers.get(sign);
      if (SIGN == null) {
         return false;
      }
      try {
         SecretKeySpec secretKey = new SecretKeySpec(verifier.getBytes("UTF-8"), ALGORITHM);
         Mac mac = Mac.getInstance(algo);
         mac.init(secretKey);
         String hash = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(mac.doFinal(payload.getBytes()));
         return hash.equals(signature);
      } catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException | UnsupportedEncodingException | InvalidKeyException e) {
         return false;
      }
   }
}

The above code is a sample for signature verification in java for Quickbooks Webhooks.

Step 6: Verify the webhooks notifications

Webhook notifications are POSTs with a JSON body. The response body contains the following fields in the Quickbooks Webhooks

Field	Description
name	The name of the entity that changed (customer, Invoice, etc.)
id	The ID of the changed entity
operation	The type of change
lastUpdated	The latest timestamp in UTC
deletedID	The ID of the deleted or merged entity (this only applies to merge events)

Here’s an example server response of Quickbooks Webhooks Application:

{
   "eventNotifications":[
   {
      "realmId":"1185883450",
      "dataChangeEvent":
      {
         "entities":[
         {
            "name":"Hevo_customer",
            "id":"1",
            "operation":"Create",
            "lastUpdated":"2022-04-22T15:00:00-0700"
         },
         {
            "name":"Hevo_Vendor",
            "id":"1",
            "operation":"Create",
            "lastUpdated":"2022-04-22T15:00:00-0700"
         }]
      }
   }]
}

Conclusion

Real-time processing of data is a very important task and receive notifications of important aspects on regular basis help organizations stay optimized. Webhooks is the tool that helps in sending real-time notifications. Quickbooks is a leading accounting software that helps enterprises maintain the optimum efficiency regarding expenses. When QuickBooks Webhooks integration is performed it becomes easy to send notifications regarding the financial aspects in real-time. This article provided a step-by-step guide to performing Quickbooks Webhooks integration.

There are various trusted sources like Webhooks that companies use as it provides many benefits, but, transferring data from it into a data warehouse is a hectic task. The Automated data pipeline helps in solving this issue and this is where Hevo comes into the picture. Hevo Data is a No-code Data Pipeline and has awesome 100+ pre-built Integrations that you can choose from.

visit our website to explore hevo

Hevo can help you Integrate your data from 100+ data sources and load them into a destination to Analyze real-time data. It will make your life easier and data migration hassle-free. It is user-friendly, reliable, and secure.

SIGN UP for a 14-day free trial and see the difference!

Share your experience of learning about the Quickbooks Webhooks in the comments section below.