Natively Connect to QuickBooks Data in PHP

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for QuickBooks into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build QuickBooks-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to QuickBooks data, execute queries, and output the results.

Getting Started

---

Configure a DSN

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

When you are connecting to a local QuickBooks instance, you do not need to set any connection properties.

Requests are made to QuickBooks through the Remote Connector. The Remote Connector runs on the same machine as QuickBooks and accepts connections through a lightweight, embedded Web server. The server supports SSL/TLS, enabling users to connect securely from remote machines.

The first time you connect, authorize the Remote Connector with QuickBooks. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide.

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to QuickBooks by calling the or methods. To close connections, use or .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC QuickBooks Source","user","password");

Connections opened with are closed when the script ends. Connections opened with the method are still open after the script ends. This enables other scripts to share that connection when they connect with the same credentials. By sharing connections among your scripts, you can save system resources, and queries execute faster.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC QuickBooks Source","user","password");
...
odbc_close($conn); //persistent connection must be closed explicitly

Create Prepared Statements

Create prepared statements and parameterized queries with the function.

$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE Type = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC QuickBooks Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE Type = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('Commercial'));
 

Execute nonparameterized queries with .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC QuickBooks Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Name, CustomerBalance FROM Customers");
 

Process Results

Access a row in the result set as an array with the function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC QuickBooks data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Name, CustomerBalance FROM Customers");
while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){
 echo $row["Name"] . "\n";
}

Display the result set in an HTML table with the function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC QuickBooks data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Customers WHERE Type = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('Commercial'));
if($success)
 odbc_result_all($query);

More Example Queries

You will find complete information on the driver's supported SQL in the help documentation. The code examples above are QuickBooks-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.