Reckon One and Accounts Hosted API integration now available!

We are very excited to announce that both our Reckon One and Reckon Accounts Hosted cloud systems now have API connections available, making it easier than ever for third party developers to work with our accounting systems!

Check out this great blog post from our API Product Manager, Simon Hutchinson for more info -
http://blog.reckon.com/reckon-one-and-reckon-accounts-hosted-api-now-available

Comments

Jason Hollis

Update:

Accounts Hosted API is now in full production, and indeed developers have completed integrations that we will be launching soon.

The Reckon One API is also in full production and now has a majority of endpoints that satisfy many developer requirements.

We will be finalising the INVOICE PUT / POST / DELETE in the next couple of weeks (GET is already available) and then on to BILLS which will satisfy the majority of developers.

Following this we will be commencing work on the Payroll APIs to closely coincide with the Payroll Module release of Reckon One. This module will start at $3/mth for lite functionality, and $5 for medium.

The big kicker, $3/mth will allow you to process payroll for UNLIMITED employees. Therefore 1 employee = $3/mth, 50 employees = $3/mth. Indeed you will be able to use Reckon One Payroll as a cloud payroll for $96 per year for all of your employees (core module is needed before you can add modules; core is $5/mth). That is why we are excited.

If you wish to apply to be an Developer Partner, please visit our Developer Partner Application Page

Ashley Joyce

I noticed this clause in the API Terms & conditions

You acknowledge that if it comes to our attention that you are using the API program to develop a program that is in competition with relevant Reckon products we reserve the right to review your ongoing participation in the API program

Now Reckon has a number of products, one comes to mind... the Reckon credit card payment add-on.... does this mean the Reckon API cannot be used to connect to say a third-party payment processing apps like Stripe or Paypal to Reckon Hosted in the future given the release of the API?

The reason I'm pondering this.... if Reckon One & Hosted was to be integrated to a platform like Zapier in the foreseeable future, you could in theory allow non-technical users the means by which to connect whatever third-party payment system they want to Reckon....Stripe, Paypal to name just two payment processing apps.

Now some of these Reckon users, may already be users of Stripe, Paypal & face the daily (unproductive) burden of manually entered data in Reckon from these other payment apps. These Reckon users are hoping that Reckon will offer a solution to this problem, not by offering them Reckon owned payment processing products, but API connectivity that will allow them to connect to whatever apps they currently use.

As a business customer this is important to know, as I would rather be investing in a more open accounting platform where I can choose whatever payment processing provider I want to connect to my accounting software. I want it to be my choice, and I don't want to be denied API connectivity in the future because I make that choice.

I'm fairly certain many Reckon users would share these sentiments.

It is great Reckon has released the API to help with app connectivity, but please let the Reckon user ultimately decide how they choose to configure their app eco-system rather then Reckon dictate which apps will get connectivity.

The great innovation of platforms like Zapier, is they have allowed non-technical users, the ones that use the apps to become their own creative masters over their app eco-systems.

Ashley Joyce

Hi Andrew, I think your right to say that a misuse of the API in Reckons eyes would be using it solely for exporting data to a competitors product. Moving on from that,... Reckon opening up their platform to more 3rd-party app integrations will overall benefit the platforms productivity. But do Reckon consider Stripe, PayPal, Gmail, Google drive, EBay, Twitter, Facebook, etc, etc 3rd party app partners ?... because at the moment it's unlikely that these companies have Reckon on their radar and are going to be knocking on Reckons door! It needs to happen the other way around, and this is where a platform like Zapier plays its part for non-technical users of Reckons products. It facilitates that integration to 500 apps and growing. I personally don't care if Reckon adds a dozen new app integrations with its approved developers...as they are not going to replace my Facebook, Twitter, gmail, google drive, Google sheets, google Maps, PayPal apps. ... Obviously each person will have their own app Eco-system relevant to them....I could have mention many, many other apps in different segments that users would be keen to integrate, which will never happen in the foreseeable future if Reckon don't take the Zapier approach.

Jason Hollis

Hi Ashley,

Thanks for taking the time to ask this question.

The key text here is "we reserve the right..."

We have had over 200 applications for our new APIs from many industry sectors, some of which you have mentioned, and none have been excluded to date.

So whilst we reserve the right to review an API app, and this definitely has to be the case, we have also taken a common-sense approach to ensure our customers will have the tools they need to manage their business the best way possible.

As for "at the moment it's unlikely that these companies have Reckon on their radar and are going to be knocking on Reckons door"... I'd be taking a wait and see approach on that one.

Regards,
Jason Hollis - API Partner Manager

Ashley Joyce

Hi Jason,

Firstly, thank you for the quick response on this issue... but with respect you don't directly answer my question around any future integration plans with the Zapier platform?

There is also this thread started over 4 months ago, which is yet to receive a formal response from Reckon regarding the Zapier platform. The Reckon users there are making the same important point I'm making here. It is a no brainer from the Reckon users perspective to have Zapier integration with Reckon sooner rather than later.

https://community.reckon.com/reckon/topics/zapier-connection-implementation

So does Reckon envisage integration with the Zapier platform in the foreseeable future so any "non-technical" Reckon user could theoretically hook up 500+ registered apps and growing daily?

Its great you've had 200 applications for the API, thats something to be excited about, but if Reckon was integrated with Zapier, any non-technical user could theoretically hookup 500+ existing registered apps today.... which I can tell you from this Reckon users point of view... is even more exciting!

Jason Hollis

Hi Ashley,

Apologies as I cannot see where you have asked about our plans with Zapier directly in your initial thread.

That being said, unfortunately we cannot comment on pending integrations for a variety of reasons and hence why we have not commented on the Zapier question, because, at this time, we are not part of the Zapier eco-system.

That being said, we are well aware of Zapier.

Back to what I believed was your initial question, our API product owner has also provided information that should alleviate any developer fears that we are not open the integrations.

As part of the application process we ask you to inform us as to what application you wish to build with the API and we do this for two reasons:

1) To ensure what you want to do is actually possible with our API system at the time of application. This stops you wasting time working on something that is not going to be able to be done

2) Just to ensure that yes you comply with the specific clause that we have in the terms and conditions.

In the time that the Reckon Accounts API has been available for desktop (about eight years now) we have rejected one application based on that clause and have over 500 partners registered for the program.

Whilst we cannot detail for confidential reasons why the application was rejected, we can assure you it had nothing to do with data being exported.

The example that you have used, exporting data from Reckon for use in other products is actually possible via some of our API partners that we have already on the books so no that generally is not a reason to have a application blocked via that clause.

cosmic

Jason good one! Thanks reassured

cosmic

We have been Reckon SDK developers for 10 years plus and now working on RAH Api , we have had and has no issues . We have found and and has high praise for Reckon API team. Jason Hollis and Simon Hutchinson has been ever helpful to us in our Api Development Ashley love to chat with you offline

Ashley Joyce

Jason,

Let's for argument sake that I wish to integrate Reckon Hosted into the Zapier Platform myself using the Zapier developer platform. In other words, I'm granted access to the API documentation by Reckon and can then build my own triggers etc using Python or Javascript that can POST or GET data from my own Reckon API business account using my api key, secret etc.

https://zapier.com/developer/builder/

Is there any worldwide licensing restriction that stops Reckon Hosted from being used on Zapier in this way by Reckon users?

As I noticed this clause in the API Terms & Conditions

Your permission is only for relevant Reckon products in Australia and New Zealand, except for Reckon One where your permission is worldwide.

Jason Hollis

Case by case basis Andrew.

Jason Hollis

Hi Andrew, for the record my exact statement was "We should be able to comment on this further next month"

I certainly did not say "something is coming next month for linking Zapier/Reckon" ?so respectfully I think the message was fairly clear. If you need clarification drop me a note offline.

Regards,
Jason

Jason Hollis

Hi Ashley,

To clarify, all Reckon Accounts "owners" (Hosted or Desktop) must be registered in AU or NZ. This does not exclude integrations with applications that are in themselves global.

There are no restrictions on Reckon One, and in fact this product launches in the UK this month. In other words, Reckon One is our global product.

As for your Zapier intentions, please contact us offline at reckonapi@reckon.com and we can talk through this with you in greater detail.

Regards,
Jason

Ashley Joyce

Hi Jason,

Thank you for clarifying the meaning of those terms & conditions.

The reason I have some interest here, another Reckon business customer I had been talking to recently... was looking to try and connect a 3rd-party cloud app to their reckon hosted account, to automate & streamline their current invoicing process.

The 3rd app by the way, doesn't compete with Reckon and would more likely than not, bring more customers to Reckon and at the same time strengthen existing customer retention.

Anyway, as I had been doing some app development work recently, with a few public API's in the area of mapping and statistical data analysis. I offered to find out firstly whether their request was even possible, as I wasn't aware Reckon Hosted had an API service until I jumped on here this week.

Once I found out that Reckon launched an API service, I then wanted to take a look at the API documentation and see whether you could POST to the invoice data in Reckon Hosted. Obviously I was out of luck, because Reckon had not as yet released it publicly.

Next I thought, with a bit of luck Reckon may already be on Zapier or planning to launch an app in the near future. Again no luck there either.

Frustrated with the lack of information surrounding the new Reckon API service, i started doing a few searches on this site, only to find other Reckon customers looking for the same basic information with no answers so far.

I also found out at the time you could lodge an application to become a developer partner, but wasn't willing to make that sort of commitment, given I was just trying to find out some basic information about what the new API service would allow.

I can understand that you may not be able to talk about these things publicly for a number of reasons, but being a closed entity, particular on the web these days, can cut you off from innovation. Products in all industries are increasingly opening up every aspect of their applications and data to external access to encourage innovation from also sort of external organisations.

You only have to browse the Zapier app directory to find Reckon competitors already on there with lots of app connectivity, not to mention their API documentation is also publicly available.

The final point I wanted to make, having built a few web apps that work with API services in the past, using Zapier as the platform to connect 3rd Party apps is a complete no brainer for the type of app connectivity I was looking at.

I'm not interested in building a new app from scratch, I merely wanted to create a link between two existing cloud apps, so I could setup some triggers using Zapier that poll the invoice data every five minutes or so and pull any new invoice data into the Reckon Hosted app.

Apps on Zapier can also be kept private, and only go global if Zapier approves them if they meet Zapiers global app standards.

Obviously, if a full featured Reckon app ever goes global on Zapier, app connectivity will sky-rocket with many Reckon customers, mostly non-technical jump on the platform & start creating all sorts of innovating app connectivity to increase their overall productivity.

If you made the API documentation public, and allowed users to generate their API key, secret for their own accounts... these kind of tasks could at least have a chance of becoming automated... which will only make Reckon hosted more flexible and productive than in its current form.

All I can say, is I really hope that the Zapier ball gets rolling sooner rather than later!

Jason Hollis

All good points Ashley. Cheers.

So to clarify:

the Reckon API program is FREE so no commitment needed
the docs are all available after joining the dev program
we will likely make the R1 docs publicly available in the near future
automation of the entire process has been scoped and will be rolled out once some other key areas of tech we are moving to is bedded down
due to us using the Intuit SDK for desktop and hosted we cannot make the SDK and docs publicly available unless you sign the agreement. This is why Reckon one is so different, because it was built from the ground up by Reckon.

I hope that clarifies.

If we do anything with Zapier we will post an update here>

For any developers following this thread, see https://go.reckon.com/api-developers/

Regards,
Jason

Jason Hollis

Come on Andrew. Please leave the Reckon bashing for another time and place as it is not helpful, especially in this context as you are not adding value to this topic.

Jason Hollis

Requires new topic in forum. JH. Please reference the new conversation here: Reckon Accounts Hosted frozen whilst emailing after January 2017 maintenance

Melinda Jane Koth

Thanks for letting us know, this is great news. It will be really good if Reckon, Hosted in particular can let us know how long before the likes of Receipt Bank etc come on line seeing as now API's are available... At this point in time we have stopped recommending Reckon as there has been no development of Bank Feed's, Invoice OCR Capability and the inability of Third party provider add on's being able to integrate with Reckon. It is really becoming a big issue for Reckon..

Jason Hollis

Hi Melinda and thank you for taking the time to comment.

You know how you break up with someone and they say "it's not you, it's me" ? Well in this case it's you.. well not you personally, but the 3rd-party applications.

I have personally contacted all of the usual suspects (note this topic was first posted 12 months ago), many times, with varying success. Some are only interested in particular eco-systems, some don't want to code to desktop/hosted applications, and some aren't interested in growing the AU/NZ market any longer (nb. we cannot sell Reckon Accounts Desktop or Hosted outside of those markets).

On a positive, this has made us search far and wide for similar apps that manage these tasks. One absolute gem (and a great team as well) is AutoEntry from OCRex. AutoEntry integrates with Reckon One in AU and NZ (and soon UK), and those users / advisers / bookkeepers who know and use the more well-known apps in this space just say "wow".

Three other applications that link to Reckon Accounts desktop right now, Entryless, ScanWriter (both US) and Dataline (Sydney) have all recently committed to Reckon Hosted. These apps all serve different markets and have varying functionality - there is something there for everyone esentially - and well worth a look depending on your client / business type. The teams behind them are also great to work with from our perspective. NB. We ran a very successful webinar recently for all three that is available here

Finally we have a strong developer community, such as Cosmic Innovations, who can provide tailored solutions at great value (as they build on software technologies they have already integrated/developed).

More information on these integration partners can be found in our Add-on Marketplace.

Kind regards,
Jason