How do I validate TimeModified timestamp values in QBXML response from QuickBooks Desktop?

Question

I am using the QuickBooks Web Connector to sync QuickBooks Desktop employees and customers bidirectionally with our third party web application. We plan to compare the TimeModified value returned in the QBXML to the timestamp of the last change for the record in our system to determine which version (QBD or ours) is most up to date.

I have found that users can change the date and time to an incorrect time on their local machine (that is running QBD and the QBWC), causing TimeCreated and TimeModified fields in QBXML results to have incorrect modified timestamp values. This can cause data integrity issues, specifically if the date is set in the past or in the future the comparison would be invalid and records could become permanently overlooked or incorrectly updated.

Is there any way to get the system time of the QuickBooks Desktop host? The only way I can think of is to modify an object then read its TimeModified value, but that seems like a hack.

Answer 1

I am facing the same issue, QuickBooks does not account for UTC time at all. This timezone is all fake and causes problem with fetching the data.

The best way I believe to get this working is to order the TimeModified when you receive them, then take the latest time and do a +1 second on it.

This is also a problem as you mentioned QuickBooks Web Connector TimeModified offset does not account for Daylight Savings time , you will have to remove the delta dst when dst is enabled.