We’ve recently been doing more Intuit QuickBooks integrations with client projects and were curious about what some overall statistics about accounting software might be. We decided to take a look at the market share of several top programs. And since APIs are essential to most integration work, we also looked at the total number of API endpoints that each program provides.

We chose these top accounting programs for our comparison

• AccountEdge
• FreshBooks
• Oracle NetSuite
• Intuit QuickBooks
• Sage
• Wave
• Xero

We spent some time reviewing each of their websites, counting up endpoints, and using email and chat to confirm details with their support teams. We also did some due diligence through Google, as well as cross-checking with the newest hot-on-the-market resource, ChatGPT.

Market share and API endpoints side-by-side

Many of our clients use QuickBooks, which holds the lion’s share of the market for accounting software. For our own company, we’ve used AccountEdge for over 20 years, though its lack of APIs has been really limiting in recent times.

QuickBooks came to life thirty years ago, in 1983 (based on Intuit’s personal finance software, Quicken). AccountEdge began in 1989. In those days it was rather difficult to do an across-the-board comparison. Many current programs weren’t on the market and even Google itself didn’t arrive on the scene until almost ten years later.

(Curious about life before Google? Here’s an intriguing collection of perspectives.)

What correlations do you see?

We didn’t expect to find firm conclusions from our comparison. We just wanted to look at the data and see what it might show. 

• QuickBooks is the most-used accounting software by far, with a more-than-adequate number of APIs.
• We were surprised to see that Netsuite has over 3,000, despite only being used by 2% of the market.
• And Wave comes in second even though their market share is about one-tenth that of QuickBooks.

What tidbits do you see within the information?

Ready to connect your QuickBooks and FileMaker solutions?

Contact us and let’s talk. QuickBooks has an extensive API and that’s how we are currently handling our client integrations. We would love to help you streamline your workflow and recapture some time in your day by automating some processes for you.

Claris Connect does offer a QuickBooks connector, though we’ve found its current options a bit limited. We have a couple of videos on our YouTube channel which document the initial explorations of two of our Senior Application Developers in using the connector. 

Brad Stanford provided a QuickBooks Connector Introduction. While Xandon Frogget tried out the connector with journal entries. He ultimately wasn’t able to use the connector in the way he had hoped, but the video provides some valuable information about the discoveries through that process.

Author Bio

Brandynn Stanford is our Project Coordinator and Claris Licensing Manager and is responsible for a range of varied tasks including communicating with clients to map out tasks and timeframes, initiating and renewing licenses, testing & reporting, monitoring servers, coordinating blog posts, and keeping our Teamwork project management system humming. She enjoys her part in helping all of these myriad elements flow smoothly.