In September 2023, the QuickBooks app developer community hit the 500k member mark. That was a big milestone for us, so we launched a Developer Community Leader contest to recognize the contributions of our most dedicated and valuable community members.
Our first winner, Michele Hand, was announced in December 2023. Today, we’re excited to highlight our March 2024 winner: Jonah Purinton, Owner and Operational Accounting Consultant of Reflex Accounting Automation.
Jonah creates and implements accounting systems for online marketplaces and was selected as our second Developer Community Leader because of his passion for helping others within the community. He has consistently and accurately answered questions posted by other developers, shared solutions that have worked for him, and provided tips and tricks he found useful.
Jonah said this about his win: “Teaching myself to code during the pandemic, I never imagined I’d win an award like this. I love having a place to share what I’ve learned about developing QuickBooks apps. Thanks so much to the Intuit Developer team for the recognition.”
Jonah’s background
Jonah majored in accounting at San Francisco State University. His first job as an Accounting Manager for a local restaurant eventually segued into positions as a Business Development Lead, Finance Manager, and Accounting & Systems Manager. In 2016, he charted a new course by starting Reflex Accounting Automation, a business that helps CFOs manage the financial complexities of operating an online marketplace.
Jonah explains on his website why he started Reflex Accounting Automation: “I noticed CFOs were often preoccupied with negotiating leases and raising capital, leaving little time to monitor fundamental accounting processes. And few had found time to adapt those processes to overcome the complex challenges that define the platform economy.”
“Failure to properly manage even a few transactions from buyer to seller—through the entire purchase process—could spell disaster for a two-sided marketplace. Because a successful online platform must process massive transactional volume, the cost of these potential failures increases exponentially. The needless havoc they were wreaking among businesses I loved kept me up at night. Now I’m on a mission to help finance professionals make a real difference and elevate the humanity of the accounting profession.”
According to one of his many satisfied clients, Jonah is making a difference in how his businesses operate. Michael Ownby, CPA, Chief Financial Officer, Infoworks, writes: “Jonah worked with me to overhaul the enterprise systems and accounting environment at Zume [Pizza]. The “go to” person for understanding how old data needed to be cleaned before it would be useful in the new environment, Jonah’s data prowess and interest in going beyond is to understand the impact of data on business results, is something that is rare, and far exceeds that of most accountants.”
What inspired Jonah to contribute to the Intuit Developer Community
So how did Jonah get connected with the QuickBooks developer community and its forums? He needed an accounting solution that worked. “I started using QuickBooks at my first real accounting job. Their company file had a variety of problems, and I learned a lot researching how to fix them, largely from Seth David’s YouTube channel.”
Jonah expanded his QuickBooks knowledge by following experts on the QuickBooks Community site. “Following experts led me to gain enough expertise to answer some questions there on my own, eventually earning “All Star” contributor status. Then, after years of dreaming about the QuickBooks apps I would build if only I could, I finally learned how to code and started answering questions from the Intuit Developer Community forums.”
Jonah says his contributions to the Intuit Developer Community forums were inspired by a number of anonymous posters who willingly provided solutions to questions posted on various forums.
“I’d long suspected those who posted detailed answers did so because they enjoyed it, though it was hard to imagine who would enjoy answering such technically complex questions,” he says. “I finally understood their motivation after discovering the Intuit Developer Community forums because it turned out that solving people’s problems was interesting and a lot of fun.” He adds, “I find out what’s important from the questions posted by individual developers. It’s fascinating to notice topic trends and how some seem to persist over the years.”
Jonah’s advice for new QuickBooks app developers
Jonah has been working with QuickBooks for more than a decade. In that time, he reached Level 5: Legend in the Intuit Developer Community forum. Given his experience with QuickBooks Online integrations, migrating from QuickBooks Desktop to Online, and optimizing accounting processes, Jonah has some advice for app developers new to the QuickBooks platform.
“Use the APIExplorer. Intuit went to a lot of trouble to build out their API documentation tool, allowing developers to test what they’re working on in the type of controlled environment necessary for troubleshooting,” he says. “On APIExplorer, you can read the documentation and then immediately test API functions—any function on any sandbox or production account you can access—making it extremely versatile. The APIExplorer is an indispensable first stop, especially when trying something new.”
Become our next QuickBooks Development Community Leader
We appreciate Jonah’s continued support within the QuickBooks Development Community. We know that he will continue to be a valuable resource for our current and future developers.
For those developers who would like to be the next leader in our contest, here are a few simple steps to follow:
- Update your developer account profile and ensure the information is up to date, including your email address.
- Review our community guidelines to ensure you’re following them.
- Answer questions posted by other developers accurately.
- Help other developers by sharing a solution that worked for you.
- Share tips and tricks that you found helpful.
In addition to bragging rights, contest winners have a chance to be featured on Intuit social media channels, have a special mention in our quarterly developer newsletter, and be included on the “Wall of Fame” on our developer community homepage.
For more information, read our complete contest rules and stay tuned for our June 2024 winner!