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OpenQBW

Pure-Rust reader and open specification for Intuit QuickBooks Desktop .QBW company files.

OpenQBW is a clean-room project. It is derived from observation of the on-disk bytes of .QBW files and from public documentation of the underlying database engine. It ships with no Intuit or SAP code or binaries.

Why​

Intuit has announced end-of-life dates for QuickBooks Desktop. Companies that have kept books in QuickBooks Desktop for decades need a way to migrate that data to other accounting products, or just to preserve it in an open format, without depending on the QuickBooks Desktop application continuing to install and run.

OpenQBW reads the .QBW file directly and exports to CSV, SQLite, or IIF.

What you can do today​

  • Open a .QBW file with no QuickBooks installed.
  • Enumerate user tables via the SYSTABLE catalog.
  • Parse SYSCOLUMN, SYSINDEX, SYSOBJECT.
  • Extract invoice line items, transaction headers, and width-band attribution metadata.
  • Export to CSV, SQLite, or Intuit's own IIF interchange format.

Validated on the Rock Castle Construction sample file: 13,375 / 13,375 invoices recovered, grand total $399,914,792.78.

How it stacks​

.QBW file
   |
   v
 OpenQBW                 (QuickBooks schema, invoice extraction, migrate)
   |
   v
 OpenSQLAnywhere         (SA17 page store + AP deobfuscation primitive)

OpenSQLAnywhere is the companion project; see https://sigilweaver.app/opensqlanywhere/docs/.

Get started​