How To Delete Category From Quickbooks Online Using C#

In this article, we will learn how to delete a category from Quickbooks online from .NET MVC web application using SDK.

Before using any Quickbooks online API we need access token, if you don’t know how to get access token then you can find it here.

The category is one type of item in Quickbooks online. whose type is a category.

In Quickbook we can delete an item of type category.

If we delete a category, Any products, services, or categories in it will be uncategorized.

We are going to delete the category by its “Name”.

The following are a few steps for the deleting category.

• First, we have to create a ServiceContext with Auth tokens and realmId.
• For that, we need access token and realmId
• We have to get a category from Quickbooks online by calling Item API.
• We are querying a category by “Name”.
• For querying/get a category we have to define QueryService
• We need to pass a ServiceContext object into QueryService.
• We will get an item object by querying from Quickbooks online using QueryService.
• After getting an item object, We have to create a DataService object by passing a ServiceContext object as a parameter.
• Add item object in DataService.Delete<item>() for deleting an item.
• It will delete an item and return the item object, you can store the required details to the database according to your needs.
• The code is as below.

public ActionResult DeleteCategoryByName()
{
  try
  {
    OAuth2RequestValidator oauthValidator = new OAuth2RequestValidator(Access_token);

    // Create a ServiceContext with Auth tokens and realmId
    ServiceContext serviceContext = new ServiceContext(RealmId, IntuitServicesType.QBO, oauthValidator);
    serviceContext.IppConfiguration.MinorVersion.Qbo = "23";
    serviceContext.IppConfiguration.BaseUrl.Qbo = QboBaseUrl;

    string EXISTING_CATEGORY_QUERYBYNAME = string.Format("select * from Item where Name = '{0}' and Type = '{1}'", "Electronics", "Category");

    var queryService = new QueryService<Item>(serviceContext);
    Item ObjCategoryFound = queryService.ExecuteIdsQuery(EXISTING_CATEGORY_QUERYBYNAME).FirstOrDefault<Item>();

    //If Category found on Quickbooks online
    if (ObjCategoryFound != null)
    {
        DataService dataService = new DataService(serviceContext);

        Item DeleteEntity = dataService.Delete<Item>(ObjCategoryFound);
        if (DeleteEntity != null && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(DeleteEntity.Id))
        {
            //you can write Database code here
            ViewBag.IsSuccess = true;
        }
    }
    return View();
  }
  catch (IdsException ex)
  {
    return View();
  }
  catch (Exception ex)
  {
    return View();
  }
}

• View code is as below

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "DeleteCategoryByName";
}

<h2>Delete Category By Name</h2>


@if (ViewBag.IsSuccess != null && ViewBag.IsSuccess == true)
{
    <div class="row">
        <label class="label label-success"> Category Deleted Successfully </label>
    </div>
}