Just to get clarity, as I have testing this connection every way I know how:

My end-goal is be able to have the consultants who work for me to be able to
put their time into Outlook and link it with MS Accounting (currently using
2006, but will change to 2008 as soon as year-end is closed).

I have the whole thing working, including running it all on a SQL database
and Outlook BCM being able to "submit billable time".

Everything is just how I would expect it, except I think it seems weird to
have to install the FULL accounting app on every consultant's machine in
order for them to submit time - kinda overkill to install an app that's 500mb
to enable one feature in a different app.  

At any rate, if I could have someone from MS validate this is a requirement
and maybe speculate on when such a requirement would be removed.  I would
even understand if the Express version would work - and in fact in a
different iteration of this experiment, I actually had it working with
Express, but I think that was because I had Pro2007 installed to start with
and then removed it and installed Express2007 and the submit billable time
stuff still worked.  But when I tried that again with a newly built system,
it didn't work.

In the end, here's what I've had to do, just so my employees can submit
billable time:

Install Outlook BCM on the client
Setup a database (using the DB tool for BCM) on a server
Integrate the Acct info to that DB
Configure BCM to point to this new shared/combined DB
Install MS Acct 2008 Professional - run once - don't need to open company file

Again,  Seems a little silly that you can have a shared "remote" DB on a SQL
server that is clearly designed for multiple people to access, but you have
to access it (even integrated with Outlook BCM) using some part of the Acct
app itself on the local machine.  That's $150 per user for them to be able to
enter time.

Again - looking for clarity or ideas as to how this can be gotten around.

Thanks.