In September of 2020, Trade Gecko, an outstanding e-Commerce friendly Inventory management application was acquired by Intuit. In an article I wrote in August of 2020 I forecast that Intuit engineers would eventually integrate this product into QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Online Advanced to enhance the product-based inventory capabilities of QBO.
Intuit initially offered the acquired product which they renamed QuickBooks Commerce as a stand-alone plug in for 'new' QuickBooks Online or Online Advanced customers. Then they began offering it as a stand-along App to any of their customers.
About a year ago, they announced that they would begin incorporating portions of the product into the QBO 'Plus' and 'Advanced' SKUs that would allow those users to sync with various e-commerce channels.
Now they have begun the next phase of integrations by introducing a variety of new inventory and e-commerce innovations for QuickBooks Online to assist small businesses in efficiently managing their inventory and multiple sales channels.
Can you say..."Murph, you got it right, your forecast for Intuit's use of Trade Gecko, was 'right on the money'!"
Product-based businesses often use ineffective methods like spreadsheets and pen and paper; they can now utilize these new inventory and e-commerce capabilities to manage their product-supply, sales and order fulfillment confidently. QuickBooks new inventory and e-commerce capabilities should help these businesses manage orders and inventory more confidently and with less work, which is critical, especially during the busy holiday season.
In discussing the new inventory and e-commerce innovations, Joe Black, Director of Product Management for Commerce at Intuit, told me during our one-on-one at QuickBooks Connect, “Many small businesses selling products have multiple sales channels to consider - ranging from various online platforms to in-person outlets -- and while this can lead to greater revenue opportunities, it can also lead to more headaches when it comes to order fulfillment and inventory management,”
Black went on to say, “By automating critical functions throughout the commerce process and seamlessly integrating commerce data into the books to streamline accounting, QuickBooks Online can serve as the single source of truth for products, inventory, sales, and order fulfillment as well as the related bookkeeping information, giving business owners the visibility they need to make informed business decisions."
Sales Orders for future fulfillment
New sales orders allow you to record a sale you plan to fulfill in the future. This new functionality will help you track items you promised customers.
Source: Intuit QuickBooks media source content
Wow, Sales Orders will be available soon for QuickBooks Online users. This is a game changer for many businesses, and could be what many QB-Desktop users have been waiting for to migrate to QBO. (Murph)
Maintain accurate inventory counts
Enhanced inventory capabilities allow you to manage stock adjustments individually or in bulk to help ensure accurate inventory quantity.
Source: Intuit QuickBooks media source content
Manage your stock requirements
Get notified when inventory is low and effortlessly create purchase orders to replenish stock with a bird’s eye view of products and variants.
Source: Intuit QuickBooks media source content
Sync all your sales channels
New functionality allows you to automatically sync your products, orders, inventory, and payout data without any manual entry work. You will save time and expense by using QuickBooks’ automated invoicing when Sales Orders are placed across your various channels, including Shopify, Amazon, and eBay.
Source: Intuit QuickBooks media source content
Identify growth opportunities
By syncing their various commerce sales channels to QuickBooks Online, businesses can identify how their sales are trending across the various channels to identify their top-performing products.
Source: Intuit QuickBooks media source content
Track your sales, costs and profit margins
Enhanced reporting let's you track your costs of goods and business expenses. You can leverage dashboards and customer reports to help you understand item profitability across all your sales channels.
Source: Intuit QuickBooks media source content
Because studies show consumers plan to spend 35% more this holiday season than they did last year, and with 50% of this year’s holiday budget expected to be spent with small businesses, now is the time to seamlessly integrate your sales channels, get to tracking all your inventory, streamline your order and fulfillment processes, and manage your cost-of-goods better than ever before with these new QuickBooks Online capabilities.
This is pretty exciting stuff for those QuickBooks users who have been needing more in the way of inventory functionality. (Murph)
Sales Orders will be available for QuickBooks Online users very soon, other e-Commerce and inventory functionality can be found in the QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced SKUs.
There are additional functionalities and feature capabilities "still in the works." It's possible that some of those truly advanced features might only find their way into the QBO Advanced platform.
In discussing the future of 'inventory and e-commerce' integration with Mr. Black, he indicated, "There will always be a need for some businesses with sophisticated inventory, manufacturing and production requirements to use plug-in 3rd-party Apps specific to those needs."
Personally, I think Intuit is making great strides in the inventory and e-commerce functionalities of the upper SKUs of QuickBooks Online. But just as with QuickBooks Enterprise where some users always needed more than the product could offer, the same will hold true for QuickBooks Online.
I fully agree with Mr. Black's assessment, even when QBO meet the product needs of most users, some users will still have require specialization, and that's where Apps can truly make the difference.
Check out this website to see this new functionality in the official Intuit QuickBooks YouTube video here.
Disclosures
Feature content, including graphic materials were adapted from Intuit source content. Content created or otherwise adapted by Insightful Accountant from Intuit source content is furnished for educational purposes only.
As used herein, QuickBooks®, QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Online Advanced, and QuickBooks Commerce, refer to one or more registered trademarks of Intuit® Inc., a publicly-traded corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California.
Any other trade names or references used herein may refer to registered, trademarked or copyrighted materials held by their respective owners; they are included in the content for informational and educational purposes only.
This is an editorial feature, not sponsored content. No vendor associated with this article has paid Insightful Accountant or the author any form of remuneration to be included within this feature. The article is provided solely for informational and educational purposes.
Note: Registered Trademark ® and other registration symbols (such as those used for copyrighted materials) have been eliminated from the articles within this publication for brevity due to the frequency or abundance with which they would otherwise appear or be repeated. Every attempt is made to credit such trademarks or copyrights within our respective article footnotes and disclosures.