E-Commerce and QuickBooks: Part 3

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This mini-series is taken, in part, from the QB Talks Webinar Insightful Accountant offered on April 11, 2018. The Webinar and mini-series evolved together, and, in some sense, each is based on the other. To some extent the mini-series goes more in-depth into some topics than the webinar, but in other cases the webinar provides a great degree of coverage.

Because the Webinar, and even the PowerPoint (slide) PDF are available within the Insightful Accountant archives, a person with sufficient interest can make use of all three sources as an overall guide to the subject content.

In Part 1 we examined the fundamentals of E-commerce looking at the definitions for E-commerce itself along with ‘marketplace’ ‘shopping carts’ and ‘merchant services’.  We reviewed ‘shining examples’ of today’s biggest and most popular E-commerce Marketplaces and discussed the relationship between some marketplace and shopping cart providers.  We discussed the differences between starting an E-commerce business using a marketplace in contrast to your own website with shopping cart.

In Part 2 we explored the reasons for using, and functional preferences for E-commerce Integration software or applications (collectively referred to as ‘Integrators’). We all too briefly examined the differences between Cart/marketplace-specific integrators provided by cart/marketplace developers and those which can be acquired (via purchase or monthly SAAS payments), wherein the focus is typically on giving your flexibility in how the data flows and is posted within your general ledger.  We then looked at shopping-cart and marketplace specific integrators that work with QuickBooks (Desktop) and QuickBooks (Online).

In this Part 3 article we will look at generalized E-commerce Integration and Fulfillment Platforms that provide a far more comprehensive and complex offering of solutions than the single-source integration applications we looked at last time.

When it comes to integrating your E-commerce workflow with your accounting, inventory, warehouse and fulfillment systems, as well as your outbound shipping and delivery logistics, you need more than a solution that simply plugs dollars and quantities into your general ledger whether you are using QuickBooks Desktop or QuickBooks Online.

So, let’s look at six of the most popular products offering these features.

Agiliron is probably the most comprehensive and complex of the solution that I am presenting in this category.  It really is more than just and integration and fulfillment application, it is an ‘E-commerce everything’ type product that integrates CRM and on-site sales, including Point-of-sale, functionality for your brick-n-mortar store. It also handles call-in orders and to full multi-channel support for every kind of E-commerce solution.

We really haven’t even talked about the branch of E-commerce known as Business-to-Business channels with their advanced operations being supported by EDI (electronic data interface) exchange, but Agiliron handles those requirements too. Your Business-to-Customer operations via your current website-stores and/or e-commerce marketplaces will be fully supported, or you can even create a new store all from within Agiliron.

All your operations will become workflow-central based upon this central hub for managing all your E-commerce activity, inventory management, order fulfillment, and integration with QuickBooks Desktop or QuickBooks Online. As you might imagine a product of this nature requires a great deal of expertise to set it up properly. 

This is one of the favorite solutions my friend ‘Jim Savage’ likes to use. He once told me, “Agiliron is like wrapping an E-commerce, EDI, and Advanced Inventory solution into one, and then attaching it to QuickBooks.”  Agiliron is a great solution, especially if your client has ‘mega-bucks to spend’. Just plan accordingly, because neither it, nor its proper installation, are cheap.

Now I am sure that some people, and software vendors may wonder, or even question, why I would include Agiliron and not their products if they offer an E-commerce connector for their product. That’s a good, and OK question to ask. All I can say is that I couldn’t include every product in either the Webinar or this mini-series of articles. My objective was to provide examples of products that I personally knew ‘worked well’ within the area of integration of E-commerce channels with QuickBooks (Desktop or Online). 

There are ‘editorial rumblings’ (a kind of rumor mill that goes on between those of us involved in this publication) that we may actually have some future webinars and stores on this E-commerce topic since it seems to have gone over so well.  I suspect that there maybe some coverage of other products in the future should the rumblings turn into reality.

eIntegrator by AaaTeX Corporation - AaaTeX is a company that has built various QuickBooks utilities including their iiF Importer and their TransImporter. Their E-commerce tool called eIntegrator has been available for quite some time.  They say it functions with both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online, although it is NOT listed on Intuit’s QuickBooks App Center. 

As you can see it appears to be a simplistic tool that looks almost identical to their other importer utilities for QuickBooks.  But even though it looks simplistic you can configure how often you download orders and also set-up how the orders post to QuickBooks in terms of accounts and/or items.  You also get to configure how credits and refunds are processed.

There are 4 different versions oof the eIntegrator available. Their Standard version supports 1 cart/store/marketplace and 1 QuickBooks file. The Gold version supports up to 3 carts/stores and 3 marketplaces/stores but 1 QB company.  Their Platinum version supports 5 carts/stores and 5 marketplaces/stores but only 1 QB Company. Lastly, they have a Diamond version supports up to 10 carts/stores and 10 marketplaces/stores and up to 5 QB Companies.

ShipStation is ‘the new kid on the block’, and some readers may wonder why I am including a ‘shipping solution’ in this list of integrators.  The reality is that ShipStation was great shipping software before it decided to expand into order fulfillment. Then, as part of that process they decided to offer integration with many of the most common Ecommerce channels including Amazon, BigCommerce, Ebay, Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, Volusion, Opencart, Yahoo, and a variety of individualized shopping carts. 

Ship Station gives you all the tools and features you need to easily handle E-commerce order fulfillment and to ship all your orders in less time by being connected to more shipping providers than any other solution including FedEx, UPS, Royal Mail, Stamps.com, Australia Post, Purolator, DHL, Canada Post, Sparks Shipping, APC Logistics, FirstMile, OnTrac Delivery, Access Worldwide, Parcel Technology and many others.

ShipStation’s automation rules allow you to easily customize your shipping and order fulfillment workflows saving you time while still empowering you to process and ship your orders exactly the way you want to work with them.  ShipStation also had direct integration with QuickBooks Online, and recently began offering connectivity to QuickBooks Desktop via the ‘Connex for QuickBooks’ third-party connection utility.

I wrote a QBO App First Look last summer (2017) about ShipStation not long after they got certified for the Intuit App Center, so if you want more details you should check out that article.

The SuperManager is a multi-channel order processor that automates your order processing tasks. SuperManager features seamless integration with Yahoo!/Aabaco, Amazon, Shopify, ShopSite, BigCommerce, Magento, Volusion, PrestaShop, SparkPay, XCart, ClaimTheWeb, WooCommerce, 3dcart, OpenCart, Zen Cart, GrabCart and osCommerce as well as a ½-dozen other carts and marketplaces.

You can use the SuperManager to download orders from all your supported sales channels in one click, automatically verify addresses and send dropship requests, print receipts, packing slips, pick lists and reports, capture authorized transactions individually or in batches, Print shipping labels for USPS, UPS, or FedEx, Export Orders to QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Point-of-sale, and QuickBooks Online.

You can also email in batch, create and process off-line orders, and much more. SuperManager’s shipping integrations include VIP Parcel, Worldship, FedEx, Endicia/Dazzle, Stamps.com.

This is a great product that offers simple configuration, with just slightly less flexibility than Webgility (in my opinion) but it is also a very economical product on a comparative basis. You definitely should do a little more research on this integrator, and where better to do it then by reading the article I wrote a couple of years ago (June 2016).

T-Hub really is two different products, T-Hub for connection to QuickBooks and QuickBooks Point-of-sale and T-Hub Online for connection to QuickBooks Online.  For purposes of this discussion I will simply refer to T-Hub as representative of both products and will not differentiate other than the obvious and noted exceptions.  Both products are developed by Atandra.

T-HUB is the desktop version that runs as a Windows program. It is compatible with all US versions of QuickBooks Desktop (Pro, Premier and Enterprise) and QuickBooks Point-of-sale. T-HUB is available in Standard, Pro and Advanced editions. T-HUB Online is an online SaaS application that supports QuickBooks Online.

T-HUB is a multi-channel Order Manager solution designed to integrate your E-commerce stores with QuickBooks and your Shipping services (UPS/FedEx/USPS). T-HUB works with many of the leading E-commerce platforms and shopping carts such as Amazon, EBay, Magento, BigCommerce, Shopify, Volusion, and many more.

T-HUB Online is also multi-channel ready allowing QBO users to manage all their online stores and marketplaces from one place. You will control your orders posting and shipping preferences by E-channel. For example, you can post orders from one website to QuickBooks Online as Sales Receipts and orders from a different website to the same QuickBooks Online company as Invoices.

Now I haven’t used the T-HUB Online product, but the T-HUB (for QuickBooks Desktop) solution has been one of the regular recommendations I have routinely made in the past to E-commerce clients looking to have a software solution to meet their workflow needs.  On a few occasions I have found it a little ‘clunky’ during set-up, but they have made some improvements and enhancements over the last few years that may have streamlined some aspects of set-up.

Webgility products are undoubtedly the leader in terms of integrator market share. Webgility began life as a product known as eCC (standing for E-commerce connector) that connected about 20 different shopping carts to QuickBooks Desktop, but they kept adding and expanding their product offerings.  They now integrate with more than 100 different shopping carts, and more than 40 E-commerce marketplaces.

Webgility offers two different integrator/workflow products, one for QuickBooks Desktop and one for QuickBooks Online.  Their Unify Desktop product line works with QuickBooks Desktop as you might expect, but then they sub-divide their offerings.  Unify Enterprise is for Desktop-server based operations while Unify for Desktop is designed for single workstations.

Unify Online offers integration for QuickBooks Online (and also supports Xero). They also offer a variety of specific Unify SAAS applications that allow you to connect one cart or marketplace to 1 cloud-GL file. For example, Unify for Amazon, or Unify for Shopify, or Unify for eBay, which are all listed in the QBO App Center. We discussed those in Part 2 of this series.

I’m not going to use the ‘word count’ to elaborate their various features, they are summarized in the illustration (above). What I am going to do is tell you why I think that Webgility has been so successful in the integrator market even though they are not the original integrator, I believe their standing boils down to two things. 

First, even more since Unify was released as the replacement for eCC, their products are ‘sexy’, they just have a look and feel that is different than any of the other traditional looking integrators on the market. I have personally witnessed the visual appeal of Webgility earn them the business of several of my own clients who were given other options that did the same thing, at sometimes for less money, yet they selected Webgility for the way it looked and felt to them. 

The second reason I feel Webgility has grow to market leader is ‘the extent to which their programs can be customized to meet the exact needs and requirements of the user.’  Even eCC offered many cutting-edge functionalities that no other integrator offered. 

You can look back all the way back to one of the very first features I wrote for Insightful Accountant on June 17, 2013, and our very first ‘featured product’ article, was on Webgility eCC.  Way back then I said the product looked ‘very sophisticated’ (I really wasn’t sure I could get away calling something ‘sexy’ that early in our start-up publication…but that’s what I was thinking even if I wrote, ‘sophisticated’.)

I also mentioned in that article the flexibility of configuration telling the readers that “I was able (for one of my clients) to be able to configure all orders with sufficient quantities with insufficient quantities on hand to post to QuickBooks as Sales Orders, while all paid orders with sufficient quantities on hand to post as Sales Receipts.”  At the time I worked with that client no other product on the market could be configured to do that.

If you are a ProAdvisor who is interested in specializing your practice in E-commerce including integrations, you really should take the time to thoroughly examine any or all of these products. A highly skilled integrator will have a total knowledge of one or two of those in this list, or perhaps one of a few others, so that they can offer their clients the best possible solutions from which to choose.  Many of these products offer training and 'partner programs' to help qualify to represent, install and support their products for the benefit of your E-commerce businesses.

Lastly let me say that some readers may think this sounds like one long commercial for a bunch of software vendors, but I want to assure you that none of either the Webinar or this mini-series content has been 'sponsored' in any way.  It's hard to inform you about multiple products in such a short time frame as 50-minutes (in a webinar) and 2000 words in a feature without simply highlighting the things that make the product unique, as well as the basics...if that sounds a little like a car commercial I am sorry.  I intend to inform you of what's available not sell you anything.