Screenshot provided by Exact Online
Exact, an online product for small business manufacturers and wholesale distributors, has partnered with Logicbroker to give customers greater visibility into extended supply chains through integrated storefront e-commerce, shipping and electronic data interchange (EDI). Starting in July, Exact Online customers can take advantage of complete integration, and I do mean ‘complete’ as I observed in a demonstration yesterday, between Logicbroker, a complete cloud-based e-commerce platform for automation and integration, and Exact’s cloud-based business software.
Steve Leavitt, General Manager of U.S. Cloud Solutions for Exact said, “By integrating powerful e-commerce and storefront capabilities, shipping and EDI, businesses can drastically improve their supply chain visibility. Together with Logicbroker, we’re making it possible for customers to expand their footprint and revenue without sacrificing visibility.”
Designed for small business manufacturing and wholesale distribution, Exact Online streamlines tasks such as production and inventory management, logistics and CRM. For many small operations Exact can provide a convenient solution to what has otherwise been a mix-master of varied alternatives from paper documents to spreadsheets, and small software specific to individual components none of which mesh with the accounting solution. But Exact Online replaces all of the manual pieces and small components and ties the sales, fulfillment (including production) and accounting all together by virtue of its seamless integration with either QuickBooks Online or Desktop versions.
With the addition of Logicbroker functionality, the combined product integrates catalog information, inventory information, order information and shipping information as well as enabling Exact Online to connect to e-commerce storefronts and EDI trading partners. In a companion press announcement, Peyman Zamani, Logicbroker's CEO said, “By partnering with Exact Online we can give clients the deep integrations they need to effectively run their business.”
I can certainly say that Mr. Zamani’s words held true in the example demonstrated to me; a Magento shopping carts activity was tied directly through Exact Online into QuickBooks providing a tight integration that was simple and clean (at least from a user standpoint). Of course behind the scenes a great deal of work has gone on to insure that data integrity and traceability is preserved to the smallest detail. The demonstration carried the orders fulfillment through the processing of shipping as well as posting the shipping information back to both the shopping cart and QuickBooks in real time.
One of the things I liked best about this new approach was the fact that multiple ‘pieces’ of the entire process are all being integrated into Exact Online and only Exact Online is linking up with QuickBooks. As you my readers know, I have on numerous occasions, expressed my concerns about the use of ‘too many’ different products all being plugged into QuickBooks individually; obviously the approach that Exact and Logicbroker have developed overcomes those concerns.
I intend to spend a great deal more time trying out this ‘new development’ in the Exact Online product, and we here at Intuitive Accountant will be passing on our test results to you in an upcoming article.