Everyone probably knows that I am a bit of a geek when it comes to inventory and manufacturing so when a new App professing to accomplish one or both of these functions shows up on the Intuit App Center I am going to try to find time to check it out. Today's App is erplain which offers expanded sales and inventory features for QuickBooks Online; so, let's take a look. Remember though this is a 'first look' not an in-depth product review so if your interested by this content then be sure to check out the product yourself.
Setting up erplain to work with QuickBooks Online
There are several steps that must be accomplished to begin using erplain for your sales and inventory solution with QuickBooks Online. These steps include connecting the two software, configuring erplain to work with QBO, and importing QBO list information into erplain.
Connecting erplain with QBO
While you can create an erplain account from the Intuit QuickBooks App center, you will probably want to explore erplain more from their website, so it is likely that you will set-up your account by initially creating a log-in at erplain. But even if you do that you can still sign-in with your Intuit credentials. Once you begin the process of connecting erplain to QBO, you will authorize the exchange of data (via OAuth 2) as with any other App you connect to your QBO.
Credit: Intuit
erplain_qbo_authorize
Configuring erplain to work with QBO
After you have connected erplain with QuickBooks Online, you need to update your connection settings. Go to Menu 'Apps' and click on the 'Configure QuickBooks Online' button so that you can map your QuickBooks ledger accounts to erplain.
Credit: erplain
erplain_ledger-map
The essential accounts that must be mapped between the two software are:
- Income
- Expense
- Assets
- Discounts
- Deposits
- Accounts Payable
- Payments
- Invoices
You will then sync and map your tax settings so that new taxes will be created in erplain that match your existing QBO taxes.
Credit: erplain
erplain_tax-mapping
Once you have your taxes configured you will set-up Documents, Price-levels and Multi-locations which allows you to manage your products in multiple locations within erplain, while simultaneously synchronizing with QBO. There are several other settings that need to be configured, but I think you get the idea that this is tight integration with QBO.
Importing QBO List Information into erplain
After configuring your QBO and erplain settings you will want to import your products from QBO.
Credit: erplain
erplain_product-import
After this initial sync is performed any products created in QuickBooks will be automatically sync’d to erplain if you check the (recommended) Auto sync setting.
Once the products are in both QBO and erplain, any changes to the product list or information in erplain will be sync’d to QBO the next time a sync takes place (every 15 minutes).
The following product information is sync’d between the two software programs:
- Product name
- Product description
- Ledger account assigned to the products (only from QuickBooks to erplain)
- SKU
- On Hand Stock
- Re-Order point
- Purchase Cost (only from erplain to QuickBooks)
- Unit Price
Credit: erplain
erplain_product-information
You will then import your customers and suppliers (vendors), the process is very similar to the way that product information was initially sync’d.
Using erplain for Sales and Inventory Transactions
You probably chose erplain to be your sales and inventory transaction solution because it offers a richer set of features than QuickBooks Online alone. You will undoubtedly want to use erplain for Estimates, Sales Orders, Invoices and Purchaser Orders, so let’s look at each of these features to give you a better ‘first look’ at this software.
Estimates
Some people refer to estimates as quotes and you can begin the sales workflow in erplain using an Estimate, or by using a Sales Order, or even by going straight to an Invoice. Estimates are a way to give your customers a quote on the cost of products and services without impacting your inventory (stock levels) in any way. You typically begin an estimate by selecting the Customer which will result in the various default values (location, price level, currency, etc.) being displayed based upon the pre-established customer information.
Credit: erplain
erplain_customer-information
You would then add the various products to your Estimate along with notes and other information you feel appropriate before ‘Saving’ it.
Credit: erplain
erplain_sales-transaction-details
If your client accepts the Estimate you can easily generate a new Sales order (or Invoice), on the other hand if your client declines the Estimate, you can ‘reject it’ to close it from further consideration.
Sales Orders
Sales Orders recorded in erplain give you the ability to reserve inventory which provides better visibility of your actual stock levels and what is truly available for sales. QuickBooks Online doesn’t have a Sales Order feature so erplain must take a non-transactional approach to how it handles the inventory in relationship to QBO.
Credit: erplain
erplain_Sales-order
When you create a Sales Order in erplain it won’t change the on-hand stock recorded in either erplain or QBO, but it will decrease your available stock reported in erplain. It will also show an increase in the quantity of ‘reserved stock’ for each item on the Sales Order. Below you will see an example of the inventory stock levels for a specific product as reported in erplain.
Credit: erplain
erplain_stock-counts
When you are ready to process either a new Sales Order, or an Invoice you will be able to quickly see the actual quantity you have ‘available’ for every product.
Invoices
Invoices pretty much follow the same steps as Estimates, it all begins by selecting a Customer and then recording the Products for sale. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, you can easily generate an Invoice from either an Estimate or a Sales Order.
Credit: erplain
erplain_Invoice-PDF
Of course, when you print or PDF the invoice you get a nice clean look that includes your logo and other design elements you incorporate.
Purchase Orders
Purchase Orders are used in erplain when you buy products from your Suppliers (Vendors). Once you select a Supplier the default information related to that supplier (location, taxes, currency, etc.) will populate into the top portion of the form in much the same way information about your customer populated into a sales transaction.
You will then proceed with adding the Products you need to the Purchase Order (as shown below).
Credit: erplain
erplain_PO-details
Creating a Purchase Order doesn’t change your inventory levels, the stock levels only change once you ‘receive’ the products associated with the purchase order. You can see the status of every purchase order (active, automatically completed, completed manually, partially delivered) from the Purchase Order Dashboard within erplain.
Credit: erplain
erplain_PO-dashboard
Many other Features
This ‘first look’ has hardly begun to cover the feature set associated with erplain. For example, we haven’t even talked about stock transfers, stock counts, and things like the integrated ‘Shopify’ connectivity. There are also a group of what erplain calls ‘Intelligence’ features that provide reporting and metrics on sales, inventory turns, and more.
So, if inventory is ‘your thing’ and you have been wanting to explore an inventory add-on for QuickBooks Online, then you probably want to check out erplain at their website. You can even try the product out for 14 days free without any credit card information being exchanged.