Integrate QuickBooks (Prem/Pro/Ent), QuickBooks POS, and Sage 50 U.S.

[swheeler]

CartSpan is an easy-to-use bi-directional interface for QuickBooks (US), Sage 50 (US), and QuickBooks POS that will import orders from VirtueMart and update item prices and quantity-available in the cart. This frees you of the burden of re-keying order information into the accounting system and helps prevent the over-committing of inventory to Web customers. For complete detail, link to http://www.cartspan.com.

For QuickBooks users only: CartSpan requires the use of QODBC by FlexQuarters, another third-party add-on that allows read-only direct access to the QuickBooks database. This will raise your total cost by a nominal amount. If you are using the Enterprise version of QuickBooks, QODBC is already included at no additional charge.

Our 10 day trial includes installation and configuration assistance; you pay nothing until you see orders importing into the accounting system to your satisfaction. There are no limitations with respect to the number of orders or supporting transactions you can import during the trial.

Check out our support for some of the most challenging aspects of achieving an effective integration that reduces (or completely eliminates) post-import adjustments:


Order Import – Key Points of Integration

Import as Order or Invoice - CartSpan supports import as either an Invoice or an Order. The Virtuemart order number flows directly to the order or invoice number in QuickBooks, Sage 50, or FrontAccounting. To ensure that the order series does not conflict with the legacy order number series, CartSpan supports the (optional) application of an alphanumeric modifier.

Customer ID Handling - With Customer ID management arguably the most problematic aspect of integration, CartSpan offers multiple options for creating the new Customer ID in accounting. When the new customer master is created, you may:

1) Use the VirtueMart assigned Customer ID.
2) Craft the ID from available Bill-To or Ship-To details using a configurable rule.
3) Manually cross-reference the VirtueMart ID to legacy Customer ID that will be memorized.

QuickBooks Users Only: CartSpan is the only integration product on the market that can completely 'regenerate' your existing Customer Names in QuickBooks to support rule-based ID creation for future imports from your Virtuemart system. This is often a 'make or break' circumstance if your existing Customer IDs follow non-standard or inconsistent naming conventions.

For additional explanation of bridging the gap between legacy Customer IDs in the accounting system with your new eCommerce store, please link to:
http://www.cartspan.com/2013/04/01/handling-customer-ids-when-moving-from-bricks-n-mortar-to-online-commerce

Cash Receipts - If you are importing as an Invoice, you can optionally import a cash receipt, essentially closing out the receivables transaction. The cash receipt is triggered by configurable order status codes. The cash account to which the receipt is applied is configurable based upon the payment method.

PayPal/Bank Transaction Fees - For any payment method that applies a consistent transaction fee, CartSpan can calculate this value and apply it to the payment as a discount. This is accomplished via a configurable formula for each payment method affected. This adjustment is typically applied manually during the reconciliation process; long after the order has been imported. CartSpan saves you significant amounts of time by removing this task entirely.

Customer Prepayments - If you are importing a web order (paid by credit card) into accounting as an order, CartSpan can properly apply a credit on the order itself and also create a transaction that debits cash. The cash account to which the payment is applied is configurable based upon the payment method.

Tax Handling - CartSpan allows you to direct taxes to specific codes based upon City, State, or Zip Code. What's more, CartSpan will detect and allocate taxes to any configured sub-authorities that may be configured for the referenced tax-code.

Many-to-One Item Mapping - CartSpan is the only integration that allows you to create one (or more) 'phantom' items in the shopping cart that can be mapped to a single SKU in the accounting system. Moreover, these cart-level phantom items can represent multiple quantities and pack-based pricing for the item mapped in the accounting system. CartSpan manages all price/quantity conversions during the import/export process.

Bundled/Kitted Item Support - (QuickBooks & FrontAccounting only) CartSpan leverages the 'Grouped' and 'Kitted' item functionality in these accounting systems to extend the capabilities of Virtuemart.  Kitted products allow you to represent multiple 'child' items in the cart via a single SKU. CartSpan will then breakout the associated child items during the import and properly allocate any discounted offering price. This functionality offered within the integration itself requires no additional add-ons for Virtuemart.

Dynamic SKUs from configured options - Suppose that you sell a basic item with a SKU named 'SHIRT' in the cart. Suppose that you also offer this item with user selectable options of color and size. While standard Virtuemart does not support a dynamic SKU creation, CartSpan can be configured to import this purchase item as "SHIRT-BLUE-LRG" based upon user selections. The feature eliminates the need to configure a separate item in the shopping cart for each possible combination item/options and presents an improved shopping experience for the user.

For a more complete explanation of this functionality see the following blog post:
http://www.cartspan.com/2013/01/12/use-cartspan-ecommerce-integration-for-quickbooks-to-leverage-grouped-product-functionality-in-your-shopping-cart 

Auto Creation of Items - If your business process is such that you choose not to create items in your accounting system until they are sold on the Website, CartSpan can be configured to auto-create the item at the time of order import. The new item is created using the description and the price of the ordered item.

Discounts and Coupon Handling - CartSpan will create individual line items for any coupons or discounts that are applied to the order along with reference to the individual coupon or promotional codes.

FedEx Shipping Integration - For QuickBooks customers, CartSpan offers special formatting of the ShipTo address so that you don't have to make any adjustments to support import into QuickBooks' FedEx Shipment Manager. Additionally, the order weight is conspicuously imported into the beginning of the Memo field so that all you have to do is 'Cut and Paste' it into the corresponding FedEx Shipment Manager field. This saves you loads of time in manually calculating total weight of the individual line-items.

Automation - CartSpan can run manually or be configured to import new orders at a pre-determined user-defined frequency.

Email Alerts (administrative and operational) - CartSpan can be configured to send email alerts to a system administrator when there are exceptions encountered during the integration. For instance, CartSpan can send notification for when new items are created in accounting.

Pick-List Generation - If your organization deals with external fulfillment services, you can configure CartSpan to send a comprehensive pick-list to one (or more) email addresses. Or, you could simply choose to send the email to an internal resource. The CartSpan generated pick-list has full shipping information as well as any customer comments relating to fulfillment. If you arrange your warehouse by 'Item Name', CartSpan imports line items in sorted order to facilitate the picking/packing process.


Item Price/Quantity Update – Key Points of Integration

Stock Quantity Update – Near real-time updates of stock quantity-available in response to receiving, invoicing, and adjustment activity in the accounting system. This is important to note that quantity 'available' refers to the amount you have available to sell after accounting for open sales orders in the accounting system.

Minimum Stock Configuration - If you are oversold in the accounting system, CartSpan allows you to artificially indicate a minimum quantity available in the cart.

Item Price Updates: Standard Pricing - CartSpan allows you to maintain 'standard' pricing in the accounting system; no need to remember updates between two systems.

Price Markup or Markdown Tools - If you elect to offer more competitive pricing on your website, relative to your 'bricks and mortar' operation, CartSpan allows you to configure global or item-specific markdown (or markup) percentages.

Price Rounding - We all know that multiplying existing prices by a given percentage often results in an odd looking value. CartSpan employs rounding rules to bring your price to the nearest '0.05' or '0.09' value; giving you pricing consistency across your site.

Multi-Pack Support - Option to sell individual items as a multi-pack unit (as configured in accounting) and have the appropriate conversion to 'Each' applied during the import.

Advanced Support for Assembly-based Product Types – Though you may not have final product assembled for sale, CartSpan can present the amount of final product you can reliably offer. CartSpan will determine available inventory for each item represented on the first level of the assembly and calculate the maximum quantity of the parent item that can be produced. This availability calculation even includes open orders for after-market purchases of affected child components.

How we are different:

We've built our own API - The CartSpan integration utilizes internally developed scripts to retrieve order information. This gives us a significant amount of latitude in designing for an 'operations-centric' integration. And because we enjoy full-control over the integration, we don't have to wait for features to be added to the next release...we can adjust at our own pace.

Not an order-management tool - Unlike competitive systems, CartSpan does not function as an intermediate order management tool...this is what you pay good money for your QuickBooks, Sage 50, or FrontAccounting (free) to do. Competitive systems require you to step through a cumbersome process of applying status to each order before it can be imported into accounting. QuickBooks and Sage 50 have built-in tools for shipping integration, the original impetus for the 'order management' product architecture of competitive systems. With shipping integration now supported by the accounting system, the order-management approach becomes redundant, time-consuming, and simply non-value-added. CartSpan is so 'hands-off', just set your desired configurations and watch your orders appear in your accounting system.

Fewer post-import adjustments – CartSpan is packed full of configurable options that allow you to control what gets imported and how it is formatted. The result is a highly nuanced integration with a goal of you not having to 'touch' the order after it is imported.

We hold your hand – There is a reason that our reviews are stellar; we employ a pragmatic delivery process that ensures your success. After we discuss your project and agree that CartSpan will satisfy your business requirements, we provide a 'paint-by-numbers' pre-configuration checklist for integration with your chosen accounting system. When this list has been completed, you are only about 1-2 hours away from seeing your Virtuemart orders importing into accounting. If you are a developer, please see our 'Note to Developers' page at http://www.cartspan.com/note-to-developers

The absolute best value on the market – Sure, cost is not the most important factor, but it is certainly on everyone's minds these days. Consider that CartSpan is approx. 40% less expensive initially and approx. 80% less expensive annually than its nearest competitor. Our licensing mechanisms are less intrusive with annual renewals and we don't bill your credit card monthly.


Data Security

--- All credentials used to access the shopping cart are securely encrypted
--- To support PCI compliance, CartSpan does not transmit or receive any credit card or sensitive financial information to/from the shopping cart.


System Performance

Order Download/Import: CartSpan has been stress-tested for high-volume import operations. In one contiguous session, CartSpan has been observed to contiguously import 1,000+ orders in approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes. This includes the automatic creation of new customer orders, followed by Invoices and their subsequent receipts for paid transactions.

Item Price/Quantity Upload: CartSpan has been stress-tested against an implementation of another well-established open-source cart utilizing the mySQL/xNIX platform. Over 10,000 items have been successfully exported from the accounting system and uploaded to the cart via a single call to the supporting PHP script.


If you have additional questions, please don't hesitate to call.

Scott Wheeler, Owner
http://www.CartSpan.com
513-708-1317

[OCD]

There is so much good one can say about what Scott does. You can sum it up in the last couple of lines in his post above, His name and Phone Number. Being able to make a call and talk to him is a huge part of what got us over the hump on this integration. We had signed up for another product, paid for it and paid a monthly fee for almost a year. All together this was about a thousand dollars and we had absolutely nothing to show for it.

With Scott he will not take any money at all before he has you running. He will walk you through the steps to get your store communicating with your accounting software and if needed will make adaptations to make everything work together.

The Noverhead pricing structure is the best. Its a little more than some of the other other solutions for the setup but it will be set up before you pay for it and the annual maintenance is much less that what we were paying with the solution that wasnt. The other one we tried was not based in the US so any time a support call was made it was handed off for an appointment to be dealt with at a later date. This is the reason why we were never able to even complete the installation to a useful state. We are busy building a business not trying to learn a new craft, leaving that part to Scott will make anyone who needs this type of integration very happy in the results.

Thanks Scott, you have been a great help to us and we look forward to many years to come of your care in these integration matters.

[zainabubu]

In the mean time, does this work with Qb Pos?

[swheeler]

Sorry, no support for QuickBooks POS.

[swheeler]

The CartSpan QuickBooks integration for VirtueMart now supports dynamic creation of 'Item Name' by incorporating selected attributes.

For instance, if you sell a base item in VirtueMart called a 'SHIRT', and configure attributes 'Size' and 'Color', CartSpan can be directed to import the line item with a notation of 'SHIRT-Med-Blue'. The codes for the attributes are appended to the parent item in the order selected on the page. Each attribute is delimited by a dash ("-"), which is consistent with notation used in other popular shopping carts and accounting systems.

The benefit of such handling is the reduction of overhead in the number of items that need to be configured on the shopping cart side. No longer do you need to create an item for every possible combination of configured product that you can offer. Only on the accounting side would you need to maintain this level of detail to support specific inventory and cost visibility. If you opt to not create the 'Item Number' dynamically, CartSpan will still import the selected options cleanly appended to the item description.

[Mooncastyre]

Sorry, no support for QuickBooks POS.

I'm looking for a Quickbooks Point of Sale and Virtuemart integration solution to keep inventory between our retail storefront and our e-commerce website synced.  Please update this post if this is something you develop in the future.