What do you use for stock, re-ordering, and purchase orders?

[bubble]

Hi

So Bluepark is great, and I want to get another software package to create purchase orders (instead of typing it into EXCEL each time) and to book in stock etc, and them import that back into Bluepark and export out etc.

What to you use?

[Soundbite]

Hey why don't you try Quickbooks. It links up with Bluepark and pulls all your accounts information from Bluepark without having to press any buttons. (once you have set it up)

I'm sure you can use Quickbooks to create purchase orders. Well worth the money. You have to be on the enterprise package with Bluepark.

As with every other feature on Bluepark it works without a single problem.

[Guest]

+1 on Quickbooks.

I've not used it with Bluepark, but as a package in it's own right, it's very easy to use. You can definitely use it to create purchase orders - it also has handy reporting on units sold so you can easily see what your best sellers are, how many you sell in a month etc etc.

[Dave]

If you don't like Quickbooks you could always use Sage. Andy @ Needundies is currently evaluating an order importer from someone

http://www.bluepark.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=986&highlight=sage

[Soundbite]

That's if you know how to use sage. I bought a copy of it and thought it was not very user friendly unlike Quickbooks.

I think Quickbooks is really easy to use and links up with so many other packages out there. You can also import all your past transactions in a excel file. (I would recommed Zed Axis for this). I also imported all my historial Paypal transactions again using a third party software. I even imported my Barclays and Amex bank statements and used that to reconcile. I never had any problems with it and if you make a mistake you hit control and D to delete it.

All I do now is sit back and whenever someone purchases a product from me, it will show up in Quickbooks without me having to press a single button.

I remember making one mistake in Sage and to rectify it was a nightmare.

I would recommend always you backup your copy at various stages just in case you have a problem.

Good Luck!

[Dave]

That's if you know how to use sage. I bought a copy of it and thought it was not very user friendly unlike Quickbooks.

We used to use Sage and had no problems with it at all. The only reason we moved away was because we changed from PC's to Mac's and Sage is not Mac compatible.

It all depends on the individual, what features they require and whether they feel comfortable with the software.

[Andrew]

A few months ago I took a look at SageOrderImporter from WebXL, basically what I needed was a package that could import my orders from Bluepark into Sage and automatically raise PO's on our suppliers within Sage Financial Controller.

This worked very well and I was extremely impressed, however it raised PO's for everything that was imported against the customer order rather than checking what existing stock we had and what was on order with our suppliers on previous PO's.

Having spoken to the developers they said they would carry out additional development work which would resolve this for a fee of around £200 which I thought was actually very reasonable.

Unfortunately things have moved rapidly with the business and I need some additional functionality which this package would not give me. I am working with another developer which will hopefully make the whole Order Management and Fulfillment cycle much easier for us to manage.

I cannot comment on Quickbooks, if I suggested moving to Quickbooks I think that both my Book Keeper and Accountant would throw a bit of a tantrum

[Robin]

Accountants seem to prefer Sage but I found it difficulot to understand.
I use Quick Books 2006 which is very easy and works well.

[Soundbite]

Accountants seem to prefer Sage but I found it difficulot to understand.
I use Quick Books 2006 which is very easy and works well.

Good point that sage is used by all accountants. Times are now changing and you'll find a lot of accountants will have knowledge of Quickbooks as well. The more traditional accounting practices seem to only use sage but as you have an ecommece site you might want to find an accounting firm that has experience with other ecommerce companies.

[Robin]

On the subject of old fashioned accountants: (this is true)
About 2/3 years ago I e-mailed over the Quick Books accounts to him so he could prepare end of year returns. A few days later he phoned me and asked what the extra bank account was that I had listed. The actual question was: "What is Pay Pal ?" !!!!
I no longer use that accountant.

[Geoff]

Which Back end Software

Does anyway want to share with us what other back end software is being used to run their business?

I use Mail Order Manager (MOM) which is problematic and expensive. At the moment I am hand keying every order into MOM which takes quite a few hours every night. I was hoping to export orders from my BluePark sites and import them into MOM. However, BluePark does not automatically generate separate SKU codes for each product variation and as I have hundreds of products with a lot of options this is just not practical. I was wondering how other users of Blue Park deal with this.


I am considering giving Quickbooks a try but from what I have seen so far I am not sure if it is suitable to run a whole business.

I would be grateful for your comments

Cheers
Geoff
geoff@totalworkwear.co.uk

www.totalworkwear.co.uk
www.workfeet.co.uk
www.snickersstore.co.uk

[john]

Does anyway want to share with us what other back end software is being used to run their business?

Hi Geoff,
we are just starting to install Stone Edge Order Manager, mainly so that we can integrate and process all orders from whichever platform (Bluepark/Amazon etc) the Amazon is fully integrated by XML but the Bluepark will have to be via CSV import. This will give us one central stock database and feed financial info to Quickbooks
Bluepark thinks there is no demand for such integration among their users so if the CSV method is problematic we may have to reluctanctly change our main site software.

Are all Bluepark users small operations or is anyone else interested in Stone Edge integration? take a look at http://www.stoneedge.com/

[Soundbite]

I heard about Stone Edge a while ago when we had our ebay business. I read lots of positive reviews about it. I'm sure there will be a lot of setting up to do in Stone Edge but the problem would be having to import data from BP. Can't you use the Data Scheduling with the BP enterprise package and get Stone Edge to pull the information from your server?

[Geoff]

Hi John

I know about Stone Edge and I have had a very bad time with them. I saw them before I went with Mail Order Manager (MOM) but there were a few warning signs. A couple of bad comments here and there. Their web site gave the impression of an unprofessional operation. They were bad mouthing their competition in a big way. Emails I sent to them were replied to in a very short curt manner. They did not seem interested. For these reasons I went with MOM. Unfortunately, MOM has its own set of problems and so I need to get out of it. At the beginning of this year I looked at Stoneedge again and because of some good comments from users I decided to go with it. I found a shopping cart called www.3dcart.com that looked perfect to go with it. Stoneedge say they integrate fully with 3D cart. 3D cart say they integrate fully with StoneEdge. Both companies say they are fully UK compatible. ROT!

We started in March09.

We set up the 3D Cart. The first problem is with shipping charge which, as it does on BP, shows in the basket page. They say it only works for US post codes. To find a delivery charge you had to enter most of your details on a very confusing checkout page. This puts customers off. We even had customers emailing to say how difficult it was to place an order. Problem two was that they said it could be used with PayPal Pro. Rubbish - PayPal pro US only. This means we could not take maestro or solo. They said we could use Protx. We opened a merchant account (£300. And then monthly fees with card net) to find it was exactly the same. We could use Protx but not for Maestro or Solo.

Stone Edge
We paid extra for them to log into our system and set the whole thing up.
They couldn’t get the integration with 3D. They talked directly to 3D. It went on for a long time. We hung on and hung on and spent a lot of time. I personally spent months messing about with it while our business stood still. I think the biggest problem (apart from it not working) was communication. You couldn’t phone. (you got a girl who logged the call.) When you sent an email you didn’t get a reply for 2-3 days which is no good if you’re running a business. This was just about the same with 3D
Bad email response very curt rude stupid answers to requests and enquiries. Although we had paid for them to set it up they stopped trying.

In the end we couldn’t run Stone edge or 3D.

Fortunately we found Blue Park to replace 3D which has taken care of the immediate issues of card payments and delivery charges. I like Blue Park it is very easy to set up and has a simple checkout. It is also a refreshing change to work with a straightforward British company who know what their limitations are and don’t give you any waffle. However, there is a problem.
We wanted to export orders from BP and import them into MOM. However, all our products have lots of options and so there are 1000s of SKU codes to enter manually which is not a practical thing to do. It looks as though I will have to look for another cart or complete system.

I am looking for a set up where orders are downloaded directly into the backend system. The back end system needs to be able to create POs very quickly and manager customer accounts and stock control. As Blue Park integrates with Quickbooks I wondered if that would work but I think I may have the same problems. Also, I do not think it is capable of doing the whole job. I would love to know what everyone else uses?

John – a lot of people seem to be happy with Stoneedge but I certainly wouldn’t recommend them.

Sorry about this being so long.

Cheers
Geoff
Geoff@totalworkwear.co.uk
www.totalworkwear.co.uk
www.workfeet.co.uk
www.snickersstore.co.uk

[john]

Stone Edge vs MOM

Its early days yet and I can see there is a mass of setting up to do with Stone Edge, everything tests out so far ok except working with Vista, we gave up on this and have reverted to XP Pro (34.95 for full prog!) and all pcs involved will probably use XP in the end.
I did look at MOM and got a demo pack, the manual was huge with hundreds of pages and just a couple devoted to ecommerce!! thats when I decided that it says what it does on the wrapper - Mail Order Manager - not E-Commerce Manager, I found nothing but bad reports of MOM and only one bad report about Stone Edge that seemed to be written by a nutter, so went with SE, time will tell if it was a good decision.
We are expecting orders in December to peak at about 1000 a day with a large prportion of them from Amazon, so we have to have a system in place that can co-ordinate our stock control or we will go into complete melt down, hopefully we will be up and running by the end of September, so watch this space!
If Bluepark could import Amazon orders via XML for processing and re-export stock figures back to Amazon we wouldn't need anything like Stone Edge, but I think this beyond Richard's plan and I can't see how he would cope with the 50-100 times the business he would get!

Bluepark integrated with Amazon/Ebay, that would be a sector killer for sure!!!