In searching I find threads on exporting to Quickbooks…and problems in doing so.
My cart is only in the trial/testing stages and I hadn’t even thought of whether I need to or want to link it to any accounting program. And I happen to be very familiar with QB.
But…why does anyone link CS data to any accounting program?
A good question.
We do not because I prefer manual entries.
Although I can see large stores needing to automate the process - manual adjustments as needed.
The same can be said for automated emails to suppliers.
Hello Len,
[QUOTE]But…why does anyone link CS data to any accounting program?[/QUOTE]
Well, you somehow need to get your income & expense records into your accounting program, whether it is entered as individual transactions or in daily/weekly lump sums.
Also, if you carry physical inventory, then your online transactions must be entered into Quickbooks, etc to manage this.
Then of course, there is the issue of time management in manually entering online orders into your accounting program.
We use Quickbooks Premier Mfg & Wholesale for internal accounting/inventory management along with Ecc Webgility to automate our online order entry as well as automatically posting shipment details/tracking numbers back to our online site as the orders are processed.
Thanks, all.
Struck, curious, how many items do you track in inventory?
Are we able to track inventory consumption and number of remaining units (subject to occasional physical counts) with CS Cart?
[QUOTE]Are we able to track inventory consumption and number of remaining units (subject to occasional physical counts) with CS Cart?[/QUOTE]
Well, you can, however, the only reason we use the inventory tracking feature in CS-Cart is to inform our customers when there may be a delay in shipping an order due to low inventory on a specific item, call it as customer service specific reason.
We use our internal accounting program for the hardcore inventory management of our business. We do not drop ship anything so inventory management is critical to our survival.
I am a very firm believer in using your online store as an online store, and using your accounting program as an accounting program! 
[quote name=‘Struck’]
I am a very firm believer in using your online store as an online store, and using your accounting program as an accounting program! :)[/QUOTE]
AMEN!
I really can’t imagine trying to use CS for accounting. It really just isn’t designed for it. CS is great to take orders with, but just not for accounting purposes.
On the importing, right now we have been using the “write it once” software for the past several months, but we are thinking about changing to webgility or something else. While “write it once” does pretty good, it is filled with little hicups that make it a pain to use sometimes.
In regards to importing directly from CS in to QBs, I’m not for sure if the inventory bug was fixed in the new 2.? version or not. We have not upgraded to v2.? and probably won’t for another year.
[QUOTE]On the importing, right now we have been using the “write it once” software[/QUOTE]
Clips, I just have to razz you a bit here…
But really, that writeitonce program is not even remotely on the same playing field as the latest version of Webgility which has turned into a very adequate full blown order & shipping management tool. (Right along the lines of stoneedge without all of the clunky bloat, or cost.)
I dont have time at the minute to write a book, so I will only say try it, quite impressive & perfoms blazing fast! 
BTW, view Webgility as a 2-way communication tool from your online store, to Quickbooks, and back to your online store.
With CS Cart can you run reports to show how much of each product is left in inventory. And can you run a report on consumption of each item?
Hi,
I use writeitonce and for me works perfectly. Creates Quickbooks invoices and endicia file export. I have no problems at all. Everyone has their own needs and differences. One solution will work for one and another for another. Should look at several solutions and determine which is best for you.
I did contact Webgility and for what I need, custom work was needed. At the time, they were not sure how much it would cost, but could investigate. I did not pursue it at the time. The standard Webgility product was unable to handle the way I designate inventoried line items. The customization with writeitonce was relatively inexpensive.
As far as using Quickbooks, an import from a shopping cart can create the customer accounts, create invoices or sales receipts and in my case, I import credit card information and process the credit cards from within Quickbooks. This also maintains my inventory. As stated above I use writeitonce as the middleware.
Bob
[quote name=‘Struck’]Clips, I just have to razz you a bit here…
But really, that writeitonce program is not even remotely on the same playing field as the latest version of Webgility which has turned into a very adequate full blown order & shipping management tool. (Right along the lines of stoneedge without all of the clunky bloat, or cost.)
I dont have time at the minute to write a book, so I will only say try it, quite impressive & perfoms blazing fast!
BTW, view Webgility as a 2-way communication tool from your online store, to Quickbooks, and back to your online store.[/QUOTE]
Well, we tried to use Webgility again and decided to stick with the status quo and stick with Writeitonce for another year. I wasn’t even able to get the Webgility demo to work on my site! This is the second time I tried it in the past year. I tried it back in Jan. 2009 and again this month. Both times I wasted time trying to get it live and ended up being told something doesn’t work right or this time it told me that my server was “missing” 3 different pieces of software.
Besides the fact that their prices are 4 times what I paid for Writeitonce, I tend to like the flexability of Writeitonce. Not only do I use Writeitonce to import CS orders, but I use it for Ebay, Amazon and an old shopping cart called Storefront(.)net. I was kind of hoping Webgility was going to make it easier for our higher traffic site, but it just doesn’t seem to be the case since I can’t even get it installed.
I should also mention, that like Bob (pbannette) I have part of my site customized with a mod that CS paid support did. When I export from CS it actually sends more info on the items (includes product options stuff) so Webgility would probably not work without being modified. The sad part was I could never get past the install of Webgility to be able to test it.
So I am off to using the Writeitonce software for at least one more year. While it is probably a little more difficult than Webgility, it really is not hard to install or use.
[QUOTE]I wasn’t even able to get the Webgility demo to work on my site! This is the second time I tried it in the past year. I tried it back in Jan. 2009 and again this month. Both times I wasted time trying to get it live and ended up being told something doesn’t work right or this time it told me that my server was “missing” 3 different pieces of software. [/QUOTE]
Seriously, all you have to do to as far as installation on your server is upload one very small folder & set the permissions so it can communicate with CS-Cart. It was about the simplest thing I have ever installed.
You see, Ecc/Webgility communicates “directly” with CS-Cart, you don’t have to screw around with CSV files at all. You can now even set it to automatically download new orders every 10 minutes, add them to Quickbooks, retrieve & post the shipment details back to your CS-Cart store all automated & extremely fast.
[quote name=‘Struck’]Seriously, all you have to do to as far as installation on your server is upload one very small folder & set the permissions so it can communicate with CS-Cart. It was about the simplest thing I have ever installed.
You see, Ecc/Webgility communicates “directly” with CS-Cart, you don’t have to screw around with CSV files at all. You can now even set it to automatically download new orders every 10 minutes, add them to Quickbooks, retrieve & post the shipment details back to your CS-Cart store all automated & extremely fast.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I thought it would be easy too, but after just putting it on my site I am told that I am missing “PHP Soap” and “magic_quotes”. Not to mention because we use QB Enterprise now I apparently need some special software to be able to import.
We also use the shipping software from “shippingkit” to ship products. I am going to get the new one they have for USPS and see it works as well too.
I guess from where we came, to where we are now we are just being stubborn. Hopefully Webgility will get their software to not require special stuff on the server beyond what CS already needs.
The other reason we are sticking with Writeitonce is I don’t have to pay a “per store” license. So I can use it for all my stores without having to pay $1k+.