Webgility ECC (Long Post)

[stewartm]

Hi,

I have used Wegility's ECC v2.x for over a year now and have found it to be a real timesaver, as we use quickbooks, allows orders to be posted directly to our accounts with customers automatically matched or added as required. Inventory synch is also great .... however, initially had a few problems, the worst of which Webgility were able to resolve.

Biggest problem we had was that items were posted to quickbooks tax exclusive, however, shipping was posted tax inclusive meaning every order with shipping had to manually corrected. Webgility corrected this with a hack to reduce shipping by rate*1.175 (VAT rate at the time, I am in UK), however, this was easily changed when rate changed to 20%.

Only other real problem was order notes, I use Paypal IPN, which adds status messages as order notes, ECC only brings in the last order note, so if you want to see any customer notes you have to go into each order on your store. I have suggested that the first note would be more useful, however, this has never been addressed, shame as makes process around 3 times slower.

We also changed our customer record format in QB from Poscode only to Zip, Last Name, First Name. This was best practice anyway as we had on occasion had customers with same postcode and was a format available in ECC.

Early in the year, ECC v3 was announced, not really, fussed, however, among the features was Ebay UK integration (beta). So I thought, lets give it a go as it has really speeded up orders on OSC. Its been a disaster, been subscribing for months now and have never been able to get OSC working as it was, never mind Ebay.

First problem, needs .net framework 3.5, no way in the world could I get our XP machine to update, not Webgility's fault though.

Got everything installed on Win 7, however, ECC v3 is no longer date agnostic and did not get on with UK dates on the machine, after waiting for weeks this was patched, however, my store used US date format, so had to fix this on my store. (using ECC 2.x concurrently and it never batted an eylid).

Now installed I am back to the items being tax exclusive and the shipping being tax inclusive. Webgility now say this is an OSCmax config problem, only thing I can think of is that tax on shipping is not shown as a separate line in order total, however, this is a guess and no idea how to change it.

Order notes are still the same.

These problems make ECC V3 unusable for me at present (as well as the new error I get about dates, which make it completely unusable anyway)

With the Ebay UK module, which is why I updated. All items are posted tax inclusive so all need this manually deducted in QB. New customers are created by Email address, meaning each one needs no be manually amended to match the format of ECC's OSCmax module (Zip, First name, Last Name)

I am now seriously thinking of scrapping ECC v3 asking for a refund and just using ECC v2.4. Which is a shame as it looks as though these issues could be fairly easily resolved and would make the product much more useful.

If anyone has any ideas about shipping tax or order notes, that would be great and I hope the above, is usefull for anyone considering ECC for use in the UK.

[ridexbuilder]

((Scatches head for a loooong time))

Michael or Met00 might be able to shed some light, particularly the shipping tax... meantime I'll wait for an inspirational moment.

[pgmarshall]

I am interested in what EEC provides you with (other than the link between Quickbooks and osCmax) ... there are some free osCommerce modules out there that should integrate into osCmax to handle quickbooks (eg. osCommerce Community Add-Ons)

Does EEC do something that I am missing ... Do you have multiple ecommerce stores ... or do you have an EPOS system in a shop for example.

I am interested as I working on an EPOS idea for osCmax ...

Only other real problem was order notes, I use Paypal IPN, which adds status messages as order notes, ECC only brings in the last order note, so if you want to see any customer notes you have to go into each order on your store. I have suggested that the first note would be more useful, however, this has never been addressed, shame as makes process around 3 times slower.

Is this a QuickBooks shortfall or a Webgillity shortfall? Ie. Can quickbooks take multiple order comments?

Regards,

[pgmarshall]

You could also use TurboLister from eBay by creating an export from osCmax using Feedmachine ... or are you hoping to reconcile your stock levels ...

Do you list the same items for sale on eBay and your store?

Or you go a bit further and integrate with the API for full control.

Regards,

[stewartm]

Wow, loads of questions, I will try and answer them in order of asking:

Does EEC do something that I am missing

ECC V2.x specifically supported QB UK, which seemed to be a shortfall in most other solutions I looked at. This was the major reason for purchase to avoid manual re-entering of orders. Inventory management was a bonus as we went from no tax calculations in OSCmax to using tax in OSCmax and the inventory module allowed synch between QB and OSCmax with ability to select price and or Stock level synch (Easypopulate could probably also have done this, however, ECC UI does help here). We have also used it for other bulk price changes. Don't really use stock level synch as we need to work on correcting our stock in QB first, although I do like the option of auto inventory matching as we sell offline and on Ebay and are working on a new store. Master stock levels in QB and everything else synched at reqular intervals.

Other features that ECC provides that we do not use are, shipping manager and payment gateways. Shipping is via stamps.com or fedex and some other ones, which I can't remember. We use Royal mail/Parcelforce (via a 3rd party courier) so no integration here. Would probably rather use direct modules in OSCmax anyway. Payment wise, PCI DSS rules out us storing the card details to process via ECC (or QB's payment system) and we use Paypal IPN and just got Worldpay up and running, so all order come in paid.

Do you have multiple ecommerce stores

ECC V2.x offered a buy once pricing, ECC V3 is a monthly support fee. We were tempted to go for this as V2.x is saving us lots of time and V3 offered Ebay UK integration (beta) and as we were adding a new store the option of multistore management. So far we have yet to even get the original store working to the same degree as V2.x after several months of trying. Really thinking about cancelling V3 and trying to recover monies paid so far as it has never worked and support are saying they will not fix shipping tax problem, order notes problem or Ebay tax problem, not really filling me with confidence.

do you have an EPOS system in a shop for example.

Not at present, just use QB in shop. I have considered a kiosk type system in store to allow customers access to extended product info and prices. They could also create an instore cart. Done nothing with this as yet. Was an idea as a testbed for OSCmax as could be run in house in a controlled environment, but still allow real customer interaction.

Is this a QuickBooks shortfall or a Webgillity shortfall? Ie. Can quickbooks take multiple order comments?

Its a Webgility shortfall as the order notes are simply posted either as a QB memo, or a new line on the Sales form. Webgility support have said that only the last note is available to them in the module they use in OSCmax. Not sure why as they have full DB access available, so sounds like a fob off to me. No reason to not jut return the first note when creating the variable, or to get fancy and concatenate all notes into one string and return them all.

You could also use TurboLister from eBay by creating an export from osCmax using Feedmachine ... or are you hoping to reconcile your stock levels ...

I will look at turbo listed, I think we used it before I started with the company. Stock level reconciliation would be good, however, until we sort out our base stock levels in QB, none of this is feasible.

Do you list the same items for sale on eBay and your store?

Yes we do, however, pricing is not necessarily the same.

Or you go a bit further and integrate with the API for full control.

I am a bit thick, so not sure what you mean?

[stewartm]

Just thought of another point. We get a lot of new customers, ECC allowed these to be created in QB automatically and will match orders to existing QB customers. This is a real timesaver.

[pgmarshall]

I think the osCommerce module should do most of the integration to QuickBooks (including the new customers bit) although I have not tested it out yet.

The API allows a direct link into your eBay account to control all aspects of your listings via whatever interface you want - this is probably what Webgililty have used ... I have not managed to find a pre-built module for this but it depends on the how much data you want to pull/push to/from your store. However, you will need to work out the cost of using Webgillty vs. the cost of getting someone to code up the interface for you (I also note that eBay seem to change their API quite often!) - Check out: eBay API.

Anyway, I have not answered your initial questions ...

On the shipping - have you set the Shipping to be exclusive of tax like your products ... also osCmax v2.5 has Royal Mail modules in it by default.

Regards,

The EPOS idea I had was to simply extend osCmax to allow instore cart to be created using a barcode scanner (or manual entry) and then push to a serial receipt printer to control the cash drawer.

[stewartm]

Yes Webgility use the Ebay API, however, are saying prices can't be pulled across taking into account the tax rate set on the item, as it is not part of the API. Off the top of my head not really rocket science to allow a "tax" setting in their product to deduct a set tax amount from the Ebay API (Ebay price/1.variable). However, a bit off topic for an OSCmax forum, might be useful info for those considering ECC though.

On the shipping - have you set the Shipping to be exclusive of tax like your products ... also osCmax v2.5 has Royal Mail modules in it by default.

Yes, shipping is configured ex-VAT, with the tax rate to be used specified in the drop down in each module, so not sure how Webgility can say this is a OSCmax issue? Only thing I could think of was that tax on shipping is not shown as a seperate line in Order Total. Again not a hard workaround if their product allowed you to specify a tax rate on shipping it can be deducted on the fly. Will be moving to 2.5 at some point, however, will trial with a new store first, would rather have the shipping online anyway as customers can come back to store for tracking.

The EPOS idea I had was to simply extend osCmax to allow instore cart to be created using a barcode scanner (or manual entry) and then push to a serial receipt printer to control the cash drawer.

Sounds good, our plan was to use barcode scanners and serial receipt printers in our shop (we have the hardware gathering dust, as well as LCD till stalks), we only use the cash drawer at present, we open the till using EZ Power POS to send the control code. I suppose I could look at the printer driver for the epson printer and insert the code to open the drawer after it prints though. (going a bit off topic again though).

Thanks

Stewart

[pgmarshall]

GetTaxTable - Call Reference - eBay Trading API I think this should return you the tax rate - it even has a field for ShippingIncludedInTax ... might be worth forwarding to Webgillity to see if they can explain why they can not use this? Regards,