Integration and efficiency is the buzzword that all small business owners and aspiring online store/eCommerce entrepreneurs are looking for in 2022. Any advantage you can gain in an increasingly crowded online space is critical.
We’ll cover the following “do’s and don’ts” to getting your Sage 200 Evolution WooCommerce Integration right, first time:
- Use the right platform for your Sage WooCommerce integration
- Ensure your sync caters for the right data to be sent
- Your sync tools are easy to use and well supported
- Ensure WooCommerce is backed up regularly
1. Use the right platform for your Sage 200 Evolution to WooCommerce integration
Choosing which platform to use for your Sage 200 Evolution to WooCommerce sync can be challenging as there are many different platforms out there, and each one requires you, the merchant, to have a certain set of in-house skills or resources.
- ERP-managed sync: This type of integration requires all the merchandising, product flags, custom fields etc. to be captured in your accounting system. There are some pros and cons, but the bottleneck is “can my Sage 200 Evolution actually store all this information in the right format?”. Chances are it may be easier to use a solution like storehub.io where all the merch info is managed on the cloud, or on WooCommerce itself.
- Cloud-managed sync: If a sync tool is installed on Sage 200 Evolution and pushed the data through to a cloud platform, this method may be easier for a lot of WooCommerce merchants as they’re used to managing their product data in the cloud already. Storehub.io follows this workflow and actually gives you 2 choices – (1) Manage the product merchandising data on Storehub.io and push through to WooCommerce or (2) Manage the product merchandising data all on WooCommerce, and use Storehub.io only for price, stock and order management.
2. Ensure your sync caters for the right data to be sent from Sage 200 Evolution to WooCommerce
There’s no point in setting up a WooCommerce to Sage 200 Evolution data sync if there’s still manual labor involved (i.e the sync doesn’t cater for ALL the information to be sent between platforms). The Sync between Sage 200 Evolution and WooCommerce needs to cater for all the information so that data updates and order updates can be automated.
Product information needs to be comprehensive, so all the SKU details like stock, price, tax rates, product descriptions and more need to push to WooCommerce from Sage 200 Evolution.
Orders generated on WooCommerce need to be raised in Sage 200 Evolution with the right information so the merchant doesn’t need to log into Sage 200 and then also WooCommerce in order to fulfill the order. Order information like customer contact info, SKU items & quantities, discounts if applicable, delivery and billing addresses.
Remember, to automate the Sage 200 Evolution Sync with WooCommerce will be critical to free up time and nip data inaccuracies in the bud once and for all.
3. Your sync tools are easy to use and well supported
You’re in the middle of Black Friday or a long weekend, with orders flying in through your online store, the last thing you need is for the sync between Sage 200 Evolution and WooCommerce to break, meaning the stock and price won’t update on your website and customers pay for an item you no longer have stock of.
Choosing a platform that’s well supported and robust is critical to ensure the above doesn’t occur. Storehub.io has an easy-to-use interface as well as transparent reporting/logs whereby you can see exactly where the sync failure is, and what data caused it so you can repair it quickly.
Storehub.io has a range of tutorial videos to complement the easy to use dashboard, so you can manage the sync between Sage 200 Evolution and WooCommerce easily, without any specialised skills or resources. Storehub also offers live web chat support and telephonic support too.
4. Ensure WooCommerce is backed up regularly
Any merchant running a WooCommerce store needs to be backing up their WooCommerce store on a daily basis. As it’s built on open-source software, it’s particularly vulnerable to hacks and data corruption.
If your website goes down for 2 weeks while it gets rebuilt, the Sage 200 Evolution and WooCommerce sync will no longer matter as there’s no store to sync to. Storehub.io offers website backup & security packages to ensure, in the event of your site going down, we can recover the store within the hour.
