Automating Orders and Inventory between your eCommerce site and ERP

As online shopping continues to gather rapid pace (Forrester predicts that over $278 Billion will be spent this year online by US consumers on products and services), many organizations are purchasing eCommerce platforms such as 3dcart, Volusion, Magento, etc., to help them operate their eCommerce online stores. An eCommerce platform is a complete online store application that includes search, navigation, user accounts, shopping cart and ordering capabilities.

Without the right tools using an eCommerce platform can be quite a cumbersome and manual process as the following steps will outline:

1.       Setup product items to sell online including pricing, imagery, inventory.

2.       Customer places order online through the shopping cart.

3.       Order details are keyed in manually into the organizations backend accounting software solution or ERP.

4.       The order is sent (email, fax, etc.) to the warehouse for fulfilment, where it is manually entered again into the warehouse’s WMS.

5.       The warehouse fulfils the order and sends the organization notice (email, fax, etc.) that the goods have been shipped with tracking details.

6.       Order information from warehouse re-keyed into organizations backend system.

7.       Product shipped to customer.

 



 

As can be seen from the steps above, the entire process is quite laborious and can be error prone. Now let’s see how the same transaction would work if the organization implemented EDI:

1.       Setup product items to sell online including pricing, imagery inventory.

2.       Customer places order online through the shopping cart.

3.       EDI 850 Purchase Order is sent directly into organizations backend accounting software or ERP (no need to re-key data). The EDI 850 triggers an EDI 940 (warehouse ship order) to be sent directly into the warehouses WMS (again full automation and no re-keying of data required).

4.       The warehouse fulfills the order and sends an EDI 945 (warehouse shipping advice) to the organization letting them know the goods have been shipped. The organization uses the EDI 945 to close out the sale in their back end system.

5.       Product shipped to customer.

As well as orders and shipping notices, organizations can use the EDI 846 Inventory Inquiry/Advice document to let their trading partners know of stock levels at all times to avoid selling out of stock goods and the EDI 856 Advance Ship Notice to let trading partners know when to expect to receive goods.

For further information on integrating your eCommerce platform with your ERP/Accounting Software system please call B2BGateway today at (401) 491 9595 or email Sales@B2BGateway.Net