Newsletter - 'EDI Matters'

B2BGateway quarterly newsletter 'EDI Matters' out now http://bit.ly/2fIgFnw

'Tis The Season To Sell Online!

Did you know that B2BGateway integrates with Magento, Shopify, 3dcart, Bigcommerce, WooCommerce and a host of other eCommerce Online Shopping Platforms?

Do you sell your goods and services on your own in-house shopping cart powered by Magento, Shopify, 3dcart, Bigcommerce, WooCommerce, Volusion or others? Through EDI/API technology and full integration with your Accounting Software / ERP solution (e.g. QuickBooks, Xero, SAP, Sage, NetSuite, Acumatica…….), B2BGateway can help you maximize your eCommerce activities in the following ways:

1.       Pull orders from your eCommerce shopping cart and place them directly into your Accounting Software / ERP solution as Sales Orders. There is no need to re-key data.

2.       Send Inventory Updates to your eCommerce sites so that you never sell out of stock items.

3.       B2BGateway can automatically send new orders from your shopping cart to your 3PL, Warehouse or Drop Ship Vendor.

4.       B2BGateway can help update your site with shipping and tracking information.

Having a fully integrated B2BGateway solution between your online shopping cart and back end ERP/Accounting Software solution means that there is no need to re-key the data – this drastically cuts down on errors, reduces manual labor costs and speeds up your entire process!

B2BGateway’s eCommerce EDI solutions will also help your organization to send orders directly from your eCommerce site to your 3PL (third party logistics provider), warehouse or drop-ship vendor for fulfillment.

To learn more on how B2BGateway’s fully integrated EDI solutions for eCommerce platforms can improve your organization’s supply chain please email our sales team at Sales@B2BGateway.Net

Blockchain and its potential benefits to the Supply Chain

What is Blockchain?

According to Wikipedia a blockchain is a distributed database that maintains a continuously-growing list of records called blocks. Each block contains a timestamp and a link to a previous block. The data in a block cannot be altered retrospectively.

The first blockchain was conceptualized by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 and implemented the following year as a core component of the digital currency bitcoin, where it serves as the public ledger for all transactions. Through the use of a peer-to-peer network and a distributed timestamping server, a blockchain database is managed autonomously.

Think of it like this: If the entire blockchain were the history of banking transactions, an individual bank statement would be a single “block” in the chain. Unlike most banking systems, however, there is no single organization that controls these transactions. It can only be updated through consensus of a majority of participants in the system. In short, blockchain is a record-keeping mechanism that makes it easier and safer for businesses to work together over the internet.

Benefits of Blockchain to the Supply Chain

Many commentators agree that blockchain technology has far greater potential than just supporting a digital currency such as bitcoin. The potential for improvements in the Supply Chain are limitless. Imagine a scenario where every time a product changes hands, the transaction could be documented, creating a permanent history of a product, from manufacture to sale. This could dramatically reduce time delays, added costs, and human error that plague transactions today. The benefits for pharmaceutical manufacturers (all stage product lifecycle track and trace) and OEM’s (product recalls), to name just two industries off hand, are enormous.

According to an article by Jon-Amerin Vorabutra the advantages blockchain technology brings to the supply chain community could be listed as follows:

·         Enhanced Transparency. Documenting a product’s journey across the supply chain reveals its true origin and touchpoints, which increases trust and helps eliminate the bias found in today’s opaque supply chains. Manufacturers can also reduce recalls by sharing logs with OEMs and regulators.

·         Greater Scalability. Virtually any number of participants, accessing from any number of touchpoints, is possible.

·         Better Security. A shared, indelible ledger with codified rules could potentially eliminate the audits required by internal systems and processes. 

·         Increased Innovation. Opportunities abound to create new, specialized uses for the technology as a result of the decentralized architecture.

B2BGateway at UK Logistics & Supply Chain Excellence Awards

The B2BGateway and Maclaren team who attended the recent UK Logistics & Supply Chain Excellence Awards in the Park Lane Hilton Hotel in London. B2BGateway was shortlisted as a Finalist in the Technology Awards Category.

B2BGateway to attend Exact Live 2016 in Utrecht

B2BGateway, the leading, global EDI and automated supply chain solution provider will be attending this years Exact Live tradeshow in Utrecht, The Netherlands from November 8-9.

Exact Live 2016 is a two day event which will take place this year in Utrecht. Day one is focused on bringing the eco-system of Exact, its partners and third party add-on providers together to discuss overall solutions and to provide 'one stop' seamless solutions to the end user. Day two opens up the event to Exact clients and prospects who can hear from many great speakers as well as learn about new updates and 3rd party software providers who can enhance the users existing system, depending on their unique requirements.

B2BGateway provides cloud based, fully integrated EDI solutions for Exact Online users which remove the need to re-key data when exchanging standard business documents such as purchase orders, invoices, shipping notices, inventory updates, etc., with trading partners. Roger Leyden, Director of Global Business Development at B2BGateway will be attending Exact Live 2016 in Utrecht. If you would like to meet with Roger during the event, please email Sales@B2BGateway.Net  

The Simple #Hashtag - The 21st Century’s Most Important Communications and PR Tool?

As our team prepares to attend Intuit’s QuickBooks Connect, yet another valuable trade show on the B2BGateway yearly calendar, we get an email from the organizers, Intuit, encouraging our team to use the #qbconnect in all our correspondence and social media postings. As a marketer I am very au fait with the use of hashtags in our messaging, but Intuit’s recent show correspondence got me thinking. What exactly has the simple hashtag symbol # become and how has it influenced modern communications?

The hashtag or sometimes called the pound sign in North America was often used in information technology to highlight a special meaning. In 1970 the pound sign was used to denote immediate address mode in the assembly language of the PDP-11 when placed next to a symbol or a number.

The pound sign then appeared and was used within IRC networks (internet relay chat) to label groups and topics. Channels or topics that are available across an entire IRC network are prefixed with a hash symbol. The use of the pound sign in IRC inspired Chris Messina to propose a similar system to be used on Twitter to tag topics of interest on the microblogging network. He posted the first hashtag on Twitter in 2007:

How do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?

— Chris Messina, (@factoryjoe), August 23, 2007

It was after a series of forest fires in San Diego in 2007 that the use of the hashtag in Twitter first, and then other social media platforms, became popular. According to Messin

the intention behind the hashtag was to make it easy for users to search for content and find specific updates that are relevant without the technological knowledge to navigate the site. Therefore, the hashtag “was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages. In the world of the Super Information Highway, where all this happens in an internet minute,

that Marketers, communication specialists and organizations with a specific message, needed a tool to be seen, heard or at least somewhat searchable over all the noise created. Hence the simple hashtag has become one of the 21^st centuries most important communication or PR symbols. Simply by pacing the # symbol in place of a word or key phrase, the author can highlight the key points of his or her communication. Likewise the reader can use the # symbol for research and up to date feeds on any particular topic that may be of interest.

On social networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+, etc., hashtags can be inserted anywhere within a sentence, either preceding it, following it as a postscript, or being included as a word within the sentence, example (sorry for shameless plug) – ‘B2BGateway #EDI for QuickBooks’.

The quantity of hashtags used in a post or tweet is just as important as the types of hashtags used. It is currently considered acceptable to tag a post once when contributing to a specific conversation. Two hashtags are considered acceptable when adding a location to the conversation. Three hashtags are seen by some as the ‘absolute maximum’, and any contribution exceeding this risks raising the ire of other users.

So, besides search-ability, what additional benefits does the hashtag offer the 21^st century marketer and PR guru?

·         Improve brand awareness by using hashtags related to service or product.

·         Use trending hashtags where relevant to drive additional traffic to your site.

·         Encourage interaction with customers, prospects and partners.

·         Create a brand hashtag that is unique to your business and use as a signature tag.

·         Unique hashtags are ideal for new campaign or product launches.

B2BGateway to sponsor Intuit QuickBooks QB Connect in San Jose

B2BGateway, a leading global EDI solution provider and Intuit QuickBooks partner, announced today that it will be sponsoring QB Connect which takes place October 24-26 in the San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, CA.

QB Connect is the annual trade show gathering for Intuit QuickBooks Online customers, accounting professionals, advisors and third party developers. During the event attendees will learn about new developments and functionality to the QuickBooks Online solutions, be able to visit QuickBooks Online add-on partners and listen to guest speakers such as Eva Longoria, Michael Phelps, Malcolm Gladwell and Shaquille O’Neal.

B2BGateway, a QuickBooks Gold Developer, has been providing cloud based, fully integrated EDI solutions to QuickBooks desktop users since 2002 and in recent years has developed a full integrated EDI solution for all QuickBooks Online users. EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) has become best business practice in the transfer of electronic business documents such as Purchase Orders, Invoices, Advanced Shipping Notices (ASNs), Inventory Updates, etc., between trading partners and is highly popular in market verticals such as Wholesale Distribution, Retail, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Automotive and Finance.

By integrating with B2BGateway’s cloud based EDI solution the QuickBooks Online user can be compliant in all internationally recognized EDI standards and communication protocols such ANSI X12, EDIFACT, Tradacoms, PEPPOL, VAN, AS2, etc. The cloud based B2BGateway EDI solution offers full integration to QuickBooks Online which removes the need for the user to re-key data when exchanging electronic business documents, thus leading to greater accuracy, increased labor efficiencies and expediting the ‘order-to-payment’ cash cycle of the QuickBooks Online user with their customers.

The B2BGateway EDI App is the available on the Intuit Apps.com store accruing the highest customer satisfaction rating of all EDI providers.

“B2BGateway is delighted to yet again sponsor Intuit’s QB Connect,” states Louisa Gooding, Director of Sales and Strategic Partnerships at B2BGateway, “At the conference we will demonstrate how B2BGateway’s cloud based, fully integrated QuickBooks Online EDI solution can tighten and improve the end users supply chain by reducing errors, cutting costs and improving overall efficiencies. We will also be co-sponsoring with Webgility the ‘We Will Rock You’ after show party. If you are attending this year’s conference in San Jose, make sure to drop by the B2BGateway booth.”