Connecting your website or e-shop with accounting and couriers
What integration with accounting and delivery services means, what can pass between systems automatically, what to ask beforehand and how to plan for errors.
When an order comes in, someone often retypes it into the accounting program and again into the courier’s system. Integration means the systems pass this data to each other, so nobody has to. It saves time and mistakes, but only when it is planned well. This is what I would clarify first.
What can pass automatically
- Orders from the shop to accounting or the warehouse.
- Payments: information that an order was paid, so it can be matched with an invoice.
- Invoices and delivery notes created from order data.
- Shipments: order details go to the carrier, and the label and tracking number come back to the shop.
- Statuses such as shipped, delivered or returned, shown to the customer and in your admin.
What is possible depends on the interface (API) the other service offers. Not every service has one, and some offer only part of what you want.
Questions to ask before you start
- Does the accounting program or the carrier offer a documented interface, and is it included in your plan or paid separately?
- Which data moves in which direction, and which system is the “master” for each item, for example products or stock?
- Who issues the invoice, the shop or the accounting program? Ask your accountant what they need.
- What happens with returns, cancellations, partial shipments and a changed address?
- Whose account and access keys are used, and who keeps them?
What to watch for
- One data format. Names, VAT rates, country codes, currency and rounding must mean the same on both sides, otherwise totals will not match.
- Unique identifiers. The order number travels with the data, so nothing is created twice if it is sent twice.
- Error handling. If a service is down or rejects data, the system should try again later, write the problem to a log and tell a person, not lose the order silently.
- A manual fallback. You should be able to create a shipment or invoice by hand and resend an order, with a short written procedure.
- Testing on test accounts before real orders.
- Changes. The other service can change its interface, so someone has to keep an eye on it.
I cannot promise that a particular service can be connected until I have checked what it offers, so that is always the first step. For related decisions, see delivery options for customers. If you are planning a shop, read about e-shop development or write to me with the systems you use.