Sage Link Questions

[leehack]

I need to get sales out of SD directly into Sage, i've never worked in this area. Has anyone successfully done this and if so, could you highlight any issues to look our for? How useful do you find the facility, does the SD link do what you want or do you do some exports of your own to get what you want.

Ultimately i want sales exported out of SD when downloaded and into sage with an export to our couriers too. If anyone has done that or any part of it and could offer some advice, it'd be greatly appreciated.

[Fairyglass]

Hello Lee,
We use Sage Link with Line 50 and SD2013 multisite. Now it's up and running it seems to work fine, but there was quite a lot of trial and error initially, partly because we were new to Sage, and partly because we have several sites. There's two issues we've found:
1. Duplicate order numbers- because we use multisite, each site uses the same initial settings for offline orders and so the same offline order number can be sent to Sage for different orders. We got round this by adding a prefix to offline order numbers in SD settings so each site is unique.
2. Tax codes- we found these very difficult to set up, and maintain. Sometimes when using Link, the program seems to drop the codes, which means the orders are not imported to Sage properly. I now check Link settings before doing any import.

We've experienced other problems too, but these are likely to be because we have Sage installed on a different PC than SD. We've had connection issues between the PCs cause import problems as a result.

Happy to talk through our set-up if it's useful, feel free to call or email.
Cheers
Ben

[saucysal]

Been using since 2004

We started using SD (Actinic) in 2004, choosing it because of the link to Sage. We have 5 online shops, all using the link, and all coming into the same Sage 50.

Initially there were problems in getting the settings in Link correct - they must match with Sage and SD, but once correct stay correct.

We use the link both to export all orders into Sage and to update stock quantities from Sage to Sellerdeck. We update the stock when a delivery has been booked into Sage, and also at least once a day for each site to correct any errors caused by people making multiple failed payments.

As with Ben, we are happy to give more specific help with the settings if required.

Sarah

[leehack]

Thanks for your answers, much appreciated, just doing some more work on this at the moment and i have a few questions if i may.

Let's say I sell a Hotpoint washing machine, it's product code is ABC123.

In SD i will have that setup with product reference ABC123. But currently within sage, both to make it easy to search for and to differentiate codes for multiple manufacturers, i have HOTABC123 setup as the product code.

Is there a facility with the link to say, by all means export the product reference from SD as it is, but prefix it with HOT (3 letters assigned to brand)? OR as i fear, do i need to have the product code in SD as HOTABC123, so it exports exactly as is in Sage?

Also, i obviously need to get Sage and SD communicating product wise and currently setting up hundreds of products in SD so every version of a product has a code and setup as a real product. IF i do all of that work in SD, am i right in assuming that i can somehow transfer that hard work into Sage either quickly or with not too much fettling of an export?

Really appreciate any help.

[Fairyglass]

Hi Lee,

We don't link products, but I see within Link there is an option to translate a Sage reference to a Sellerdeck reference. It requires mapping one set of products to another, which would be time consuming, but I'm not aware of any other method of doing this.

A note for support- It would be really useful if Sellerdeck were to write a detailed manual for this product- I know it's designed to facilitate information movement into a non Sellerdeck product, but it's a key reason we committed to both Sellerdeck and Sage in the first place, and I do feel it should be better supported, so these sorts of questions don't arise.

[leehack]

Thanks Ben, when you say you don't link products, are you saying that your references are the same in both products?

[Fairyglass]

No, we just don't use it for stock control, only for sales financials. However, we have a few products we like to keep more accurate records for, and even though there's nothing set up in Sage Link the stock level of these products changes when we import invoices from Sellerdeck. I presume this is because we've set up the references to be the same, despite the lack of product reference translation- Sage must recognise the reference.

[leehack]

Struggling to understand what you actually use it for tbh?

[Fairyglass]

central management of sales figures- 5 websites using SD send sales and tax info into Sage alongside invoices also raised directly in Sage. Our stock is very complex with multiple variations of quantity, colour and size, plus at least three different price levels. It's what comes of growing organically rather than planning it in advance!

[chris ashdown]

Hi Lee

Like ben we just use sage for the invoice amounts and record keeping from all sites, we do not use stock control and invoice from sellerdeck rather than sage

Sage does get a copy of the invoice though so we can trace back customer sales over last few years

We also prefix each site with individual leading number for the order numbers so we know what one is what

One thing we have noticed is on upgrading from sage 2013 to 2014 this month sage actually makes a new 2014 directory but just continues to use the old 2013 directory for all records and next year as long as we just upgrade rather than a fresh version it will still use 2013 in say 2016 etc

Codepath do a nice Intergration from SD to most courier databases

[leehack]

Thanks to all who have helped on this, i've just upgraded to V12 and back on this now.

I wonder if any of you can shed any light on this for me please. The link has been setup and used on this site before, but at the time (some years back now) when the order was exported, it created an invoice where my client at the time wanted a sales order.

Is this still the case or is it more customisable now, anyone any ideas please?

[saucysal]

Products Codes Same in Both

As previously stated, we import our orders into Sage and use Sage for the stock control. We have the products codes the same in Sage as in Sellerdeck. However, in Sellerdeck the products with these product codes need not be visible products, and visible products can have different codes to Sage. For example: Fred's Sweets 100g bags could be a visible product on Sellerdeck, with a different code, and hidden below this are the real products - Fred's Peppermint Sweets, Fred's Strawberry Sweets, etc. The codes for these match those in Sage and the stock control is maintained. The stock figure in the Fred's Sweets visible product is not controlled by Sage, as the codes do not match, and we enter a very high fictitous figure or a total of the flavours within in.

Knowing this, there may be other circumstances where making use of real and unreal codes and hidden and visible products could be used.

Sarah

[leehack]

Thanks Sarah, I changed (on your advice) all product refs so they now match across both systems, it was a horrific task over many days but now complete. In a similar way to you, the main product that we sell in 3 versions has a fictitious ref, but the 3 actual hidden products now have the refs to match sage, so i have:

Dummy Product
- Option 1 (real product hidden with correct ref)
- Option 2 (real product hidden with correct ref)
- Option 3 (real product hidden with correct ref)

A sale will always be for one of the hidden products, so tying them up should now be very simple.

The guy who first trialled the link many years ago said it used to create an invoice in sage, where he wanted a sales order, they only go to invoice when dispatching so leaves a clear trail to find out when an order has been shipped (as all shipped orders have an invoice). When he first tried it, it created an invoice for all exported orders, which went away from how they like to use sage.

Can you confirm whether you create a sales order or invoice please?

[Fairyglass]

Hi Lee,

We've only ever managed to get Link to produce invoices, so if you find a way to get it to produce sales orders I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Good luck.

[saucysal]

Go into Sage as Sage Orders

Our orders on Sellerdeck import into Sage 50 as Sales Orders, and also Customer if customer is new.

We process the Sales Order in Sage to create and print the Sales Invoice (clicking the Cash Sales button in our case). Clicking Cash Sales simultaneously and automatically allocates the stock to the order (reducing the stock quantities in Products), creates the sales invoice for the book-keeping, updating the ledgers, and with one more click prints the invoice, which we enclose with the goods.

Sarah