Automation of an online store: setting up an accounting program

Torgsoft is a program for automating an online store.
 
If you already have an online store or are just planning to create one, this article will help you figure out how to properly configure the accounting program to synchronize with your online store.

What do you need to automate an online store?

• Accounting program Torgsoft, version "Ultra" or "Terminal"
• Additional option of Torgsoft "Synchronization with an online store"
• Developers of an online store

Creating a website from scratch takes about 2 months. During this time, a design is developed taking into account the wishes of the customer, the site is filled with basic content - the Contact, Payment and Delivery, About, Blog pages and the infrastructure is prepared for synchronizing the online store with the Torgsoft accounting program.

If you don't have developers, we can recommend web studios that we work with

How does synchronization work?

Torgsoft sends a file with goods, a price list, and photos to your FTP server, from where the online store downloads them. The Torgsoft program generates price lists in TRS, CSV, or YML formats.

How to set up synchronization with an online store

Business owners should not set up synchronization themselves: the process may require specific technical knowledge. Delegate the synchronization settings to your system administrator or technical support of Torgsoft, and some of the settings to the developers of the online store.

For developers, you can create a separate access to the Torgsoft program: configure the role so that they can work only with the synchronization mode, without access to management accounting.

Preparation. Structure of the product type tree

In order to display products in your online store beautifully and correctly and to make them ready for SEO optimization, you need to properly configure the product tree and product groups.

Tree of product types

If you don't have a clear understanding of the hierarchy and sequence that should be in the product type tree, take an example from the Retail or Prom classifier. For example, for a shoe store, one of the product types will be Men's shoes, subtypes - sneakers and sneakers, sandals, flip flops, clogs, loafers, shoes, and slippers. It all depends on your assortment, of course.
 
If you initially set up the product tree correctly, then in addition to easy synchronization with your online store and marketplaces, you will be able to analyze the results of trade and manage the assortment: see which type of product brings more profit, which sells worse and is not needed in the warehouse. Based on the analysis of the results, you will make the right management decisions and order the goods that your customers need.

Product groups

After you have set up the product type tree and posted the goods, you should decide which products will be synchronized with the online store. 

To do this, in the Commodity → Commodity groups menu, you need to create a group of goods and add the necessary goods by type, manufacturer, season, and supplier. You can add or remove individual items.

Product groups are needed to easily and quickly manage a large assortment and prepare goods for export to an online store.

Activating and configuring the option

To synchronize your Torgsoft database with an online store, you need to purchase the additional option "Pairing with an online store" or activate it in demo mode, free of charge for 30 days.
 
To activate the additional option Link to an online store, go to Settings → List of additional options, find the additional option Link to an online store, feature code 018, and click Activate for 30 days.

Setting up a synchronization object in Torgsoft

Adding an online store

To create and configure an online store, go to the Warehouse → Synchronize with online store menu and click the Add button next to the Synchronization object field.

The main configuration window will open, where additional fields will become available when you select the Online Store category.

General

In this window, you need to give the name of the online store, specify product groups, the principle of price formation and product name, the method and place of synchronization of photos, the percentage of wholesale and retail margins. Developers can create a POST request, which is a method of notifying an online store that TradeSoft has completed data synchronization.

Name of the online store

In the Name field, specify the name of the synchronization object. It can be arbitrary, as long as you understand that this setting is for your online store.

Source of the selling price

In the For goods invoices block, choose the Torgsoft accounting program or an online store. If you choose an online store, prices in Torgsoft and on the website may differ.
 
For example, an item in an online store costs UAH 800, and the price in Torgsoft is UAH 1000. As a result, the invoice will indicate that the goods worth 1000 UAH are sold for 800 UAH with a 20% discount.

Automatic markup and rounding percentage

If you set the % markup (retail) and % markup (wholesale), the program will take these values into account, and the corresponding price will increase in the synchronization file. The price can be rounded to a whole number, which is set in the product type settings.

Selling services

If you want to sell services in your online store, select the Synchronize services checkbox accordingly.

The principle of name formation

The product name determines how the product will be displayed on the website and in the search results. Google prefers extended, correct names, i.e. not just Adidas sneakers (in Cyrillic), but the full product name "Adidas CRAZYCHAOS SHADOW 2.0 Previous Next". When the goods arrive, check the name in Google search and take the names from the first lines of the search results. We have often had cases when a commodity expert confused or missed letters in the product model when they arrived and the product did not appear in the search for a popular query.

In Torgsoft, you can choose how to form the product name:

• Similar to the product name in the system. With this setting, product names from Torgsoft will be uploaded to the online store. The name includes its description: size, article, necessary characteristics. Characteristics greatly increase the length of the product name, so make sure that it does not exceed 60-70 characters (this is a Google recommendation).
• Product type. In this case, product names will be uploaded that consist only of the name of the type of this product, i.e. the final branch of the tree.
• Product view completely from top to bottom. Нhe product title in an online store will consist of all branches of the product type tree. For example, men's shoes: the "Men's" branch is a subordinate branch to the "Shoes" branch. Then the product name for the online store will be "Men's Shoes".
• Product view completely from bottom to top. Similar to the previous setting, only in this case, the name will be: "Men's Shoes".

Product description

There are two options in the How to generate a description setting:

• Вanything that is not included in the name for synchronization. The description will consist of all other product parameters: article, size, etc. that are not included in the title.
• Similar to the description in the system. In this case, the description will fully correspond to the description of this product in Torgsoft. This is the fastest way.

A directory for sharing files between the program and the site

In Information delivery address, specify which FTP directory to store and upload product information to. An FTP directory is a folder on the Internet, which is usually located on the hosting where your site is hosted.
Write down and save the FTP server access settings. The user you specify in the settings must have full access to the FTP directory.

Uploading photos to the site

Select Photo sync method - where to get product photos from:

• Do not synchronize. Photos from the Torgsoft program will not be transferred to the online store. This is appropriate if you have already manually uploaded a photo of the product in the site administration, or have not attached photos in the product cards in the accounting program.
• Your website. Select the FTP directory to which photos will be sent from TradeSoft and uploaded to the site. Specify access settings to the catalog in the Photo delivery address field.
• Your own Web server. If you store your photos on your computer, you can raise your public directory and provide access to your photo files via the Internet. This way, you don't need to rent an ftp directory on a hosting service. Product photos should be stored in your program catalog: Settings → Options → Product → Photo → Photo storage location → In the catalog. Specify the link prefix for the photos.

Settings for online store developers

Send a POST request after synchronization. After successful synchronization with the online store, a notification will be sent to the specified address that the data has been updated. The data for the request should be provided by the website developer.

Accounting centers

If you have several points of sale, you can choose which accounting center will be used to sell goods on the website.

In the settings of the accounting center, you can exclude from synchronization products without a photo, products with a zero or negative balance. Enable the ability to sell goods from different accounting centers and choose a point of sale when creating an invoice, as well as reserve goods.
Let's take a closer look at these settings:

• Synchronize products with photos only. Only those products that have a photo in the card will be synchronized.
• Synchronize products only in stock. If you enable this setting, then products with zero and negative quantities will not be synchronized.
• Goods written off. In this case, select the accounting center from which the invoice will be issued. Please note that the prices for the goods will be from the selected accounting center, which means that this accounting center should have only up-to-date prices.
• Offer goods from other warehouses in case of their absence. This setting allows you to write off goods from other warehouses if the goods are not available at the main accounting center.
• Offer a choice of accounting center when generating an invoice. When generating a customer invoice, Torgsoft offers to select the store from which the goods will be debited.
• Reserve account items. This action will allow you to reserve an item with a reserve date so that the order item is not accidentally sold to another customer.

Synchronization time

Here we set how often the orders from the online store and the synchronized warehouse will be downloaded. The synchronization will take place automatically, at the specified time. In the settings, you need to specify the computer name, user name, synchronization time or interval.

To do this, in the Create synchronization interval menu, fill in the Computer name/User (this can be done automatically), synchronization start time, synchronization interval, and synchronization end time.

Automatic synchronization will work if the Torgsoft program is running on the computer specified in the settings and under the specified user.

Synchronization files

To customize this stage, you need to check with the website developers what encoding and file format will be used. It depends on the content management system (CMS).
 
Torgsoft's can be reversed:

• ANSI or UTF-8 file encoding,
• CSV or YML product file type,
• type of customer order files SAL, XML, and JON.

Here you can also change the name of the product synchronization file, synchronize the customer base by activating the corresponding setting.

In the photo synchronization settings, you need to add what information will be transferred to the file for synchronization with the site.

You can add them one by one, selecting only the necessary ones, or Add all fields to the synchronization file (except for dynamic characteristics).

Dynamic characteristics can also be added, but one by one, by selecting the appropriate data type.

Pay

Here we set up payment forms for each currency that the online store works with. In the settings, you need to specify in which currency and where exactly - to the cash desk or to the current account - the money will be received after paying for the order.

Cash desks and settlement accounts must be created in advance in the Settings → Merchant network menu.

Click Add, add payments for the order, select the currency in the Currency field, specify the Payment method and the Current account or Cashier, respectively.

Customers

Torgsoft determines how to identify customers who have placed an order, updates their data in Torgsoft, or automatically creates customers in the database after the order.

To configure the search parameters and automatically create customers, you will need to set up an online store: they should specify the SaleType parameter, which is responsible for the order processing procedure. 

On this form, you can enable a setting that will update the customer's data if the invoice is created automatically. This is convenient because you don't need to check and update the delivery address or contact details - they will always be up to date.

If the Search for customers by phone number is enabled, the customer will be automatically found in Torgsoft (the order type must be set to SaleType 1).

You can refuse to automatically create or update customers. To do this, disable the Automatically create new customers per order setting (only for orders SaleType=1)
Instead, you will see a form for selecting the customers to whom you want to link the order. If you select SaleType 2-5 (created invoice, expense invoice), a new customer will be added automatically.

Dynamic characteristics of the product

Torgsoft has 16 product characteristics by default: type of product, country, manufacturer, brand, collection, description, color, material, size, gender, season, article, length, width, height, and release date.

But it often happens that the card does not contain the useful properties of a product. These are industry-specific parameters that are required in narrow product niches, such as voltage for appliances, seat height for computer chairs, or notes for toilet water.

Dynamic characteristics are used for this purpose.

In Torgsoft, you can add any product characteristic and transfer this information to the online store.

To add a dynamic characteristic, you need to go to Merchandising → Product type → Change product type card and click Show additional characteristics.

Click on the Add button, and the Advanced Parameters reference book opens, where you can create, edit, and delete dynamic characteristics. 

If the Unique for each accounting center setting is enabled for a dynamic characteristic, then this setting will not be applied to goods in other accounting centers.
If the Required switch is enabled by default, then this parameter in the product card must be filled in for all products of this type.

Save the dynamic characteristic. Select it in the reference book and save it for this type of product.

After that, additional product characteristics will be displayed on the right side of the product card, which you need to fill in.

How do I transfer additional parameters to the online store?

Return to the Warehouse → Synchronization with the online store → Edit menu.
Synchronization files tab → Add.
In the Data type, select Dynamic characteristic, and below it, select which dynamic characteristic of the product you want to export to the online store.

Thus, the description in the online store will be extended, and the site developers will be able to add filters based on these specific product parameters.

First synchronization

This completes the configuration of the online store in Torgsoft. In the Warehouse → Synchronization with an online store menu, select our synchronization object and click the Update button.

On the screen, you will see the products that have been added to the product group. Check if there are any products among the list of products that you do not need to export to the website. If you find such products, go back to Merchandising → Product groups and exclude them.

When you're ready, click Synchronize. The first synchronization will take some time, especially if you're uploading photos to a website.

How do I work with orders?

We have set up the program, synchronized the products with the online store, and are ready to accept orders.

If the developers have set the parameter in the SaleType 1 order file (details in the technical documentation), a preliminary order will be created and you should work with it in the Document → Remote customer order menu.

If the SaleType parameter is from 2 to 5, then orders will be automatically created in the Trade with invoice mode.

We talked in detail about how to work with orders in the video tutorial "Selling goods through an online store"