# Keeping Track: Online + Offline Sales



## Robert H (Mar 27, 2007)

I have recently faced a dilemma that I have a solution for, although I thought it would be great to see what other people are doing.

*How do you track your sales etc. for online + offline orders (together) when you have a website and a place of business?*

I currently use Magento commerce for online sales and the reporting/tracking is great. I know exactly what was sold, how many and the sales tax + cost. This system is great, but when pairing with offline sales, inventory can be a bit of a challenge and keeping track of total sales even more fun.

My solution is to figure out how to import Magento sales into QuickBooks (QB) and just enter all offline sales in QB as well. This will give me a centralized place to have all customers and orders. The problem is, Magento cannot import into QB. Ugh.

_What does everyone else do with eCommerce + offline tracking?_


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

I only do online. Can/would you do it the other direction? Import offline sales into Magento?

What can Magento export to, if anything?


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## Robert H (Mar 27, 2007)

Well, I dont know of any import function either, sadly.


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## marcelolopez (Jul 16, 2007)

I know this may not help at all, but I use Zen Cart and QB, too.
There is a plugin to import zen cart files to QB, but I have not installed it yet.
Did you check/ask in the Magento forums for plugins for it?
Good luck, and let us know what you find/resolve.
Good luck.


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## Robert H (Mar 27, 2007)

I am going to give this a try:
Intuit QuickBooks Cash Register Plus

I will le t you know how it works.


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## Luxe-T (Jan 14, 2009)

We use apparel software by OMS to keep track of wholesale as well as online ecommerce. OMS is a stand alone server program that does order entry, po, s/o, invocing, accountain, etc. A seperate module can be purchased to add to the current system that will allow you do operate online sale as well. *we no longer do ecommerce, tho. Cost is around $25k, I believe. I can find out if you are interested.


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## Robert H (Mar 27, 2007)

Whoa! I appreciate the info, that is good to know. I am trying to keep costs pretty low so 25k is really out of range right now. I think I will stick with QB for the demo and see how it works. 

Does everyone just enter advertising giveaways are $0.00 and enter as a regular order? I know you can only give away $25 hard cost per year per person for a write off, although advertising depends on your budget.


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## Luxe-T (Jan 14, 2009)

I treat samples, give aways, and promotional items as marketing expense.


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

Robert H said:


> Does everyone just enter advertising giveaways are $0.00 and enter as a regular order? I know you can only give away $25 hard cost per year per person for a write off, although advertising depends on your budget.


Advertising giveaways should not be entered in as an order at all. It will throw off your average per sale, and other reports that are based on averages.

Where did you get the $25 cap limit from? That's new to me.


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## Robert H (Mar 27, 2007)

splathead said:


> Where did you get the $25 cap limit from? That's new to me.


that rule only applies if it is listed as a "gift".

Give a business gift, get a write-off



> The first thing to remember about business gifts is the $25 rule: You can deduct up to $25 in business gifts to any one taxpayer per year. That means if you give a $45 business gift to someone, your deduction is limited to $25. If you make gifts of two items worth $10 and $15 during the year to one person, you get to deduct $25.
> There's no limit on how many people can receive business gifts during the year. However, for tax purposes, a husband and wife are considered to be one taxpayer, so only $25 in total gifts to the two of them can be deducted.


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## DaveW (May 24, 2008)

QB should be your central "repository', IMO.

I used to use a program called Shopping Cart Assistant from Write It Once Software Write It Once Shopping Cart Assistant Product Page

This was basically a bridge from my unsupported cart to Quickbooks.

As the next step, we moved to order management software called Stone Edge, which handles phone orders, web orders, Point of sale, inventory, etc. It exports to QB which handles accounting. This is an amazingly flexible and powerful software system. It handles card processing, sends out order confirmation emails, can do order status, sends tracking numbers. One packer can easily pack and ship 30-40 packages in 2-3 hours. This software costs about $1500.

Looking back on the mistakes we made, I would definitely recomend always looking 2 or 3 growth steps ahead for your business as fas as software. In addition to the above, we have also switched shopping carts 4 times in 10 years. By looking (somewhat) ahead and starting with Quickbooks, we saved a ton of time NOT retraining the back office each time we switched something. Actually, knowing what I know now, I would start off with StoneEdge, but that's for my business and the product of 20/20 hindsight. 

IMO, hope this helps, etc.

DaveW


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## Robert H (Mar 27, 2007)

Luxe-T said:


> I treat samples, give aways, and promotional items as marketing expense.


What do you use to track each? Quickbooks? If not, do you just note your total monthly marketing expenses every month on an expense report?

When tracking promotional items do you enter a zero dollar value order?


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