There are a lot of great options available for online retailers, distributors, manufacturers, and marketing companies to sell their wares online with direct integration to their QuickBooks accounting software – especially for companies using QuickBooks Online.
We really like WooCommerce because it’s not only a top-rated app on the Intuit Apps.com directory but it integrates easily with WordPress which is the most popular website platform for small businesses making hosting a snap. Not only is WooCommerce the most utilized platform for WordPress – it has an extensive library of more than 300 extensions and can be customized or tailored to meet the needs of most small businesses regardless of industry segment. And it integrates with MailChimp for email marketing making it even more powerful to get your product or service message in front of potential buyers.
Bigcommerce is the other major ecommerce option we’d recommend that QuickBooks users evaluate. As one of the leading ecommerce platforms on the market, Bigcommerce has many of the same features available in WooCommerce with some unique differences that may be more interesting depending on your needs.
One of the major considerations between WooCommerce and Bigcommerce is the amount of work to build your site and the control you have over features and customization. Bigcommerce is more of a pre-packaged application which is hosted on its own platform. It has many options to customize and extend the product but it does come with a base configuration which will save time when creating your ecommerce site. Conversely, WooCommerce exists within the WordPress platform which requires just a little more work to configure but with that comes more control over exactly how to utilize the application and which plugins you want to enable.
Both products are industry leaders for a reason – they’re all rock solid with great features but you really need to carefully evaluate all three platforms to determine which will best meet your specific needs now – and into the future. Another leading platform to consider is Shopify if you want to (and you should) evaluate more than just two applications.
If you aren’t enamored with these three then keep looking. There are several other options available on the Intuit Apps.com marketplace including Magento which is more of an ecommerce development platform which is highly customizable with thousands of developers and hundreds of extensions available in the open market. Other smaller and niche ecommerce providers will likely provide integration to Intuit QuickBooks as well – just make sure to ask about the details on the integration to ensure that you are getting what you need.
Also, don’t forget to inquire how your ecommerce platform integrates with eBay and/or Amazon if you use those sites today or are considering them for the future. Most of the major ecommerce providers work with both but the way they work with them can be very different.
There are about 70 apps listed in the ecommerce category for Intuit on their website. Most aren’t all-in-one platforms but some may be of interest to you for more specific functions such as EDI, inventory and shipping, payment processing, and related activities.
Need suggestions or have questions? Find a good QuickBooks ProAdvisor to help you sort through the details. Outgrowing QuickBooks? Contact us today to find out how to easily move to a more advanced accounting or ERP platform with integrated ecommerce to more effectively manage your online sales and your entire supply chain.Financial management systems are designed to measure and report business performance, but sadly, most systems fail to add value. Read More Here.