Miva Synchro to Quickbooks
We've hired someone to help us with our next transition to start using Miva Synchro so my partner Lee Ann, who handles all order fulfillment, can streamline the process by downloading orders directly from Miva into Quickbooks and updating inventory, printing shipping labels, interfacing with the post office to print labels, etc.. Lee Ann contacted a consultant through the Quickbooks website to help us integrate our whole show. At this point, I wanted to share with you the email we received from our consultant on the integration. There will be more to follow, as we actually start this transition within the next week.
"Lee Ann, If you want to download Miva transactions to QB, you have to purchase Miva's sync program."
"The syncing goes to the invoice or sales receipt function. Sales order would have been considerably better, but invoices will have to work if you stay with Miva-it's not the end of the world, just not nearly as preferable. Sales receipts would not be a good place to interface."
"The "link" to the post office looks more like just the ability to transfer your customer names and addresses in a merge operation the USPO program, but not a real "link" as in you could run each new transaction out to the USPO program. This is ok for repeat customers, but not as good as you'd like for new customers."
"The people in tech support are VERY difficult to work with...I was unimpressed...if you want to stay with Miva, then the thing to do would be work on the sales department to convince them of the need to improve both of these functions...I could make a very good case to them in your favor!"
"I see these alternatives...stay with Miva, purchase the "sync", live with the deficiencies until such time as they may be convinced to improve their program link to QB and to the USPO. That or shop for another program instead of Miva. I suspect the first option is your preference, but thought I should put it on the table. If your volume goes up the way you project, Miva's deficiencies could become huge, even with the sync program in place (unless they make some changes)."
"The sync function takes a bit of setting up, but it doesn't look like the end of the world. It needs to be completely set up and debugged before you start running it into your real data."
"My suggestion is to invest in the sync program, even with its deficiencies, at least to get you over your immediate crisis. Then see how it goes for a while, but be prepared and open to the possible need to look for shopping cart if they don't improve their sync or you find their deficiencies unbearable."
Ouch! I'll keep you posted on how it goes. Our decision is to stick with Miva because I know it now, quite well! More to come...
