If that big red "Easy" button existed, it would do this.
February 25, 2010 10:17 PM   Subscribe

Integrating EDI with PayPal and QuickBooks and OH I CAN ALSO HAZ PONY? (i.e. this is asking a lot, I know)

I'm about to release a book (both print and e-) for which I expect to have a fairly good number of preorders...so many that the thought of manually uploading each shipping address/etc to my print on demand service (Lightning Source) = sobbing territory.

The factors:

* Lightning Source supports the use of EDI, but I don't know much about EDI other than a. the commercial software packages are crazy expensive and overkill for a small publisher like me plus b. the open source stuff out there seems incredibly difficult to implement without lots of coding knowledge.

* I use QuickBooks for most of my company's books already, I say this because I have spotted some EDI packages that interface with QB.

* I use PayPal (via e-junkie) to sell digital versions of the book via my website.

The question:

Is there any way to export the orders from PayPal to QuickBooks to [an EDI system that can then send that info straight to] Lightning Source? Then, instead of inputting everything manually at LS, perhaps once a day I'd manually run an "export all today's orders" function? etc.

I can't be the first person to have this problem, can I? Thanks.
posted by bitter-girl.com to Computers & Internet (4 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
I don't know much about QB to EDI, but this KB article ought to help with the PayPal-QuickBooks step. It looks like it's a little old, but it's worth a shot.

Unfortunately since Intuit owns its own credit card processing service I don't know if the integration with PayPal will ever get much easier than this.
posted by crinklebat at 10:52 PM on February 25, 2010


Response by poster: Thanks crinklebat! Step by step we'll figure out a workaround, I just know it. (Given that MeFi's got the highest concentration of clever people I know...)
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:00 AM on February 26, 2010


Best answer: To convert something to EDI, you would need a standard input format, a map to translate that data to EDI, knowledge of the standard you are translating to, and then software to do the translation and send to your trading partner. You may also have to track any returned EDI acknowledgements to make sure your order was received and processed.

For a relatively small number of preorders, the effort and cost would most likely greatly outweigh the benefits. Even small companies doing EDI, trading just a few documents per day, generally have at least one full time person dedicated to maintaining the EDI system.
posted by Roger Dodger at 11:44 AM on February 26, 2010


Response by poster: Ugh. Looks like data entryland for me. Thanks for the answer (even if it does mean sobbing into my pillow eventually).
posted by bitter-girl.com at 3:32 PM on February 26, 2010


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