I’m currently developing an online shop for a toy store. It is actually OpenCart open source shopping cart system.
The problem is next:
They want to integrate online store with their accounting software, so they can manage stock and prices at one place (accounting software).
It is necessary to provide communication in both directions, so:
- When they update stock status and prices of products in their
accounting system, it automatically updates the same fields in the
opencart database. - Reverse process should be when quantity of products in opencart
database decreases, the database of their accounting system should
be automatically updated.
I found a way to do it manually with export xml file with product table from accounting system database, and simple php import script which imports data from xml file to opencart db product table.
We have concluded that this is not a good solution, and it is necessary to provide automation.
Does anyone have a similar problem?
I saw that many companies offer their own solutions, but I didn’t find HOW this can be done.
Any help from anyone who has experience with this, or who has any ideas, would be appreciated.
Thanks.
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Answer
First of all You need to figure out whether the accounting software provides some API to be accessed by third-parties (which would be OpenCart store now).
If yes, then implement client side for this API that will interact with it (+ cron tasks to update data from API) and write actions to the API if the data is changed in OpenCart (if order is placed, confirmed, canceled, if new user registers, etc.).
If this is not the case, then explore the ability to interact with the account software database directly (which I do not recommend, but if there is no API this may be the second best option). Or, if You have that access You could write Your own API as a middle layer which would be more effort but better than directly accessing the account software database (which I doubt You would have access to, anyway).
Usually all the (better) account software provides that kind of API and if not, the developer(s) sometimes agree on creation of such API for You (which is better as the API will meet all Your requirements if possible).