StraightSELL integrates to your existing accounting, inventory management and/or CRM software. StraightSELL is not only the most powerful Ecommerce software solution on the market it is also the leader in terms of the number and depth of the off the shelf integrations it has with the worlds leading mid tier accounting and enterprise level ERP solutions. Integration is a very important part of a successful Ecommerce or sales force automation project. Integration is crucial for any B2B online ordering portal as it is this integration that keeps the data in the portal up to date (reducing the cost of having and maintaining this portal) and also means the orders can flow back automatically into your existing software. (which is a big source of the cost savings that offering such facilities can deliver). 
To find out how StraightSELL integrates to your existing software click on the links below: A typical integration between the StraightSELL Ecommerce software and an accounting or ERP package will involve the following: From the accounting package up to StraightSELL: - Inventory Item details;
- Stock levels;
- Pricing and customer special pricing;
- Customers and customer details;
- Invoices and invoice history;
- Credit limits;
- Consignment note numbers and the ship via field so that clients can be logged into your freight providers track and trace system;
- Account balances.
From StraightSELL back to the accounting, ERP or Contact Management package: - Orders
- Payments;
- New customer details where new customers register on the website or are upgraded from non-customer contacts in the StraightSELL Contact Management Database.
All of the integrations referred to above have been done using our own middleware solution called Catalogue Link that has been specifically built to provide a deep and flexible integration layer between StraightSELL and our clients existing software. Catalogue Link is an application that sits on your network and handles the extraction, conversions and transfers of files (listed above) between StraightSELL and your existing accounting or CRM system. To the person new to integrating Ecommerce websites with accounting systems it may seem like this is all that is necessary. However, there is quite a bit more to doing integrations with accounting systems well than just transferring files backwards and forwards. Issues that a middleware tool have to overcome is: - Often the data in your accounting system is not suitable to display to clients;
- Often there is additional information about products that is not in your accounting system that you want to display to your clients when they are ordering online;
- There is always a need to minimise data flows from your network to the web server to reduce load on your network;
- You need to be able to change some data and have those changes not be overwritten each time the integration runs. Other data you do want to be changed each time the integration runs. For example, if you upgrade a description of an item you do not want this to be replaced with the original description of the item from the accounting system each time the integration runs. However, you do want price and stock level value to be updated each time.
Catalogue Link offers the following additional functionality (above its ability to extract and transfer files which is discussed above) to over come these issues: - Catalogue Link has an editing panel allowing you to edit item details including a WYSIWYG editor so that you can add html descriptions to items without the need to know html code;
- Catalogue Link allows you to add and remove fields from your catalogue structure. This fits in with the ability to add custom fields in StraightSELL and together means that you can have an Ecommerce website with whatever fields in it you like;
- Catalogue Link allows you to automate the extraction and transfer of files so that you can control how often the integration runs. This allows you to extract data like stock levels in close to real time but only update other data less frequently to minimise the data travelling across your network;
- Catalogue Link also allows you to nominate fields that you do not want to be overwritten each time the integration runs and fields that you do want to be updated each time the integration runs;
- Catalogue Link also allows you to set data conversion rules that determine how future data that meets specific criteria should be treated in your website. For instance you can set a rule that all products with the word "Desk" in the description should appear in your website in a category called "Office Furniture". Then when you add new desks to your accounting system in the future they will be automatically routed into this category.
- Catalogue Link also allows you to determine what period of invoice and transaction history you want to show to clients online.
You can see some of the CatalogueLink functionality by watching the relevant online demonstration available through this site. | 
