sync to accounting sofware and compatibility with add-ons and plugins?

Hello, I have recently started to read about zen cart and the peach tree quantum 2012 (now called sage accounting software). I have been ask to try and help find a way to link/sync or connect somehow both these programs in order to trade inventory, stock, price, categories, product, costumer's data and anything else possible. Mainly being able to update price and product/stock/inventory once any changes are either done by processed customer's orders or input in peach tree. I have been thinking about issues that come from bad scripting, version change, updates, etc. Just recently I also started to get a deeper insight on website creation, html and such. Due to this I have been looking at tutorials and specifications to find a method or something quick and reliable for any sudden change in the future (by the way I have windows xp, windows 7 and what appears to be accordingly linux in a server for zen cart at my service)

I have heard of zen cart store manager and software to integrate it to peach tree and vice versa. I have found a product from magnetic one (Peach tree Integration for zen cart add on) that requires the zen cart store manager. While doing a long 2 day reading search hoping to find something to base on and built from..rather than starting from scratch..as well I also came across with a service called cart span which is claimed to be more universal and reliable when synchronizing back and forth between e commerce and accounting software.

sigh...Now that my introductory background has been as briefly established, has anyone here used any of the programs above together or individually? How is zen cart store manager and any of those other services reliable and worth time consuming? I couldn't really find more than repetitive information about them. If we were to keep/stop using them, or decided to "disconnect" zen cart from the accounting software temporarily/permanently, would add-ons or plugins use create any issues? Any info is welcomed! Thanks in advance for bothering to read my long post!

sorry...forgot to mention that if the server has linux...is it convenient to install the store manager and peachtree add on (if compatible with linux) within this server or another? Just trying to built more of an idea of possibilities to approach the ease of separate manual entry.

Integrating sage is tough, and there is no free plugin module for it.

If you Google search for something like "sage integration with zencart" you will come across a company that does this. I found it a couple of years ago for a client.

Hi, thanks for the information, I sort of had a feeling this wasn't going to come by clean and simple with beginner's work of 10 or so days.
I have looked at it, it seems that there is only two choices; Magicone's peachtree integration for zen cart addon (which requires more than just buying that software, I would have to buy the zen cart store manager software as well). For some reason they are on a beta version available since about a year ago...It seems like phone calls won't go through. The other choice is CartSpan which has annual fees and more advance options. This is as far information as I can find. Are any of these two the one's you found by any chance? The person I'm helping had also wondered about a plug in, and if buying one would solve most issues when connection peach tree (sage) and zen cart (from what I understood it is hosted by some company's server). Thank you once again for your help!

websitecurious:

Hi, thanks for the information, I sort of had a feeling this wasn't going to come by clean and simple with beginner's work of 10 or so days.
I have looked at it, it seems that there is only two choices; Magicone's peachtree integration for zen cart addon (which requires more than just buying that software, I would have to buy the zen cart store manager software as well). For some reason they are on a beta version available since about a year ago...It seems like phone calls won't go through. The other choice is CartSpan which has annual fees and more advance options. This is as far information as I can find. Are any of these two the one's you found by any chance? The person I'm helping had also wondered about a plug in, and if buying one would solve most issues when connection peach tree (sage) and zen cart (from what I understood it is hosted by some company's server). Thank you once again for your help!

Have you had any experience that can help me with the same issue?

The difficulties with Sage integration are many - particularly for the more "client-configured" version of Sage (Sage200 in particular is immensely challenging). One example of this is the major difference in the way zencart handles "attributes" compared with the way Sage does. Zencart does not (and cannot easily) assign SKU's to products that are "attributed", whereas Sage will require attributes in certain circumstances to be SKU'd.

Take SHOES as an example...

In zencart, I can create a product for a STYLE of shoe, and give it a SKU (Model Number). If I add ATTRIBUTES such as BROWN SHOE VARIANT and BLACK SHOE VARIANT, I am unable to "fix" a SKU to the attributes because in ZC, an attribute is a CHARACTERISTIC of a product, rather than a product in its "own right".

Now... Sage will want a SKU against BROWN SHOES and another SKU against BLACK SHOES...

See the challenge?

... and this is just one example.

After long research and asking around...I decided to try and use the easy populate plugin for .csv spreadsheet format. I did a local test on my computer using a program called xammp ( it emulates a server, so I was able to install and test on my job's Zen Cart version). I had some help to write and test short scripts and macros in excel/visual basic/c++. These would help place products and characteristics from an exported spreadsheet of Peachtree to the .csv file in the right order for the plug in to work. This plug in allows you to update products once you upload the spreadsheet to the server and through the admin page. Make sure to use the right version, you can find them on this site in the plug in contribution section.
So far it has helped save some time while maintaining the website. If the zen cart you are going to be using is not as messy and has no important files modified like the one I am using, then perhaps those other programs I had mention might be helpful.

If you really are using 1.3.8a, you need to upgrade yesterday! That version is seven years old, has php compatibility issues, and is vulnerable to hacks.