Overview
Modern Retail FTP Updater allows you to synchronize your inventory over FTP. We can also make online order information available using the same FTP website so it can be pulled into your POS or ERP system. This allows for true "two-way synchronization" bypassing files back and forth between the two systems using FTP.
FTP
Modern Retail will create an FTP site dedicated to your store for this integration. We'll also work with your POS or ERP provider to understand the file formats that are needed for this integration. Modern Retail can read and write to nearly any file format, including CSV and XML. Some POS or ERP systems require files to be read and written in a fixed-format, which is also not a problem.
Setting up the integration in this manner allows your POS or ERP system to be completely synchronized with your website products, orders and customers.
Automation
People often ask how they can automate this process. The following two tasks need to be done to completely automate the integration:
- Sending Products
- Grabbing Orders
As discussed above, you can send your products to us in nearly any CSV or XML format. A developer who's knowledgeable with your POS or ERP system should be able to create a job to send this file to FTP automatically and on a scheduled basis.
However, grabbing orders may be a little more involved because your POS or ERP system must have the ability to import orders. We can send your online orders to the same FTP site allowing your developer to pick them up and insert them into your system. We can create an order file in nearly any CSV or XML format you want, so you'll want to verify what format works the best for your POS or ERP system.
Before you do anything, you should contact your POS or ERP vendor to see if they already have a solution in place. Some POS and ERP systems have this type of functionality "built-in," and all you need to do is enable and configure it!
Frequency
You can upload an inventory report and pull down orders as often as you'd like. However, Modern Retail has found that 30 or 60 minutes is a pretty good interval to synchronize data between your website and POS or ERP system. This interval is configurable in both directions. For example, we have one integration that sends products every 60 minutes but grabs orders every 5 minutes.