This article explains the available options in Tradebox for posting downloaded order information into Sage 50 Accounts.

The Sage Accounts Link is created and configured in each individual Sales Channel, allowing each channel's data to be passed to Sage on a channel by channel basis. Before linking Sage with Tradebox you will need to:

• Create your Sales Channel(s) (integration with eBay, Amazon, Websites etc)
• Configure Sage for use with Tradebox

Before getting started with Sage integration you need to decide what kind of integration you want. This choice is made in the Accounts link wizard where you choose to Create Sales As:

• Product Invoices
• Sales Orders
• Service Invoices
• Summary Entries (Batch Invoices)
• Summary Service Invoices
• Summary Product Invoices

It's worth understanding a little bit more about these options so you can make the right choice. The options are split into Stock Control and Non Stock Control:

Stock Control Entries

If you wish to maintain stock control in Sage 50 Accounts then the options available are:

• Product Invoices (INV)
• Sales Orders (SO)
• Summary Product Invoices (INV)

The first two options, product invoices and sales orders, provide a granular level of data entry by creating an individual Product Invoice (INV) or Sales Order (SO) in Sage 50 Accounts for every individual downloaded order. 

Both options will pull the matching Sage product on each line of the online order onto a separate line on the INV or SO, with the correct quantity sold. The default behaviour is that stock will be depleted in Sage when the invoice is updated to ledgers or when stock is allocated to the sales order, both manual processes. However Tradebox can be configured to update the invoices to ledgers automatically (in Sage 50 version 21 or above) or to allocate stock to sales orders automatically, if desired.

Unless there is a specific business case for creating Sales Orders, we would recommend configuring Tradebox to create Product Invoices in Sage 50. This removes an often unnecessary layer of work from the process. The Tradebox team are happy to discuss this with you if you have any questions.

Both options allow the user to post to a single generic Sage Customer Account, for example EBAY_UK, or automatically create individual Sage Customer Accounts for each unique buyer.

Both options will provide an individual financial record of each sale in the form of an invoice and the payment or Sales Receipt (SR). For the invoice this can be automatically paid into a mapped Sage Bank Account based upon the payment method used for the purchase of the online order, making bank reconciliation easier.

Summary Product Invoices, however, allow you to group transactions from a specific date period into a single invoice, posting to a single Sage customer account. Tradebox will calculate the number of each product sold on all the orders within that period, and group these by tax rate and payment method. For example if you sell the same product within the UK and abroad, you would see two lines for this product on your invoice, one with its UK tax rate applied, and one with its ROW tax code applied. If you take several different payment methods on your orders, an invoice will be created for each payment method, so that the funds can still be allocated to different bank accounts within Sage. 

Maintaining stock control in Sage brings its own challenges, requiring products to be created and maintained in Sage and ensuring that the Sage Product Code is either identical to the online Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) or that that a product mapping exists in Tradebox where these 2 product identifiers don't match.

Non-Stock Entries

Where stock control isn't a requirement in Sage 50 Accounts then there are three further options available to financially account for your online sales:

• Service Invoices (SI)
• Summary Service Invoices
• Summary Entries (Batch Invoices)

Service Invoices

Like both the product invoices and sales orders options, choosing Service Invoices (SRV) will allow you to create an individual invoice in Sage 50 for every individual downloaded order. The main difference here is that the SRV is not in anyway linked to Sage Products.

Like the INV and the SO, the the payment or Sales Receipt (SR) for the service invoice can be automatically paid into a mapped Sage Bank Account based upon the payment method used to pay for the online order, making bank reconciliation easier.

Finally, service invoices will also allow the user to post to a single generic Sage Customer Account, for example EBAY_UK, or automatically create individual Sage Customer Accounts for each unique buyer.

Summary Service Invoices

Similarly to individual service invoices, summary services invoices do not link to Sage products, but rather than an invoice for each order, you are able to summarise orders for a particular period into one invoice per payment method against a generic Sage customer account. Each invoice will contain sales and carriage values split out by tax code, resulting in a much smaller number of transactions within Sage. 

Summary Entries (Batch Invoices)

The Summary Entries option allows the user to pass a summary entry in Tradebox into Sage 50 Accounts as a single Batch Invoice against an existing generic Sage Customer Account. All posting to Sage is done manually and data is taken directly from a Summary Entry that has been created by the end user in Tradebox.

Summary Entries create the minimum amount of splits in a batch invoice based upon:

• Income Type - Sale or Carriage
• Payment Method - PayPal, SagePay, Worldpay etc
• Tax Code - Standard rated, Zero Rated etc

The main benefit of the Summary Entries option is that it removes the need to create individual invoices in Sage 50 Accounts for each individual online order, saving space in Sage 50 Accounts and simplifying the process. It also places the user in control of the time frame for the batch invoices.

Summaries in Tradebox are created manually and are based upon orders from a selected channel between two chosen dates.