Keep your eyes on the road ahead (not your keyboard)

At VB Media, we spend a lot of time talking to print businesses of all shapes and sizes. Over the past year or two, it has been clear that many are increasingly looking to their software to help them reduce the administrative tasks cluttering up their daily workload and free them up to focus on the road that lies ahead for their growing businesses. 

This is one of the reasons that we set out to expand the capabilities of our in-built order management system, which many customers are already using as an effective workflow solution to help them process orders placed on their websites. Now we’ve taken that a step further by introducing platform-level integrations with Xero, QuickBooks and Sage accounting software, as well as the shopVOX business management tool. By adding these integrations for our Pro tier customers, we’re aiming to help businesses cut down on paperwork and time spent re-entering data so that they can focus instead on new ways to create value with print.

One of the most significant advantages of these integrations for users is the extent to which it reduces the need to re-enter data. Whenever a customer places an order via a print service provider’s website, all of their transaction details will immediately be shared with the print business’ accounting platform of choice. These details will encompass everything from what has been ordered to discounts, shipping costs and payment methods, and if this is a new customer the system will create a ‘new’ customer for them. Or if the order is placed by an existing customer who has not previously ordered through the website, the print service provider will be able to simply select that existing customer from the accounting system without needing to re-enter their details. Not only does all of this eliminate the need for manual data entry or exporting and re-uploading CSV files, it also reduces the margin for costly human error. 

Once the system through which their orders are placed is seamlessly integrated with their accounting software, print businesses can more easily keep an eye on how much money is coming in and out of their business, and better understand their business’ overall financial position. In an industry in which margins can be thin and operating costs can change quickly, being armed with more up-to-date data on their cash flow can also enable print businesses to forecast and plan more effectively, as well as empowering them to make more informed and strategically-minded operational decisions.

As with all other solutions integrated with the VB Media system, integration with these software platforms’ Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) has been enabled in-house at the source-code level. At VB Media we’re on a mission to help customers avoid the pitfalls of ‘plug-in soup’, so we develop integrations in this way to ensure all maintenance, updates and upgrades can be handled behind the scenes by us. This leaves our users free to focus on their core business instead of worrying about plug-ins malfunctioning or not being updated.

If you’re already a VB Media customer but didn’t know that your VB Media system could do all of this, give us a call. Or if you’re wondering how you could leverage your VB Media website to save you from manual data re-entry and free up time to focus on growing your business, book a demo.