Complete Guide to Cin7 Core (formerly DEAR) Integration with StoreAutomator
Integrating DEAR Systems with StoreAutomator enhances your e-commerce operations by seamlessly connecting order processing, inventory management, and shipping details. This comprehensive guide covers the essential steps to establish a successful API connection, configure default and warehouse settings, and utilize carrier and quantity import features for efficient synchronization between the two platforms.
Initial Setup: Connection StoreAutomator to DEAR
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API Connection
Start by creating a DEAR channel in StoreAutomator from Settings>Channels. Activate the channel, navigate to Channel Settings and input your “Account ID” and “Application Key” under the DEAR Channel > Channel > Channel Settings > API Connection. Save your changes to establish the connection.
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Default Configuration
To be able to forward your orders to DEAR, the user needs to fill default values for the following, which can be found by navigating to DEAR Channel > Channel > Channel Settings > DEAR Settings:
- Payment Term
- Account Receivable
- Revenue Account
- Payment Account
- Invoice account
- Tax Rule
We will pass these values directly to DEAR without processing them in any way.
Optimizing Inventory and Warehouse Management
DEAR Systems and StoreAutomator support multi warehouse management. To be able to receive actual quantities in your warehouses, you need to map your DEAR warehouses to StoreAutomator warehouses. This can be done in the next tab, Inventory settings.
Inventory Mapping Mode
You can choose between “Use combined quantity” and “Use warehouse mapping”
“Use combined quantity” will import all the DEAR’s warehouse quantities to the StoreAutomator’s default warehouse.
“Use warehouse mapping” will consider the mapping user set between the DEAR’s warehouses and StoreAutomator’s warehouses.
If the “Inventory Mapping Mode” is selected as “Use warehouse mapping”, the user must select “Default Inventory Location” so we can send orders and import quantities. This field represents the fallback value in case a warehouse could not be found and there is a mapping missing.
The rest of the settings represent StoreAutomator’s warehouses. The user must select the DEAR’s warehouse from the dropdown for that specific warehouse.
Carrier Mapping
Carrier mapping plays an important role in successful DEAR account set up, as DEAR has a list of carriers that it expects from StoreAutomator. Without carrier mapping all orders will receive an error from DEAR and won’t be accepted. Through mapping, we can correctly send carrier information to DEAR during order forwarding.
Navigate to to DEAR channel>Mappings>Carriers tab. The left-hand side represents actual shipping information that comes from the source channel. The right-hand side represents DEAR’s carrier options. These will be auto-populated if channel API connection settings are complete.
There is a “Carrier/Ship Method/Service Level” notation here. You must put 2 “/” even if some value is missing, so we can correctly map the values to DEAR’s.
Quantity Import
To be able to import quantities, there are two important points to keep in mind:
- The user must select all StoreAutomator’s warehouses to use under the DEAR Channel > Channel > Channel Settings > Common > Warehouses
- The user must include all inventory items in the DEAR channel.
These settings will ensure that all quantities are imported from the DEAR and for all of your warehouses.
There are other settings to consider
Enable detailed shipping description send detailed shipping Carrier, Shipping Method, service level for each order to the “Additional Charges and Services” section in each order. Also, if you have products and services created at the time of sales by your sales agent or any other products that do not have a SKU present in StoreAutomator, these items also will be sent to the same section under orders.
Update sales order on request, when enabled, it finds the order and updates it if the order exists. When disabled, StoreAutomator creates new POs in DEAR when the order is resent to DEAR by clicking on the “Retrigger Order Forwarding” button in StoreAutomtor orders page.
By following these steps, you can fully leverage the DEAR integration to optimize your e-commerce operations, ensuring efficient order processing, accurate inventory management, and streamlined shipping and handling.
In DEAR systems it is possible to take advantage of automatic invoice creation, to do that switch “Enable Invoice Create” setting to enabled.
If you like to send pending orders to DEAR Systems, this is also possible to do so, enable the switch “Forward Pending Orders” located at your shopify channel settings>Order Forwarding. In this case all orders without payment will go to DEAR as orders with issued invoices, pick pack and ship options of the order are not activated, and a payment transaction is not added, therefore they will be seen as “unpaid” in DEAR. When the order source channel switches the order’s status to unshipped, which is the valid order status, StoreAutomator will update the order in DEAR as a normal order.
Store Pick up option is also available for DEAR systems, enabling the “Enable Store Pickup” switch that is in Shopify settings>Order settings. When this option is selected StoreAutomator sends a note to DEAR that this order to be picked up from the store and sends the store’s shipping address.
Order Canceling from DEAR
When an order is voided in DEAR Systems, the integration will send the order update to StoreAutomator, where the same order status will be switched to canceled, and subsequently, the same status will be forwarded to the relevant sales channel. Also, order cancellation works the other way around, when an order is canceled from the sales channel, the signal will go all the way to DEAR, in very fast fashion.