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Integrating Magento to Dynamics GP? Here’s What You Need to Know

Posted by IES on Mar 8, 2016 8:00:00 AM

Microsoft Dynamics GP integration managerYour web store thrives on speed and efficiency. You've got orders coming in that need to be processed, recorded, and shipped, and all that information needs to be stored in your internal records.

Perhaps you already have Magento running your front-end store and Microsoft Dynamics GP managing your back-end workflow and accounting, or maybe you're considering investing in these solutions. And we don't blame you—they're perfect together. But for your store to work in real-time and to minimize manual data entry costs and errors, you need to integrate the two platforms. But what do you need to know before you get started?

Choose the Right Integration

Both Magento and Dynamics GP offer APIs that let you design your own solution—if you have the time and the resources. But then you are supporting code that could grow unwieldy as both products regularly add new features. This was supposed to simplify things, remember?

Another option is to get a connector product. These are out-of-the-box solutions that try to fit every integration, so their scope is limited. And as your store grows, you might find yourself with multiple connectors, each with their own costs and downsides.

However, the most practical solution for most businesses is to hire an integration partner to help you get exactly what you need. It might be a more visible upfront cost, but it’s important to consider the long run: when features change or as your business grows, you've got a Microsoft Dynamics GP integration manager to support you. You can focus on running your store, not the software that was supposed to simplify things.

Get the Features You Need

For your integration to work, you will need products and customers created in Dynamics GP to automatically transfer to Magento, and orders created in Magento to automatically transfer to GP. But do you also want to email shipment tracking numbers to customers without touching a key? Or full order-to-cash support? Do your research and consider how deeply you want to integrate your solutions to make sure you’re maximizing your investment.

Consider the Cloud

Your Magento solution will be hosted on a server somewhere. Maybe you've been thinking about setting up that server on-site along with your Dynamics GP software, but have you considered hosting your entire Magento-Dynamics GP integration on a cloud server to simplify things? You get to eliminate the cost of expensive hardware all while enjoying performance, storage, and security that scales up as your needs grow. If you use a public cloud shared between multiple hosted applications, you can further reduce expenses by only paying for the processing power that you need.

Before jumping into your Magento-Dynamics GP integration, you can save yourself a lot of worry by doing a little homework. For a free consultation with an expert Microsoft Dynamics GP integration manager, contact IES today.

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