In Development: Sagify US Edition

Discover the latest updates on Sagify US Edition, the Sage 50 US Edition integration for Shopify. Learn how Sagify automates data entry and streamlines your accounting workflow.

Easily Import Shopify Orders Into Sage 50 US Edition

After developing Sagify, an integration between Sage 50 Canadian Edition and Shopify, I learned that I couldn't use my version of Sagify with Sage 50 US Edition users. The development environment for Sage 50 US is completely different from the Canadian side. Fun fact: before it became Sage 50 US, it was called Peachtree Accounting. I assume Peachtree was acquired by Sage to serve US clients.

If you've ever browsed the Sage.com website, you'll quickly discover that all support and documentation is region-specific, making it challenging to find the right resources. It almost feels like the divisions are separate companies that don't communicate well with each other—and this lack of coordination is evident in the development side as well.

Working on Sagify US

Despite these challenges, since I already had a foundation with Sagify, I figured I could port much of its functionality over to the US version. This would let Sage 50 US users automatically import and integrate their ERP with Shopify, eliminating manual data entry!

However, I quickly found that almost 80% of my original code didn't translate to Sagify US due to differences in development environments and the APIs provided by Sage 50 US. Fortunately, the remaining 20% was Shopify-based, so I could easily port that over.

There's Hope

Over the past few weeks, I've dived headfirst into the project and started making progress. While there's still about 75% of the work left to do, I'm cautiously optimistic.

From what I've seen and tested so far, Sagify US—the connector between Sage 50 US and Shopify—will be more performant and robust compared to the Canadian edition. Not that the Canadian version is bad, but admittedly it was originally built for a single client, and I haven't needed to make many customizations since.

How It Works

One of the things I love about Sagify US is that it runs in-process with Sage 50, which means execution times are lightning fast, it uses minimal resources, and there are built-in fail-safes. For instance, invoices can't be created if a customer or product doesn't exist. In Sagify Canada, I had to build a lot of this logic myself, whereas in Sagify US, thanks to the Sage 50 development environment, these checks are part of the SDK.

Features

Initial features of Sagify US will include the following automations between your Shopify store and Sage 50 US Edition:

  • Create sales invoices
  • Create sales orders
  • Create customers
  • Create products

Create Sales Invoices

Sagify will automatically write sales invoices to Sage 50. I emphasize automatically because this doesn't mean it will write invoices as they come into your store—that kind of setup could introduce security risks and isn't something I want to pursue. Instead, here’s how it works:

  1. You open Sage 50.
  2. You open Sagify US.
  3. In Sagify US, you select a date range (e.g., November 1st - 30th).
  4. Press "Process."

Sagify US will fetch all orders from your Shopify store within that date range and create sales invoices for each one. It will correctly include all SKUs, taxes, refunds, shipping addresses, and customer information, and map everything to a sales invoice inside Sage 50.

If you need invoices on demand, you might process them daily. For example, today is the 10th, so you'd run the date range for the 9th.

Create Sales Orders

If you don't receive payment right away and want to create a sales order instead of an invoice, Sagify US can do that too. You can configure this in the Settings tab to identify orders based on criteria like the customer's name, tags, metafields, or the order's tags and metafields.

Is It Ready for Production?

As of late November 2024, official development has started. If you're reading this a few months from now, there might already be a release. I anticipate a working version in early 2025. If you're a US-based company on Shopify using Sage 50 US Edition, be sure to reach out to me via the support page. Sagify US will help automate your data entry into Sage 50, including writing sales invoices, creating customers, products, and sales orders—no more manual keying in of data from Shopify into Sage 50!