Order taking software

[Michaellambert]

Hello
We are a small business with a large range of products
We are looking for a programme to work with Sage 50 whereby we can have our catalogue on iPads and take orders from there and directly upload to Sage
We have seen two possible programmes but both seemed extremely expensive
I would be grateful for any recommendations
Thank you

[brucedenney]

I respectfully suggest that this is not the only way to do it.

iPads lock you in to an expensive hardware platform and you get incremental costs with extra users.

I would build a mobile optimised web shop.

This would give you a portal that not only an unlimited number of your sales people could use, but also your customers could enter orders direct, in the middle of the night if they wanted. You could even use it in the office instead of buying extra Sage users, you could use it with home workers, in the event of disaster scenario, you can divert the phones to mobiles or VOIP phones and sit in a coffee shop taking orders.

It would not lock you in to iPads, it would work with any mobile or non mobile browser, there is nothing to install, configure, setup, it is easy. Just about any tablet, phone or computer could be used, the only downside would be the need for internet access which could be a problem if your customer base is very rural.

iPads are expensive, the phone you already have is cheap, browsers are ubiquitous to all sorts of devices.

The existing infrastructure provides better value for money than implementing a whole new infrastructure.

A custom built Sage integrated e-commerce website with b2b would probably cost you around £5-6000 which is about 15 ipads.

I suspect that somewhere out there, someone might have a B2B packaged solution off the peg with Sage integration which may be even less expensive.