MicroBiz offers built-in integration with WooCommerce. This integration allows you to connect your MicroBiz store with WooCommerce to seamlessly integrate your in-store MicroBiz POS and WooCommerce eCommerce store.  

Here is a quick summary of the integration:

• At time of set up, product records can be pushed from MicroBiz to Woo (name, details, image, prices, product variants for matrix products, initial stock, product category)
• Price in MicroBiz can be pushed to Woo as price updates
• Changes in stock levels from sales and orders in MicroBiz are pushed to Woo - instantly when stock goes to zero in MicroBiz and batched daily for other changes in stock levels/inventory
• Online orders made in Woo (incl items purchased, taxes and payments) are pulled into MicroBiz, where the order can be managed in the MicroBiz Order Management module.
• Customer data entered in Woo during the order are pulled into MicroBiz, and MicroBiz creates a Customer Record with the information.
• Price changes can be pushed from MicroBiz to Woo
•  In addition to the auto sync of stock levels, stock levels updated can be pushed to Woo at any time with one click.

Benefits of the Woo-MicroBiz Integration:

• Save time creating products - you can create a product in MicroBiz and push it to your Woo Commerce web site - or create a product in Woo Commerce and pull it to MicroBiz.
• Share Inventory - designate one or more stores whose inventory will be available for sale on your web site. Store activity updates web site stock balance.
• Pull Woo Orders into MicroBiz - handle all your in store, phone and web orders from one place.

Before You Start

Important notes before you begin the integration:

1.    For the first-time sync, we recommend you to have your data scrubbed and clean in one platform before the integration, as this will reduce time spent manually cleaning up the data after the first time sync.

2.    MicroBiz does not allow duplicate SKUs, please make sure there are no duplicate SKUs in your WooCommerce before the initial integration.

3.    Since the integration may create records in Woo, we highly recommend you to take a back up of your Woo system before you start the integration.  Similarly, if you are pulling products from Woo into MicroBiz, we highly recommend that you first test the process with a free MicroBiz trial before moving forward with the integration on your live site.  

4.    MicroBiz and WooCommerce have different tax setting options, please make sure they are consistent in both platforms.  In particular, make sure they settings for 'tax inclusive; or 'tax exclusive' prices are consistent between the systems.

5.    Any gift cards, discount pricing schemes, and loyalty points will not sync between MicroBiz and WooCommerce.

6.    Other WooCommerce plugins or integrations may affect the sync with MicroBiz.  For example, any plug in or third-party integration that changes Woo! prices, SKUs or orders may impact the MicroBiz sync. Please test any other plugins thoroughly before integrating MicroBiz and WooCommerce.

7.         Once MicroBiz and WooCommerce are integrated and synced, please do not delete the integration and re-integrate unless you are looking to start from scratch.  If you are facing any issues, please contact our support team.

Step by Step Instructions

 A step-by-step instruction guide can be found below.   The integration involves five steps:

1. Open the MicroBiz-Woo integration wizard.
2. Generate API key to connect MicroBiz and WooCommerce.
3. Generate Webhook to capture WooCommerce online sales in MicroBiz.
4. Link tax rates and shipping methods between systems
5. Push/pull or link products between systems

Note: To get started, make sure that you’ve logged into both MicroBiz and your WooCommerce admin panel.

Step One: Open the MicroBiz-Woo Integration Wizard

MicroBiz includes an online wizard that provides an online process to link the app open the WooCommerce integration wizard.  Go to Settings>Integrations>Woo Commerce.

Enter your URL of your WooCommerce site into the first field (see screen below).  This will generate the website admin Ppth for you and populated the second field with this data.

Then, press the ‘Set Up’ button at the bottom to start the set-up wizard.

Step Two: Connect MicroBiz and WooCommerce

The wizard will direct you to generate API keys from your WooCommerce site – and then copy and paste these keys into MicroBiz.    

Generating API key from WordPress

To generate an API key, navigate to your WordPress admin panel, and go to WooCommerce>Settings>Advanced>Add key  - and click on the ‘Create API key’ button.

Your Woo site will display a pop-up form allowing you to generate an API key based on a couple additional settings.  Enter the following information into this form.

Description - The description/name of the key (we recommend setting this to "MicroBiz")

User – Leave this field unchanged from the default value

Permissions – Change to the ‘Read/Write’ option

Then click on the blue ‘Generate API key’ button at the bottom.

 Your WooCommerce application will then display your API keys (see the page below). 

Copy API Keys to MicroBiz

 You will need to copy both the ‘Consumer key’ and ‘Consumer secret’ codes to into the designated fields in the MicroBiz wizard.

Step Three: Set Up Your Virtual Web Store in MicroBiz

As part of the Woo! Integration, we set up a ‘virtual’ store in MicroBiz which captures your online sales.   This allows you to filter and report on your online operations in the reporting module.  This virtual store is also used to manage and mark online sales complete.

If you haven't yet created a virtual store in your MicroBiz subscription already, the page below from the Wizard will allow you to add it.

If you already have set up a virtual store, click on ‘Connect Existing Virtual Store?’ button and select the store from the pop up.

If you have not added a virtual store, fill in the fields in the wizard

Name of Virtual Woo! Store – Add a name that will be used to capture your virtual Woo! store.  We recommend a name such as ‘Online Sales’ or Web Site Sales’.

Woo! Store Short Name – This is the short name for your virtual Woo! store that will appear on certain screens and reports.

Woo Store Number – Assign a store number that is different than the number of your other store or stores.

Create Customer Orders in MicroBiz – This is the setting that determines whether your online sales and customers will be pulled into MicroBiz.    If you select ‘Yes’ you will be prompted by the wizard to create a webhook so that MicroBiz can pull your sales into MicroBiz.

Create Webhooks to Pull Online Sales into MicroBiz

Note: This section only applies if you are pulling online orders into Woo!

To pull orders into MicroBiz, you will need to create two webhooks in MicroBiz and copy them to webhook fields on your admin panel in your WooCommerce site.  One webhook is used to create new orders in MicroBiz when a customer creates an online order on your website, and a second is used to update orders in MicroBiz for changes in the online orders in Woo!

The webhooks are created automatically in the MicroBiz WooCommerce set up wizard (see screen below).  

You will need to copy these codes into the WooCommerce webhook screens, along with also need to enter some settings in the webhook screen in WooCommerce.

To do this, go to the admin panel of your WooCommerce site and go to WooCommerce>Settings>Advanced>webhooks and click on the ‘Create webhook’ button.

On the next screen in Woo, enter the following settings: 

Webhook #1 - Order Creation Webhook

Name - Name your webhook 'MicroBiz Order Creation'

Status - Set status to 'Active' 

Topic – Set topic to ‘Order Creation’

Delivery URL - Copy and paste Delivery URL from MicroBiz into Woo! 'Delivery URL' field

Secret - Copy and paste Secret key (below) into Woo! 'Secret' field

API Version - Should be 'WP Rest API Integration v3'

Then, create the second webhook and enter the following values.

Webhook #2 - Order Update Webhook

Name - Name your webhook 'MicroBiz Order Updates'

Status - Set status to 'Active' and 

Topic - Set Topic to 'Order updated'

Delivery URL - Copy and paste Delivery URL (below) into Woo! 'Delivery URL' field

Secret - Copy and paste Secret key (below) into Woo! 'Secret' field

API Version - should be 'WP Rest API Integration v3'

After the webhooks are created, click on the green checkmark ‘finish’ button at the lower right, and then the orange ‘Save’ button at the top right.

Congratulations. Your WooCommerce site is now connected to MicroBiz. Now you can enter the Inventory Settings and Product settings to set up information as you prefer. 

Step Four: Set Up Your Inventory and Product Settings

Once you have finished with the WooCommerce Connection Wizard, you will need to set up the way that your products and inventory syncs with MicroBiz.

Inventory Settings

Ecommerce Fulfilment Stores – This determines which stores total inventory will be shared with your WooCommerce site as the available stock quantity.  Remove any stores that you do not want to include in the WooCommerce stock quantity.  When setting up your connection between MicroBiz and Woo Commerce you select one or more fulfillment stores. These selections do three important things:

• Web site Inventory- the combined open stock of all selected fulfillment stores is the is pushed to your web site as the available inventory balance to sell online.
• Ship >From Store - the first store on the fulfillment store list is used to commit stock or record backorders when a Woo order is pushed to MicroBiz. We sometimes refer to this store as the default fulfillment store.
• Completed Web Orders - stock is reduced from the first store on the fulfillment store list once the customer order is marked as complete. Orders sold through your Woo Commerce web store will show as sales in your MicroBiz virtual store assigned to the Woo web site. But since that store is virtual the stock is removed from the first store on the fulfillment store list. If you need to use stock from other locations to complete the order, create a transfer to move stock from any additional fulfillment stores to the default fulfillment store, preferably before you mark the order complete.

Daily Inventory Sync – MicroBiz syncs changes in inventory to WooCommerce in two ways.  If stock is reduced to zero in MicroBiz, MicroBiz will instantly send message to WooCommerce that stock is zero. MicroBiz also allows you to set a time that the non-zero items will be synchronized between MicroBiz and WooCommerce.

Woo! Shipping > MicroBiz Handling – This setting enable you to map the Shipping Methods settings in WooCommerce to Handling Methods settings in MicroBiz (In Store Pick Up, Ship, Deliver).  For example, if there is a ‘$10 flat fee shipping’ option in WooCommerce, you would want to map this to the ‘Ship’ handling option in MicroBiz.  To display the settings, click on Shipping Method line to open edit mode.  This is a one-to-many mapping.  So, you can map multiple shipping schemes in Woo to the Ship handling option in MicroBiz.   Note that this is different than mapping shipping charges to MicroBiz.  By default, any shipping charges billed in WooCommerce will transfer to MicroBiz as a separate line item in the MicroBiz customer order.  

Create New Woo Category on Pushed Products - Determines whether a new product category will be created automatically in WooCommerce if a MicroBiz product category on a pushed product record does not exist in WooCommerce.

Woo Status on Pushed Products – Determines whether a pushed product from MicroBiz is instantly published on the site, or if the product is pushed with a status of ‘draft’ so that you can add additional images and information before publishing it.

Product Tax Class Mappings – Each WooCommerce Tax Class needs to be mapped to a Product Tax Class in MicroBiz. For example, if you have taxable and tax-free product tax classes in Woo, you will need to map these to two separate product tax classes in MicroBiz.  Click on tax class line to enter 'edit' mode.

Tax Rate Mappings - Each WooCommerce Tax Rate needs to be mapped to a MicroBiz Tax Rate.

If your tax set up in MicroBiz uses compound tax rates based on multiple rates for states, counties, cities, etc, bundled in a Tax Rule, you may need to create a new aggregated tax rate in MicroBiz or create matching compound tax scheme in WooCommerce to match your MicroBiz tax set up.  Click on tax class line to enter 'edit' mode.

Once you are able connect your website to MicroBiz and configure the settings in the Product and Inventory tabs, you can now move on to pushing or pulling your products between MicroBiz and WooCommerce.

Step Five: Initial Publishing and Linking of Product Records

Pushing Product Records from MicroBiz to WooCommerce - At the current time, publishing of products is limited to pushing individual product records from MicroBiz to your WooCommerce site.  To publish a product record from MicroBiz to Woo, go to the Details tab in the MicroBiz product record and press the purple ‘Push Product to Woo’ button.  

Before you can push a new product to Woo from MicroBiz you need to click save. Once its saved the new/edit product screen will show the purple ‘Push to Woo’ button. Click it, and your product is now created in Woo Commerce. Matrix products create all variants in Woo. Prices and inventory balances are also sent to Woo. Now use the edit product in Woo Commerce button to open a new browser tab with the new product in Woo ready to edit.  The product is created in Woo Commerce as ‘draft’ (or published depending on settings) - so you can add search terms, long descriptions, additional pictures and additional categories for your web site. 

Update Price in Woo – Use the Update Price option of the purple split key button to push updates of the product’s price to Woo.

Update Stock in Woo - Use the Update Stock option of the purple split key button to push updates of a product’s open stock to Woo.

Other Details and Limitations

What gets shared?

• Products can be pushed from MicroBiz or pulled from Woo Commerce.
• Inventory can be shared – open stock from any number of MicroBiz locations can be represented on the web site as available stock.
• WooCommerce orders update MicroBiz inventory from whichever location the merchant uses to fill the order.

Limitations

• Only Simple and Variant products can be shared
• Non-inventory products cannot be synced 

Managing Woo Stock

When the open stock balance changes in MicroBiz a stock update is sent to Woo Commerce. If the stock balance has become zero the update is sent immediately. Any other stock update is sent at the scheduled time overnight. You can also go to the product record and resend the stock balance immediately.

Woo Prices

Your MicroBiz virtual store assigned to your Woo Commerce web site has a regular price plus a special price, along with a special price begin/end date field. These prices will push to Woo when you create the product. So if your web store prices are different than your in store prices you can change the web store price before you push the product to Woo. You can also manually resend the prices to Woo from the edit product screen.

Managing Woo Orders in MicroBiz

Go to the Register and select the Woo Commerce Virtual Store and select the register. Go to Orders and you will see your web orders .

If you have already marked the order as complete in Woo Commerce you should mark it complete in MicroBiz. You can also use the link in MicroBiz to open the order in Woo Commerce in a second tab in your browser.

When Woo Commerce orders are pushed to MicroBiz, we do everything we can to capture the order. It would be easy to generate an error and not create your web order if there were SKUs or tax rates not found in MicroBiz or anything else unexpected was encountered. So we have created a number of special system SKUs to handle missing items and allow you to see your order and correct things as you wish.