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Amazon Integration - Information and Managed Availability Sign-up

  • 8 February 2022
  • 28 replies
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Amazon Integration - Information and Managed Availability Sign-up
Userlevel 6
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Updated 10/27/23

 

The following information answers many of the common questions about Acumatica’s Amazon Connector and our Managed Availability Program.

At the bottom we provide a link to sign up for managed availability. This does not commit you to anything. Only let’s us know you’re interested and we’ll grant you access to additional information.

General Information

  • The Acumatica Amazon Connector works with 23R1 and beyond
  • The solution primarily focuses on back-office efficiencies and accounting
    • Pushing inventory levels to Amazon
    • Pulling in Amazon (FBA and FBM) orders
    • Push shipping notifications/tracking info to Amazon (FBM)
    • Pull in Amazon Payments and Fees
    • Statement reconciliation via Bank Feeds
    • Personal Identifiable Information Protection (PII)
    • More info below
  • It supports FBA and MFN/FBM merchants
  • Merchants use it to sell on Amazon.com and Business.Amazon.com
  • Current merchants are selling in the US, Canada and Mexico
    • New regions can be enabled
    • Requires engagement with the customer
  • Merchants are using this solution to process thousands of orders per day

Frequently Asked Questions

 

How can I acquire the connector?

  • The Amazon Integration is a licensed product associated with the Retail Edition and can be added to any other Edition as an Add-on

What version will the connector work with?

  • The Amazon connector is designed 22R2 and beyond

Does it support FBA and MFN (FBM) merchants?

  • Yes it supports both FBA and MFN (FBM) merchants.

What does Acumatica’s Amazon Connector support?

Below is a list of the most popular features. If there are specific challenges you are facing with Amazon, reach out to us and we can discuss how our solution can help resolve those challenges.

  • MFN/FBM Orders:
    • Export inventory availability to Amazon
    • Import Orders as Sales Orders
    • Import Amazon Order Related Fees
      • Associate each fee with an Entry Type in Accounting
    • Export Shipping Notification and Tracking info
       
  • FBA Orders:
    • Import FBA Orders as Sales Invoices
    • Import Amazon Order Related Fields
      • Associate each fee with an Entry Type in Accounting
    • Track FBA Inventory with a Virtual Warehouse in Acumatica
       
  • Accounting:
    • Import Amazon Order Related Fees and automatically associate with Entry Types
      • Helps identify “per unit profitability”
    • Reconcile Amazon Statements with Acumatica’s Bank Feeds module
      • Makes the reconciliation process much faster, automated, easier
    • Create Dashboards and Reports specific to your Amazon Business
       
  • Personal Identifiable Information Protection
    • A security certificate is installed which encrypts customer data in the REST API and within the ERP Database
    • FBA orders:
      • All orders are associated with 1 “Amazon Customer” customer record.
      • PII data is not retained
    • MFN/FBM orders:
      • Orders are imported with customer information on the sales order
      • No customer record is created
      • Once the order is shipped, customer data is pseudonymized (based on a schedule)
        • A user with the correct level of rights can un-pseudonymize data
      • A schedule can be configured to archive all MFN customer data

Will I need an Amazon Developer API Key?

  • NO. We have built an Amazon App for the Seller Central Marketplace. This app is used to establish a connection between Amazon and Acumatica via OAuth technology. Merchant’s using Acumatica’s integration are not required to receive their own keys.

Which API are you using for this project?

  • We are using the new Selling Partner API, not the old MWS API.

Which regions will be supported?

  • Today we have merchants using the solution to sell in the US, Canada and Mexico. We are currently working with customers in the UK.
  • If merchants need additional regions, we can enable them however we must work with the customer on this.

I want to implement the solution, what do I do?

 

Great! Please contact your Acumatica VAR or go to Acumatica.com and click the “Schedule a Demo” button in the header.

We will be in touch with you shortly and help you get started.

 


28 replies

Userlevel 1

Thanks @josh.fischer - we will watch this closely. As we chatted about -- although Shopify Plus is our primary focus, integrating our customers’ Amazon businesses will be key for many to consider Acumatica.

Userlevel 6
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Are you going to offer inventory management for FBA?

Are you going to offer inventory management for FBA?

:ok_hand:

FBA Inventory + FBA Shipments + Replenishment 

These are things that Acumatica should support!

Really looking forward!

Userlevel 6
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Good question @Jeff96 - Answers below along with extra details for others who may read this.

Amazon FBA - for those who are new to this, Amazon FBA = Fulfilled by Amazon. Meaning you ship your goods to Amazon, they store the goods in their warehouses and fulfill FBA orders on your behalf. 

Amazon Warehouse Inventory 

For FBA Inventory, the goal will be for the merchant to set up a Warehouse within Acumatica which represents “Amazon Warehouses”. When inventory is shipped to customers from Amazon, the order will flow into Acumatica as a Sales Invoice. When processing those Sales Invoices, the merchant will deplete inventory from the “Amazon Warehouse”.

Amazon notifies the seller when they should replenish the goods. This notification is based on an Amazon algorithm which estimates the number of remaining goods, the number of goods sold per day and how long it takes to receive the goods. I’m unsure if this notification is exposed to the API, but something we can look into. 
 

Submitting goods to Amazon for FBA

Amazon Merchants who sell via FBA must go through an application process with Amazon before they are welcome to ship those items to Amazon. Here is how it works:

  • The merchant fills out a form and submits to Amazon
  • Amazon receives the form
    • They either reject the goods (there are some items they won’t allow)
    • They accept the application
  • If Amazon accepts the application they give the merchant instructions
    • Multiple Warehouse in which items should be shipped
    • Quantity to box for each location
    • Shipping labels for shipping
    • Timeline for shipping 
  • The merchant boxes up the goods and ships via the labels

Once the items are received, the merchant receives a notification and shortly after the products are available for sale on Amazon.com

This is all managed within Seller Central and it sounds straight forward, but merchants are often frustrated by the process.

We are talking with Amazon about potentially building tools within Acumatica which will allow merchants to manage this process from within the ERP. They are open to (and excited about) the idea, but this is planned for a future phase.

Our primary goal now is to accomplish the MVP of Order Management for Phase 1 (based on the feedback we’ve received from several large Amazon sellers), then continue to extend functionality over time as requested by our community.

Hope that helps, and let me know if I’ve missed something. Thanks!

Userlevel 6
Badge +4

Good question @Jeff96 - Answers below along with extra details for others who may read this.

Amazon FBA - for those who are new to this, Amazon FBA = Fulfilled by Amazon. Meaning you ship your goods to Amazon, they store the goods in their warehouses and fulfill FBA orders on your behalf. 

Amazon Warehouse Inventory 

For FBA Inventory, the goal will be for the merchant to set up a Warehouse within Acumatica which represents “Amazon Warehouses”. When inventory is shipped to customers from Amazon, the order will flow into Acumatica as a Sales Invoice. When processing those Sales Invoices, the merchant will deplete inventory from the “Amazon Warehouse”.

Amazon notifies the seller when they should replenish the goods. This notification is based on an Amazon algorithm which estimates the number of remaining goods, the number of goods sold per day and how long it takes to receive the goods. I’m unsure if this notification is exposed to the API, but something we can look into. 
 

Submitting goods to Amazon for FBA

Amazon Merchants who sell via FBA must go through an application process with Amazon before they are welcome to ship those items to Amazon. Here is how it works:

  • The merchant fills out a form and submits to Amazon
  • Amazon receives the form
    • They either reject the goods (there are some items they won’t allow)
    • They accept the application
  • If Amazon accepts the application they give the merchant instructions
    • Multiple Warehouse in which items should be shipped
    • Quantity to box for each location
    • Shipping labels for shipping
    • Timeline for shipping 
  • The merchant boxes up the goods and ships via the labels

Once the items are received, the merchant receives a notification and shortly after the products are available for sale on Amazon.com

This is all managed within Seller Central and it sounds straight forward, but merchants are often frustrated by the process.

We are talking with Amazon about potentially building tools within Acumatica which will allow merchants to manage this process from within the ERP. They are open to (and excited about) the idea, but this is planned for a future phase.

Our primary goal now is to accomplish the MVP of Order Management for Phase 1 (based on the feedback we’ve received from several large Amazon sellers), then continue to extend functionality over time as requested by our community.

Hope that helps, and let me know if I’ve missed something. Thanks!

Its exciting to hear about the potential shipment connection. 

 

Regarding the order flow, I suggest you talk to members that have this functionality set up (through Celigo or other providers). If you don't account for damage, returns or other factors, the inventory in the Acumatica Amazon warehouse will be out of sync after a week or two. 

If you want to know more, reach out to any member that does Amazon or PM me.

Userlevel 6
Badge +1

Thanks @Jeff96  - 100% agree. One of the challenges we’ll face is all the inventory challenges which have nothing to do with customer orders. Plus, when orders are returned to Amazon the merchant has no control over the decision making about what happens with the item. And, it’s not uncommon for Amazon to simply misplace inventory, and though they typically pay you for damaged/lost inventory we need to dig into how that is communicated via the API.

No shortage of “edge cases”.

Appreciate your willingness to contribute advice and input. We’ll reach out in the near future so we can learn more. 

@josh.fischer 

As far as I know, Amazon has this shipment process available via API already in place.

We do the entire shipment process + inventory sync entirely from within the system we currently use, and we don't do any touch in Seller Central.

I will put my offer here too (same as @Jeff96) that I'm more than willing to demo to you how we do it.

 

Anyway, can't wait to see it in Acumatica!!

Userlevel 1

@josh.fischer, very exciting.  We sell on Amazon FBM and our current integration pulls Item Fees up front so we record the commission Amazon is taking as part of the order.  Could you please speak to the current plan around possibly pulling fees and dealing with them on the order?  Specifically, will they be available and accounted for as the order is integrated?

We currently use a Non-Stock item to subtract off the fee so the invoice total matches the payment we’ll receive from Amazon.  Trying to understand if this will be the same in the future, or if we need to start thinking about this differently.

Thanks!

Userlevel 6
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@meir121218p  - terrific, thank you for the offer! Please be sure (if you haven’t already) to fill out the beta participation form above.

@CourtHagerDI  - yes, these fees are a very important need for all the merchants we speak with. The details about this are still being specified. Your approach of using non-stock items is a smart solution, especially when you need to “flex” the system into satisfying this. Our approach will be slightly different. What we are intending to do (still discussing internally) is adding fields which represent these Amazon fees within the financial system. Ultimately, the fees need to be represented within the invoice of the orders as a cost associated with the item(s) sale. However, there are challenges around this. For instance some fees are shared with the original order via the API and others are not. 

Long way of saying, we are determined to solve this, but details continue to be a wip. If you’re up for it @CourtHagerDI please fill out the form to be involved in the beta program. Even if  you don’t end up implementing this year, it would be great to engage with your team and learn from you guys. Appreciate it!

Hey Josh and eCommerce Team, 

My client RonnieMac Motocross influencer is looking to jump on both Amazon FBM and FBA. We are good with beta testing and get this rolling. I have 10+ years selling on both FBM, FBA, and Amazon VC. I have implemented Amazon integrations multiple times and know all the issues that you will face during integration and implementation. I understand the risk and we are all on board. 

Derek Aten - KillerMerch // Jeffree Star Cosmetics

Userlevel 3
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@josh

Most of my clients who use Amazon (AMZ) are lot controlled. I know Amazon doesn’t track lots, have you thought of anyway to allow these lot controlled customer to still use this connector? Right now we are exporting the inventory with lots from the AMZ warehouse inside of Acumatica (ACU). Running a vlookup and populating the orders pulled from AMZ with the lots available inside the AMZ warehouse in ACU. It would be nice to have this connector automatically select lots which are available, inside the specific warehouse &/or warehouse location containing the AMZ inventory.

Userlevel 6
Badge +1

Hi @derek41 - would love to sync with you on this! Really appreciate the offer. I’ll shoot you an email shortly. 

 

@asmith50 - I’m definitely with you on this if it can be done. My understanding is lot controlled product tracking with Amazon is tough because of the lacking support in Amazon. At this time, this isn’t a topic we’ve dug into too far (on the list, but lower priority compared to the other needed features) but if you have experience here (and feedback about what a merchant needs) we’d love to learn from you. I’ll email you directly so we can sync up. Appreciate it!

@josh.fischer , @asmith50 - I broke down the RonnieMac account to be super simple in-terms of integration. Let’s discuss quickly because we are going to move forward regardless in the next 30 days. I would prefer this is an integration with Acumatica.  

@josh.fischer

For FBM orders that are dropshipped from a vendor, how would we automatically get in the tracking details from the vendor on the PO, from there to the SO shipments, from there to export to Amazon?

(We are getting those files with tracking details from our vendors on a frequent hourly/daily basis.)

Userlevel 6
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Are there going to be grouping options, for example a daily import into a single Sales Order?  

We have a few hundred very small orders per day, there’s really not much value in having a sales order for every order since we fulfill using a different system in parallel.  Or at least not a value greater than the cost to upgrade the license to allow for more transactions.  Or will there be a pricing model that helps address that? We also use Shopify with an even greater order volume.  

Userlevel 6
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Are there going to be grouping options, for example a daily import into a single Sales Order?  

We have a few hundred very small orders per day, there’s really not much value in having a sales order for every order since we fulfill using a different system in parallel.  Or at least not a value greater than the cost to upgrade the license to allow for more transactions.  Or will there be a pricing model that helps address that? We also use Shopify with an even greater order volume.  

That’s a great question!!!!  Any insight on this, @josh.fischer?

Userlevel 6
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Hi folks - sorry @meir121218p & @bryanb39 - just saw these two requests.

@meir121218p - when you send the PO to your vendor, the vendor could submit tracking information in the “ref” field which can then be pushed to Amazon. Another option is to set up a custom field, push your info into that field, then map that field to the tracking info in Amazon via the Entities window. Right now PO Receipts don’t 1) have a field for tracking information and 2) we don’t have standard connections between PO Receipts and Shipments. Internally have discussed establishing this relationship for drop ship merchants, but there are some complications we need to overcome.

 

@bryanb39 & @jamesh - This is a good question and a request we’ve heard from 2 or 3 merchants now. There are a few pieces to this.

  1. In this initial phase we are pulling each FBA order in individually. At this time we don’t have it on the timeline/plan to pull FBA orders in via 1 group, but we are discussing if we could make this a configuration option for merchants. Essentially, give the merchant the option to either pull in 1 at a time, or pull in a large group. 
  2. Our BA’s gave me feedback that technically (not guaranteed) it should be possible, but it will take some significant updates to the connector to make this possible.
    1. Also, we are now pulling Amazon Fees into Acumatica, and there would be some challenges we’d have to overcome for fee imports and for statement reconciliation. But, again, likely doable.
  3. Right now our goals are to complete the remaining phases, take the first 2 dozen or so customers live, then revisit some of the requests which are not initial requirements. So, we could come back to this.
  4. That said, we have discussed this with one of our VARs and they mentioned that a customization may be possible to solve this upfront. Again, not “easy” but possible.
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Will you be able to change replenishment once Amazon suggests it? 

For instance amazon says that they need 10,000 but we only want to replenish 1,000 units?

 

Userlevel 3
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FBA Vendor here.  From what im reading is that the Sales Orders will import, but what about all the deductions and fees that get taken out?  

Right now im using their flat file v2, and making a Pivot to create the invoice then, create a credit memo for the deductions. will this be able to handle this process?

Userlevel 6
Badge +1

Hi @jyounes - Yes, for FBA we are pulling in order fees through the API. Sounds like you have a very specific workflow that you’re using now. I’ll DM you and hopefully our team can sync with you and align on our solution and how it compares to your current process. Thanks!

Userlevel 6
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@josh.fischer - Please add us to the testing for this connector. 

 

Thanks!

 

 

Userlevel 7
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Hi @josh.fischer ,

Is there any updated timeline for General Availability on this?    

Userlevel 6
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Hi @lauraj46 - we are intending to keep this in Managed Availability for a while longer, that said, we are happy to work with any Acumatica customer who is or wants to sell on Amazon. We are using managed availability for 2 primary reasons:

  1. It’s mainly to ensure that VARs use implementation assist until they are 100% ready to serve customers without any complications. Amazon doesn’t offer test/dev environments, so implementation needs to be handled very carefully.
  2. We are wrapping up development on an OAuth connector which will allow merchants to utilize Acumatica’s Amazon Developer Keys. In 2021 we were forced to require customers to get their own keys (which is less than easy) but we’ve overcome the hurdles that made that a requirement. Once customers can use our keys it’ll be much faster/easier for VARs and merchants. 

If you have a customer who is interested in implementing this solution, and they have their Amazon Keys, sign them up for Managed Availability. Won’t commit them to anything, but will give them access to our private forum, and we can work with you and your team to get them onto the calendar and implemented.

Hope that helps

Userlevel 2

Hello Josh,

In Mexico has Amazon has program called Amazon Flex that consist in third party carriers (people with their own car) that goes to the merchant’s warehouse and picks products to ship their area. Are you considering this escenario in the integration? In Mexico is very important this scenario. Do you know how to handle? For me it is like a traditional FBM but reviewing Amazon reports seems a little different from traditional FBM. 

This method has their own site for merchants to review orders.  

 

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