A tech stack is the set of softwares you need to seamlessly run your business. How do you choose the right tech stack for your restaurant? When you’re talking to different software companies, be very clear on how they integrate with QuickBooks Online and other softwares you use. Is the integration a file transfer or CSV file that has to be uploaded and reformatted? That’s not true integration. Make sure each software has direct integration. If it doesn’t, that can end up being more of a hassle and harder to use than just manually typing data in yourself.
Before you buy or subscribe to a software, double check two things:
1) Verify if it’s a direct integration.
2) Find out if the integrations are bi-directional.
BI-DIRECTIONAL INTEGRATIONS
Ottimate is nifty because it exports invoices into QuickBooks Online. It pushes information into QBO. From QuickBooks Online, it will also read vendor information, charts of accounts, and when invoices have been paid. Other systems like xtraCHEF don’t read everything from QuickBooks Online.
I have a client that thought xtraCHEF would read all of the invoices from QBO and bring it into xtraCHEF. The reason they thought that is because a button on xtraCHEF says “extract.” They thought, “It extracts invoices from QuickBooks Online.” Not true. The “extract” button in xtraCHEF extracts the invoices from xtraCHEF and pushes them into QBO. He didn’t realize that, and it didn’t end up working for them.
Ultimately, sales people are going to try and sell you their products, and you need to be very keen in understanding what is going to work harmoniously with your specific set of technology. Ask for physical proof that software is working correctly on both sides of the technology.
I have also found very few instances where legacy software companies had built the right integrations all of a sudden. I love when an old payroll company says, “We just built this integration, and it works now.” They’ve been around for 20 years. Why didn’t they build it 10 years ago? Very rarely does that happen successfully, and it’s another factor to consider when choosing your tech stack.
THE FIXE TECH STACK
Our tech stack primarily consists of QuickBooks Online, Loop, and Ottimate.
We verified what talks with what, how they communicate, and how stuff gets set up. We started FIXE to make it easier to access information. We can validate the technology that we’re providing to our clients.
The iPhone is the best phone for downloading apps. Everything works with it, and everything wants to work with it. We chose QuickBooks Online specifically because it was the most integratable ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution. A lot of other ERPs have not invested as much as Intuit has into making this open source platform to get information in AND out easily. That’s why so many other softwares – Ottimate, Loop, and their competitors – work so much better with QuickBooks Online. The integration is cleaner.
If you’re trying to integrate with a desktop version of QuickBooks or other softwares, they’re not always direct integrations. Sometimes they’re just file transfers, and the integration breaks a lot easier than it does with QuickBooks Online. Or it’s a lot harder to identify what the issue is than with QuickBooks Online, because QBO is a cleaner, easier to integrate open source platform.
Loop and Ottimate both have user friendly dashboards that are easy to understand and use. They have integrations and automations that make our Account Managers’ lives easier. They also provide our clients an enterprise solution they may not have been able to afford on their own, but they can through FIXE.
