We have three different customized WooCommerce integrations set up for prepared meal delivery online ordering for Rebekah’s Kitchen. We needed three different stores because her business has different requirements for different types of prepared meal delivery ordering, and this was the best way to achieve that.
On the original site, we needed to sync the ordering data and revenue with QuickBooks Online, the accounting platform that she uses. In reviewing and researching the options at the time, we landed on MyWorks QuickBooks Sync. This plugin is recommended on the WooCommerce site, so we set it up and configured it. The plugin gives you an interface in the WooCommerce backend that allows you to map fields and configure syncing in various ways. After setting it up, it worked well and we continued to use it for a couple of years. The drawback: it is very expensive, at $468 annually. That is a hefty price for a smaller business with straightforward syncing requirements, but we thought it was our only option.
When we set up the second WooCommerce site, that high cost was part of the expense calculation again. Because of it, I decided to research whether anything better had been developed in the meantime. With a little digging, I came across WooCommerce Connector by Intuit, an app developed by Intuit itself that appeared to accomplish the same thing. The best part: it is completely free. I was skeptical, so we set it up on the development site first and worked through the configuration. The process was not extremely intuitive, but that is common for third-party integrations. After some trial and error and documentation review, I got it working.
One meaningful difference with this integration is that it has no interface inside the WordPress backend. There are tradeoffs to that. On the positive side, it is one less thing for WordPress to load, maintain, and update. On the negative side, it requires logging into a separate external interface to configure and manage everything. Once you understand that is how it works, the configuration itself is straightforward, but you have to remember it is running in the background outside of WordPress. This could cause issues down the road if, for example, someone points it at a development site by mistake. It also needs to be managed separately, so staying on top of it requires configuring its notification settings and paying attention to those alerts.
The bottom line: WooCommerce Connector by Intuit synced WooCommerce data with QuickBooks Online reliably and saved Rebekah’s Kitchen $468 a year on the first store alone. After validating it there, we set it up on the original site and discontinued the paid plugin. Had we used the original plugin across all three stores, the annual cost would have approached $1,500. Finding a solution that achieved everything we needed at no cost was a clear win for the client.