Virtual Merchant User Guide : Hints

Advanced Features

All changes that affect your eCommerce website require data changes in MYOB Accounting. Remember, you must Upload and Synchronise your website before these change will take effect.

1. How do I promote specials on my Virtual Merchant website?
2. The MYOB inventory item name is not long enough what now?
3. How do I display a Suggested Retail Price (SRP)?
4. Can I prevent customers viewing selected products online?
5. Can customers check their backorders online?
6. How do I ship to several branches and only invoice head office?

1. How do I promote specials on my Virtual Merchant website?

Virtual Merchant has 2 custom menus that can locate your special promotions with one click [1]. Enter relevant keywords into your item descriptions as pictured below. Irrespective of which keyword you decide to use, simply add the keyword to the description of the inventory items you wish to promote within MYOB. Virtual Merchant will search both the Item Name, and larger Item description fields for keywords - see item 2 below on how to use long item names.

2. The MYOB Inventory item name is not long enough - what now?

When selling online it's important to provide sufficient information for a customer to make a decision to order an item - without needing to contact your for more details. MYOB has a long description field which can hold up to 255 characters making it ideal to embellish item descriptions. Virtual Merchant supports both the inventory item name field, and the item description fields within MYOB [2].

3. How do I display a Suggested Retail Price (SRP)?

MYOB has provision for six Price Levels (PLA-PLF), one of which you must designate as your SRP. Once you've decided which Price Level to use as your SRP, each of your inventory items will need a SRP entered. Virtual Merchant will add the appropriate tax level when displaying the SRP on your website so be sure you enter the SRP excluding GST.
Displaying the SRP can be set either on or off for each customer. The default setting is off which means individual customers won't see your SRP unless you specifically set it on. To activate the SRP option for a particular customer enter the keyword vmSRP:Y in the MYOB Notes field of the customers card as shown below.

The next time you Upload MYOB data to your Virtual Merchant website be sure to select the SRP price level from the popup menu as shown below.

In summary, the procedures required to display a retail price are:

Nominate one of MYOB's six price levels as your SRP
Enter a SRP (excl. GST) for each inventory item in MYOB
When you next Upload MYOB data, select the SRP price level from the popup menu

4. Can I prevent customers viewing selected products online?

Yes. There are three options to accomplish this:

OPTION 1: Define a category for items not to be displayed on your website. This requires the setting up Item Categories within MYOB and prevents all items within the category from being displayed on your website.

OPTION 2: Block selected inventory items from certain customers. The default setting for blocking is off which means individual customers will see all inventory items unless you specifically set blocking on. To activate the blocking option for a particular customer enter the keyword vmBlock: (followed by the words you want to block) in the MYOB Notes field of the customers card as shown below.

In the blocking example above, the customer is prevented from viewing inventory items that contain ANY of the words: Water or Coolers or bottle. The blocking option is case insensitive which means Water and water will both be block in the example above.

OPTION 3: The third option for preventing customers from viewing selected products online is the opposite of blocking as described in option 2 above. By including key words, customers are restricted to view products that include those key words in the product description. The default setting for including is off which means individual customers will see all inventory items unless you specifically include keywords. To activate the include option for a particular customer enter the keyword vmInclude: (followed by the words you want to include) in the MYOB Notes field of the customers card as shown below.

In the example above, the customer can only view inventory items that include the word: Coolers. The include option is case insensitive which means Cooler and cooler will both be included in the example above.

Please note both vmBlock: and vmInclude: are restricted to 50 characters.

5. Can customers check their backorders online?

Yes. You must complete the Promised Date field when entering an order in MYOB. The Promised Date must be a date in the future when you expect to ship the goods to your customer.

Provided you nominate to Upload sales history as shown below, your customers will be able to view Pending Orders.

6. How do I ship to several branches and only invoice head office?

MYOB can ship to an alternate address by allowing you to nominate another card, see screen shot below.

Virtual Merchant also supports shipping to an alternative address - to do so you must designate the head office card in the notes field of each branch card.
Virtual Merchant identifies the head office card via the Card ID field, you will need to add a Card ID to the head office card [3].

(CUS001 is an example - you can use any Card ID).

On each branch card the use the vmHO keyword (short for Head Office) to identify the head office. In the example below CUS001 is used to identify the Head Office card.

Notes

[1] From the Virtual Merchant Admin area, click Website Settings to configure your custom menus.

[2] Virtual Merchant ignores the MYOB "Use Item Description on Sales" checkbox and will use the Description field if it contains information, otherwise the Item Name field will be used.

[3] If you've nominated to show previous order history within Virtual Merchant, only the head office card will be able to view these transactions - previous history links will be disabled for branches. Each branch will receive email confirmation of their order.