Prophet 21® from Epicor/Activant provides a robust interface for creating sales orders. It allows for a multitude of user customizations and options for ordering inventory items and interracting with the system.
Prophet 21® also has provided users with the ability to import sales order information into the P21 system. This is exactly the mechanism that is used for the popular B2B web-based ordering system. B2B works by allowing customers to browse an online catalog of inventory items that are listed by "item categories". These item catagories are completely user definable and make the process of logically listing inventory items for web-based browsing a breeze.
The B2B eCommerce system and other Prophet 21® eCommerce systems provide very powerful tools for Prophet 21® owners to allow customers to order items themselves.
Web Connect differs from these tools in a number of ways. Web Connect does not present items for ordering in a traditional eCommerce style interface. Instead, users interract with ordering in a way that is closer to what can be seen inside the Prophet 21® interface. There are two remote sales order interfaces in Web Connect for Prophet 21®:
- The "Quick-Order" Form
- The Remote Sales Order Form
Quick Ordering
The Quick Order Form was designed to provide both customers and sales professionals with a user-defined, re-useable order form that is pre-populated with items that distinct customers buy most often. Items are listed with the Item ID, Item Description and Customer Item ID. Optionally, customers and sales reps can see the current price for the listed items and can even be shown information relating to inventory availability. The Quick Order Form for Prophet 21® also includes the ability to set Min/Max values so that customers or sales reps checking inventory levels at a remote location can easily determine a re-order point.
The Quick Order form for Prophet 21® is great for situations where the customer or sales rep already knows what items they will be ordering and has no need to browse through a catalog to find the item. This is ideal for Vendor Managed Inventory solutions where the customer or sales rep will be checking item stock at a remote location.
The Quick Order form was designed with an iPad or other tablet device in mind and automatically produces sets of files that can be imported with the Prophet 21® Scheduled Import Service Manager.
Remote Order Form (for sales reps and admins)
For situations where a sales professional needs to be able to enter an order in the field without accessing Prophet 21® directly the Web Connect Remote Order Form is a very powerful tool.
The Remote Order Form allows the sales rep to create a remote order that can be imported into Prophet 21® with a user interface that is very similar to the Prophet 21® internal order form.
Sales reps can search for inventory items and add them to the order, adjust quantities, add order notes, check pricing and availability and more.
Both the Quick Order system and the Remote Order Form for Prophet 21® are included in the Web Connect business intelligence system.