Recent Improvements to OE Companion

Those of you who regularly send us feedback know that we are extremely responsive to customer issues. We certainly don’t implement every suggestion that comes our way, but we do our best to incorporate your comments into the product. Here are a few nuggets we’ve added to OE Companion in recent weeks based on your feedback. Thanks again for sending it, and keep it coming.

• Added a discussion group (accessible via help menu)


• Improved display of sub-items and sub-customers


• Added estimated ship date to purchase orders


• Added ability to display purchase order numbers on packing slips


• Enabled an approval process for purchase orders


• Added ability to customize email messages sent with POs, sales orders, and packing slips


• Modified list screens so that they remember sort order


• Improved structure of help menus


• Modified purchase orders to include separate column for vendor part number


• Added setting to automatically CC all purchase orders to a specified address


• Added ability to specify that certain items should not synchronize with QuickBooks Online

PayPal Integration for QuickBooks Online

We just released a beta version of a really cool new feature. We’ve integrated PayPal with QuickBooks Online in what we call our “PayPal Automation” feature. Here’s how it works.

OE Companion now has the ability to receive PayPal Instant Payment Notifications (IPNs) on your behalf and process them according to your instructions. You simply enable the IPN feature in your PayPal account and instruct them to send the notifications to us. Then fill out a quick form in OE Companion to tell us how to process them.

That’s it! Your PayPal account is now linked with your QuickBooks Online account. For example, now when you receive a PayPal payment, OE Companion can automatically generate a sales receipt and post it to QuickBooks Online. Even better, if you track inventory in OE Companion, the software can automatically update your inventory counts as PayPal payments come through. Think about that. No more manual data entry or manually importing transactions. Set it up and forget it!

As with all our new features, we’ve introduced PayPal automation in a “beta” phase, which means we need you to try it and give us lots of feedback on how it works. We’ve tested it internally, and we know it works pretty well. Now we need your help to polish it and take it from good to great.

If you’d like to try out our PayPal integration with QuickBooks Online, go to the “Admin” menu in your account and enable it. Or if you don’t have an account, sign up for a free trial today.

Update on OE Companion

It's been a while since I've posted a general status update. Part of the reason is that we've been so busy with development work. Over the next few weeks we are going to be releasing some significant enhancements to OE Companion. And that's just the beginning. By the end of the year, you will be able to do things with QuickBooks Online that were just wishful thinking before. Be sure to subscribe to our blog feed, as I'll post more information when specific features become available.

Thanks again to everyone for your interest in OE Companion. Your input and suggestions help keep us motivated.