Frequently Asked Questions

What is Stone Edge?
Is Stone Edge Web-based or PC-based?
How extensive is the integration between my shopping cart and Stone Edge?
How does Stone Edge handle credit card processing?
Can I print UPS shipping labels?
Can I print FedEx shipping labels?
How about Post Office shipping labels?
What if I use a different shipping program?
Can Stone Edge validate customer addresses?
How many customers, orders and inventory items can I store in Stone Edge?
Can I import data stored in other programs?
Can I import data stored in custom shopping cart fields?
Can I export data out of Stone Edge?
How does Stone Edge work with QuickBooks?
Can we track and manage requests for information by potential and current customers?
What about phone and mail orders?
I have a “brick and mortar” retail store. Does Stone Edge have any features for me?
I have 3 Web stores and a “brick and mortar” retail store. I also sell on Amazon and eBay. Can I use Stone Edge? Can it combine my point-of-sale and Web orders?
What if the shopping cart I use is not supported?
My company has special requirements. Can Stone Edge be customized?
Can I use Stone Edge over a network?
I spend a lot of time on the road, away from my office. Can I use Stone Edge remotely?
What programming language was used to write Stone Edge?
What do I need to run Stone Edge?
Can I use Stone Edge on a network if the workstations have different versions of MS Access?
How is the software delivered to me?
How long does it take to set up Stone Edge? How hard is it to learn?
Where can I get more information about Stone Edge?
Is a demo version of Stone Edge available?

Q: What is Stone Edge?
A: Stone Edge is a complete “back end” system for managing the day-to-day operations of a small-to-medium sized retail business. It lets you combine orders from multiple Web sources, traditional phone and mail orders and walk-in customers, and manage them all in one powerful program. Flexible and affordable, it streamlines your business processes while increasing your efficiency and capacity, which leads to greater profitability and the growth of your business.

With Stone Edge, you get the ability to:

• Import orders directly from the most popular shopping carts
• Import orders from custom shopping cart systems (requires a custom script)
• Manually enter orders received via phone, fax, regular mail, or email
• Use a point-of-sale “virtual cash register” for orders from walk-in customers
• Process credit card payments
• Print invoices, packing slips, pick slips and shipping labels
• Manage your customers
• Track your inventory
• Send orders to drop shippers and fulfillment centers
• Send email messages to customers and suppliers
• Generate purchase orders, then print, email or fax them to your suppliers
• Generate and print standard and custom reports
• And much more!

Q: Is Stone Edge Web-based or PC-based?
A: Stone Edge is not Web-based. It runs on your local computer, and can be used over a Local Area Network (LAN) with multiple users sharing the same Stone Edge data.

Q: How extensive is the integration between my shopping cart and Stone Edge?
A: The level of integration between Stone Edge and a particular shopping cart depends on the features and capabilities of the shopping cart system. If  Stone Edge supports a shopping cart, it can obviously import orders from it. In addition, it may be able to import customers and products, synchronize inventory quantity-on-hand in real time, and send tracking and order status data back to the shopping cart. For more details, see the Cart Matrix.

Q: How does Stone Edge handle credit card processing?
A: Stone Edge works with several popular payment gateways. It can process charges and credits, capture payments that were pre-authorized in a shopping cart, etc. Its “virtual credit card terminal” lets you authorize, capture, credit, and void payments whenever you are viewing an order. Payments can also be processed for point-of-sale, phone, mail and other non-Web orders.  Visit our Credit Card Processing page for a list of compatible payment gateways.

Q: Can I print UPS shipping labels?
A: Yes! The UPS WorldShip software that UPS provides can easily print shipping labels for orders in Stone Edge. You do not have to re-type any address information into WorldShip. You can also print UPS shipping labels directly from Stone Edge’s Pack & Ship screen without leaving Stone Edge. And Stone Edge can get the tracking data back from WorldShip and automatically send email messages to your customers with clickable tracking links!

Q: Can I print FedEx shipping labels?
A: Yes! The FedEx Ship Manager software that Federal Express provides can easily print shipping labels for orders in Stone Edge. You do not have to re-type any address information into Ship Manager. You can also print FedEx shipping labels directly from the Stone Edge’s Pack & Ship screen without leaving Stone Edge. And Stone Edge can get the tracking data back from Ship Manager and automatically send email messages to your customers with clickable tracking links!

Q: How about Post Office shipping labels?
A: Stone Edge supports Endicia’s Dazzle program, which can print labels from within Stone Edge. And Stone Edge can get the tracking data back from Dazzle and automatically send email messages to your customers with clickable tracking links!

Q: What if I use a different shipping program?
A: Stone Edge can work with most shipping programs that support ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) connections. Programs can pull shipping data from Stone Edge and send tracking data back. Stone Edge can also export shipping information to any shipping software that can import comma or tab-delimited text files. If a shipping program can also export text files with tracking data, Stone Edge can import the tracking numbers and automatically send email messages to your customers with clickable tracking links.

Q: Can Stone Edge validate customer addresses?
A: Yes. All shipping and billing addresses can be automatically validated against a USPS address database and corrected if necessary! There is no additional charge for that service.

Q: How many customers, orders and inventory items can I store in Stone Edge?
A: There is no limit to the number of records Stone Edge can store. Some users have more than 80,000 inventory items and over 150,000 customers and orders. We suggest that you archive orders and inactive customers every so often to prevent your database from becoming too large and slowing down. Even after you archive records, you can still access the data if necessary. Higher volume stores should consider the Enterprise Version of Stone Edge, which uses Microsoft SQL Server for its data storage, and has virtually unlimited capacity.

Q: Can I import data stored in other programs?
A: Yes. Stone Edge includes tools for importing customers, products and suppliers from text files and other data sources. There are also options for importing tracking data from text files.

Q: Can I import data stored in custom shopping cart fields?
A: That depends on which shopping cart you are using. In most cases, the answer is “Yes”. Custom fields in Stone Edge can be configured to match the custom fields in your shopping cart.

Q: Can I export data out of Stone Edge?
A: Yes. Functions within Stone Edge make it easy to export product and customer data to text files, shipping data to shipping software, and accounting data to QuickBooks. Stone Edge’s data is also stored in industry standard formats (Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server), and only credit card data is encrypted, so you can access the data tables directly or via an ODBC connection.

Q: How does Stone Edge work with QuickBooks?
A: You can export daily summaries of sales, sales tax, shipping charges, cost-of-goods sold, credit card deposits and other information from Stone Edge to QuickBooks as often as you like. Detailed data such as individual customers, orders, products and purchase orders is stored in Stone Edge only.

Q: Can we track and manage requests for information by potential and current customers?
A: Stone Edge includes a Contact & Task Management feature that allows you to store notes in customer records. As you enter notes, you can assign tasks with due dates to yourself and other users, e.g. follow up on this sales lead. Users manage the tasks assigned to them from the Check Tasks screen. You can also create and print or email “quotes” for your customers, and a quote can easily be turned into an order when your customer is ready to buy.

Q: What about phone and mail orders?
A: No problem! Use Stone Edge’s “Manual Orders” screen to enter orders that arrive via phone, fax, mail, etc. The program makes it easy to look up existing customers so you don’t have to re-type their address information. There’s even a function to repeat their last order! Type in a Zipcode and the Order Manager will fill in the city and state for you. Click a button and it will validate the billing and shipping addresses against a USPS database!

Q: I have a “brick and mortar” retail store. Does Stone Edge have any features for me?
A: Of course! Stone Edge Plus POS version includes a “point of sale” (POS) system that can act as an electronic cash register. It supports a variety of POS hardware, including barcode scanners, cash drawers and credit card terminals. And your POS sales will be integrated into the same inventory management system as your other sales. If you use Stone Edge’s real-time inventory tracking features (only available with some shopping carts), items sold in your brick-and-mortar store will be deducted from the inventory in your Internet store(s) automatically right after the sales occur.

Q: I have 3 Web stores and a “brick and mortar” retail store. I also sell on Amazon and eBay. Can I use Stone Edge? Can it combine my point-of-sale and Web orders?
A: Absolutely! Stone Edge is multi-channel ready! It supports more shopping carts than any other order management system, plus other Internet sales channels including Amazon, eBay, Shop.com and Overstock.com. It also supports point-of-sale orders and traditional phone and mail orders. You can combine all of your orders from all of your sources into one system, where they can share the same inventory and make customer support, inventory management, report generation and accounting much easier. In addition, Stone Edge will retain your branding by using different company information in emails to your customers and on invoices and packing slips depending on the source of each order!

Q: What if the shopping cart I use is not supported?
A: Give us a call at (610) 994-3699 and we may be able to help! We add support for several additional shopping cart systems every year. All it takes in most cases is a script to accept requests from Stone Edge and respond with properly formatted data. As Stone Edge has become more popular, many shopping cart companies are now willing to work with us to create that script. Even if you have a custom shopping cart, we can provide you with the information that your programmers will need to achieve full integration with Stone Edge!

Q: My company has special requirements. Can Stone Edge be customized?
A: Yes, it can! Unlike most commercial programs, Stone Edgeis written in Microsoft Access and VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and delivered to you with open source code. The program includes “hooks” at appropriate points where custom functions can be called, and hidden buttons on some screens that can be turned on and used to call your custom functions. Standard Stone Edge reports can be replaced with custom versions, and your own custom reports can be added to the program’s Report Menu for easy access. Stone Edge can even reload your custom modules, forms and reports when you install a new version of the program!

Q: Can I use Stone Edge over a network?
A: Yes, you can use Stone Edge on a Local Area Network (LAN). Stone Edge is installed on each workstation but the data is stored on one workstation or file server that can be accessed by the other workstations. Multiple users can work in the application simultaneously. The price of the program includes a license for use on up to 5 workstations. Additional licenses can be purchased separately for a small fee.

Q: I spend a lot of time on the road, away from my office. Can I use Stone Edge remotely?
A: We recommend a service called GoToMyPC (GoToMyPC.com) that lets you access your computer from any other computer on the Internet. It’s fast, secure, and reasonably priced. Other remote desktop technologies can also be used.

Q: What programming language was used to write Stone Edge?
A: Stone Edge is written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) within Microsoft Access. It is compatible with Access 2000, 2002/XP, 2003 and 2007. It is an “open system”; experienced Access users can create their own reports and queries.

Q: What do I need to run Stone Edge?
A: Stone Edge requires one or more personal computers running Windows 98 or later, each with a copy of Microsoft Access installed. For shared access, a Windows-compatible network is required. (Stone Edge includes a license for use on up to 5 workstations.) You may also want to view the complete list of system requirements.

Q: Can I use Stone Edge on a network if the workstations have different versions of MS Access?
A: Yes, you can.

Q: How is the software delivered to me?
A: Stone Edge is available for you to download almost immediately after your payment is received. When you purchase Stone Edge either online or by calling Monsoon Commerce, you will receive an email from us with the information you need to download the program.

Q: How long does it take to set up Stone Edge? How hard is it to learn?
A: Installing Stone Edge is very easy, and should just take a few minutes. However, Stone Edge is a very large program with many features. Learning how to use it and getting everything configured the way you want it will take some time. Most users are ready to begin importing and processing orders within a few hours with the help of our Quick Start Guide. After that, the learning time depends on how many of Stone Edge’s features you plan to use. Our Express Setup Service ($300 for up to 3 hours of setup and training time) is a great way to get up and running with Stone Edge quickly.

Q: Where can I get more information about Stone Edge?
A: Stone Edge maintains an extensive, searchable Knowledge Base of information about setting up and using Stone Edge. View the Knowledge Base at www.stoneedge.com/help.

Q: Is a demo version of Stone Edge available?
A: Stone Edge is an open source code program, which makes it impractical to offer a traditional demo version. Instead, we offer a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can work with the program for up to 30 days, and return it for a full refund if you are not satisfied with it.