Your colleague spends an hour a day manually copying orders from the e-shop into the accounting system. The website shows "in stock" but the item sold out yesterday. Shipping labels are copy-pasted by hand. Sound familiar? Most online stores in the Czech Republic work this way – paying for it with time, errors and lost customers. Yet every one of these processes can run without human intervention.
I've been building these kinds of integrations for several years – at IDEATECH and independently. The scenarios repeat: manual order entry, manual payment matching, manual label printing. Technically it's always solvable – only the complexity and budget differ. This article covers what exactly can be automated. For tools, costs and how to get started, see part 2.
Key Takeaways:
- An online store with dozens of daily orders loses hours to routine work – copying, pasting, checking
- Invoicing, stock management, shipping labels, inventory sync, payment matching and emails can all run automatically
- Every automation has monitoring and fallback – the goal is to handle only exceptions, not babysit routine
- Start where manual work hurts the most – typically connecting the e-shop with the accounting system
- For tools and costs, see part 2
E-commerce automation means connecting your e-shop platform (WooCommerce, custom solution) with an accounting system (Pohoda, Money S3, FlexiBee), carriers (Zásilkovna, PPL) and other services so data flows automatically. Order → invoice → shipping label → tracking → stock update → follow-up email – without manual data entry. Investment in the range of tens of thousands of CZK typically pays back within a few months.
Where Online Stores Lose the Most Time
A typical day at an online store with dozens of orders – what a person does instead of a machine:
- Copying orders into the accounting system – wrong price, duplicate invoice, incorrect VAT and tax reports don't add up
- Printing shipping labels (Zásilkovna, PPL, Balíkovna) – mixed-up shipments, a birthday package arrives at the wrong address, you pay shipping both ways
- Checking and updating stock on the website – customer orders an out-of-stock item → cancellation, apology, negative review
- Answering "where's my package?" and "is it in stock?" – slow response → customer buys elsewhere
- Manually matching payments with invoices – sending a payment reminder to a customer who already paid. Awkward and trust-damaging
- Entering incoming supplier invoices – wrong amount, missing document, unpaid invoice and penalties
- Manual newsletter and follow-up email campaigns – generic content for everyone, abandoned carts without response, lost revenue
More orders means more manual work – it scales linearly. Automation scales by itself.
Connecting the E-shop with the Accounting System – Automatic Orders and Invoices
E-commerce automation starts here – connecting the e-shop platform with the accounting system (Pohoda, Money S3, FlexiBee or anything else). Instead of manual copying, systems communicate on their own.
How It Works
- New order in the e-shop → invoice is automatically created in the accounting system (customer, items, price, VAT, payment method)
- Payment arrives to the account or via payment gateway (GoPay, ComGate) → automatically matched with the invoice
- PDF invoice is sent to the customer
Technically: The e-shop sends a webhook or periodically queries via API (WooCommerce REST API, or a custom endpoint for bespoke solutions) → middleware processes the data and passes it to the accounting system. For Pohoda via mServer (standard for real-time sync) or XML import (batch processing), for FlexiBee via REST API, for Money S3 via XML import/export.
WooCommerce benefits from its open ecosystem – REST API and webhooks work natively.
Have a custom-built PHP e-shop? I often hear concerns that nothing can be connected to a closed system. The opposite is true – if you have database access or the ability to add a simple API endpoint, we can automate anything. You're not a prisoner of your system.
What it saves: Dozens of minutes daily + elimination of errors in VAT, prices and customer data.
If you want to know where exactly automation makes sense for your store – let's go through it together. I'll also tell you if automation doesn't make economic sense for you right now.
What Happens When Automation Fails – and Who Monitors It
The biggest concern of store owners: "I don't have a programmer. What if it stops working over the weekend?"
Real situations and how they're handled:
- Carrier API not responding → the system detects it, queues the shipment, sends an alert. Once the API is back, it automatically catches up.
- Accounting system rejects a document (wrong format, duplicate) → the system logs the error, sends a notification, the problematic document is handled manually.
- E-shop changes its API structure (WooCommerce update, custom platform change) → whoever built your automation monitors and fixes it under the service agreement.
- Accounting system releases an update → same thing. Compatibility testing and fixes are part of maintenance.
Good automation always has monitoring and fallback. The goal isn't 100% hands-off operation – the goal is that the vast majority of orders go through automatically and you only deal with exceptions.
Every integration I build comes with monitoring and a service agreement.
Automatic Stock Management and Real-Time Inventory Sync
Problem: The website shows "5 in stock" but there are actually 2. Customer orders, you cancel. Or the reverse – goods arrive at the warehouse but don't appear on the website until the next day.
How It Works
- Receipt in the accounting system → stock is automatically updated on the e-shop
- Sale on the e-shop → stock is automatically reduced in the accounting system
- Sync every few minutes (delta sync – only changed items, reducing load on both sides)
- Accounting system = "source of truth" for stock levels, e-shop = source for orders
What it saves: Eliminates cancellations due to unavailability and customer inquiries about stock.
Important: If you also sell on marketplaces (Mall.cz, Alza Marketplace), synchronization must cover all channels. Multi-channel is significantly more complex than basic integration.
Automatic Shipping Label Printing for Carriers
Problem: For each shipment, you manually fill out a form at the carrier. PPL has its system, Zásilkovna has its own, Balíkovna another. Copying addresses, selecting services, printing labels, sending tracking codes.
How It Works
- Order paid → shipment is automatically created with the correct carrier via API
- Label is generated and printed (individually or in batches)
- Tracking code is written back to the e-shop → customer gets a notification
- Most commonly via Balíkobot (de facto standard in the Czech Republic, has WooCommerce plugin and API for custom solutions) or Foxdeli (alternative with more advanced tracking)
What it saves: Dozens of minutes daily + elimination of address errors and shipment mix-ups.
Automatic Payment Matching – No More Manual Bank Statement Searching
Problem: Every day you download a bank statement, open the accounting system and manually match: this payment goes with this invoice, this one's a deposit, this one I don't recognize. With dozens of daily payments it takes dozens of minutes – and one overlooked payment means sending a reminder to a customer who already paid.
How It Works
- Bank API (Fio has an excellent API, ČSOB CEB, KB API) automatically pulls new account movements
- Middleware matches payments with invoices by variable symbol, amount and optionally payer name
- Matched payments are automatically recorded in the accounting system – invoice is marked as paid
- Unmatched payments (wrong variable symbol, partial payment, overpayment) are displayed for manual resolution
- The details that slow manual accountants down the most – penny reconciliation, identifying payments by email or payer name instead of variable symbol – automation handles elegantly
Payment gateways (GoPay, ComGate, Stripe) mostly handle this themselves – they send a callback on successful payment. Manual matching mainly concerns bank transfers, which are still the majority for B2B stores.
What it saves: Dozens of minutes daily + elimination of errors (unjustified reminders, missed payments, delays in cash flow overview).
Product Feeds – What to Worry About and What Not
If you have a WooCommerce store, feeds for Heureka, Zboží.cz or Google Shopping can be handled with a plugin (e.g. Product Feed PRO). Set up once, they update automatically.
When that's not enough:
- You need different prices for different channels
- You want to automatically pause out-of-stock products (so they're not advertised)
- You sell through marketplaces and need specific formats
- You have a custom platform with no ready-made solution
In these cases, a custom feed generator connected directly to the e-shop and stock data is worth it.
Automated Emails and Personalized Newsletters
Problem: A customer adds items to their cart and leaves. Nobody follows up. The newsletter is the same for everyone – men receive offers for women's clothing, a loyal customer gets the newcomer discount. Result? Low open rate, unsubscribes, lost revenue.
What Can Be Automated Today
- Abandoned cart – automatic email 1–2 hours after abandonment, potentially a sequence with a reminder and offer
- Post-purchase sequence – thank you, usage guide, review request, cross-sell of complementary products
- Personalized newsletters – an AI agent selects content based on order history, browsed categories, gender, age and other e-shop data
- Re-engagement campaigns – customer hasn't bought in 3 months? Automatic offer tailored to their preferences
- Review requests – automatically after delivery, with a direct link to the product
How it works: The e-shop sends customer behavior data (orders, browsing, cart) to an email tool (Ecomail, Mailchimp, Klaviyo) or a custom system. AI generates personalized content – a different newsletter for a customer who buys electronics versus one who buys cosmetics. All automatic, no manual campaign building.
What it saves: Tens of percent of lost conversions from abandoned carts + higher revenue from the email channel thanks to relevant content.
Stock management, invoices, shipping labels, inventory, payment matching, feeds, emails – all of this can run without human intervention today. That was the overview of what to automate. In part 2, we'll look at the tools, costs and how to get started.
Read Part 2: Tools, Costs and How to Start →
If you're not sure whether automation is worth it for you – let's go through it together in 30 minutes.
