What is Transaction?

It is very important your understand well the idea behind Transaction software before using it or before getting a wrong idea about it. At first glance it may appear more complex than it actually is due to the fact we have included many features to respond to a wide range of requirements and online selling oddities.

Transaction was originally designed and created to handle our own sales. We began selling software in 1999. Until 2004 we used Microsoft Excel to keep track of sales, create reports and charts. Despite Excel is a wonderful product, it was not designed for such task so we started developing a new custom solution that would give us more power and flexibility. Transaction is the result, a powerful and unique in its approach sale analysis and reporting tool.

After importing all our transactions so far, about 5 years 30k transactions, we were able to create all kind of charts and reports as never before. It is amazing to find out how data can get a different meaning depending on the way you display it. We have been adding all kind of advanced reports as we needed them so for example right now we can find out how each of our products performs, the impact of our advertising campaigns, the total refunds and charge-backs, units sold... on a daily basis.

Yes, we can get updated reports and charts at anytime. That gives us a chance to take decisions fast and concentrate our energy where it is really necessary. That responds the original question: How would we know what to do if we don't know where we are?

The application is made of a single window called Browser. The Browser is made of a list on the left called Source and a tab panel. The tab panel contains six tabs labeled Products, Customers, Transactions, Expenses, Reports and Charts. First four panels are for adding, modifying and deleting information. Last two panels are for data analysis and reporting.

The source list on the left is the core of the software. It allows you to select the product(s) you want to get information from. It is highly customizable through the use of user-defined smart lists. It would have been far too limited to only list all the products there, rather than that the application also brings the possibility to create lists with as many products as needed. The possibilities behind such approach are not obvious at first glance but just think about what could happen to products during their lifetime. Their references may change, they can be part of a bundle or a license pack so how do you track for example the sales for a software product during 5 years as it changes its reference between versions, it is part of several bundles, it has been part of special offers with other products, can be purchased as packs of 5 and 10 licenses and 7 different upgrades are linked to it with even more different references? User-defined smart lists can cope with all that and much more.