What do you dislike about Endicia?
1. Endicia can only draw an e-mail address to which to send a shipment notification from an entry in the QuickBooks Customer Center (we have entries for all of our distributors there). It cannot draw an e-mail address from an invoice (UPS WorldShip and FedEx Ship Manager can, with some configuration changes. Browser-based shipping solutions such as ShipRush can draw notification e-mail addresses directly from BOTH the e-commerce sites they integrate with, and the QB Customer Center). This is good for mailing packages to our distributors but bad for mailing packages to our distributors’ end-user customers. Or to retail customers that do not have their own entries in our QB Customer Center. Retail customers are too numerous to warrant an individual entry for each in our QB Customer center.
2. By itself, Endicia can only post-back the ship date, tracking number, and postage to a “Description” column in a QuickBooks invoice. By itself, It cannot place the postage in the “Amount” column in a QuickBooks invoice. If one needs the postage to land in the Amount column—which is CRUCIAL for my company—one must purchase a license to an additional piece of software.
3. That additional piece of software is known as a set of “QODBC drivers.” The license costs $199 per workstation. The $199 license fee must be paid again EACH time you do a major “point zero” upgrade to QuickBooks.
4. In the case of technical problems, support from QODBC costs additional on a per-incident basis. We have never used it because of this and because Endicia is the party that requires us to use the QODBC drivers to have the full post-back functionality we need.
5. The Endicia software’s working relationship with the QODBC drivers “breaks” all too often. Without warning, Endicia won’t be able to post data back to QuickBooks via the QODBC drivers. Endicia can almost always use the QODBC drivers to obtain a shipping address from QuickBooks, but posting data back to QuickBooks breaks--frequently.
6. Endicia technical support has, on occasion, disavowed any responsibility for fixing problems between Endicia and the QODBC drivers. THIS IS DESPITE THE FACT THAT ENDICIA REQUIRES THE QODBC DRIVERS TO POST-BACK THE POSTAGE CHARGE TO AN “AMOUNT” FIELD IN A QUICKBOOKS INVOICE. Yet Endicia IS capable of posting back information to a QuickBooks invoice without the QODBC drivers—just not as discretely as we need it to. I do NOT understand why Endicia’s software team cannot make their program do just one more task (putting the postage charge into the Amount column in a QuickBooks invoice) as it posts-back date, tracking number, and postage amount to a QuickBooks invoice.
7. Endicia technical support has been very hit-or-miss in its ability to accept, grasp, and solve the many, many, times the working relationship breaks between their software and the QODBC drivers. When I get a hold of one of their better technicians, a telephone call with Endicia technical support lasts about half an hour. When I get one of their “not-so-good” technicians, resolving the issue can take HOURS. Assuming it gets resolved at all. One of our two Endicia workstations is “down” (at least as far as Endicia is concerned) because functionality between Endicia and the QODBC drivers is still broken after a marathon telephone call between myself and Endicia technical support.
8. It has been necessary for me to learn some of the minor fixes for Endicia’s problems for myself, simply as a form of self-defense to avoid as many calls as possible to Endicia technical support.
9. Given the amount of postage we have purchased through Endicia since 2014 (it’s in the middle six figures, at my estimate), plus subscription fees, all of the above is simply inexcusable. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.