It’s been one year since we first introduced our API. It’s taken a lot of work to get where we are and it will take even more to get where we want to go with our API. We’ve seen ever increasing use of our API for external integrations like Perkville and internal projects like adding new inventory and generating packing lists. We wouldn’t have been able to make many of the improvements listed below without the valuable feedback of our API users. Thank you for your feedback and suggestions.

We are proud to annouce some changes and improvements to our API that are coming in our next release. Here is a quick overview of what is coming.

API Errors Returned in the Requested Format

Now when the API encounters an error instead of returning an html error page it will return error information in the format that was selected in the request (XML or JSON). This should allow for better error handling by client applications.

Fixes to API Datetimes

There was a bug that was causing some datetimes in the API to be returned incorrectly. Datetimes are now returned as GMT corrected for the timezone set in account.

Add Category and Tags to Receipt Template Items

We had a request to load the Item Category and Tags on the XML returned in the receipt template. This change will give access to those values to people using custom receipt templates.

Load Customer and Employee on Workorders

Another request we had was to load Customer and Employee information on returned Workorder objects. This gives access to the Customer name and address and Employee details for a Workorder without having to make more requests.

Sale Write Access

The biggest change that we have made is open up write access to Sales via the API. This is an important step forward for our API as it exposes more of the functionality of our application via our API. There are some important caveats to the functionality that we have exposed:

• Refunds and Returns are not yet supported
• Sales can be Archived (using the Delete method) or Completed, but they cannot be Unarchived or Uncompleted
• We have made every effort to fully test Sale write access via the API, but proceed with caution. If you find an error or discrepancy please contact us and let us know so we can correct it.

We still have plenty of work to do to improve our point of sale software API, including improving performance and exposing write access to more objects. We’re excited about these changes as they allow us to make big improvements to our product in the future.

If you have an API question, comment, suggestion or issue feel free to contact Nate at nate@merchantos.com.