The University of Sheffield
Finance

Help on ... cash and income

University of Sheffield On-line Store
The University of Sheffield On-line Store provides a secure facility for University departments to sell products or services to customers anywhere in the world.

The On-line Store provides a simple, low cost and secure way of collecting income. It will save you administrative time, reduce the number of small value Sales Invoices you need to produce, and cut down on the number of visits you need to make to pay cash or cheques into the Cash Office. Use the built in questionnaire function and you can collect information from your customer at the same time as they make a payment. This makes the On-line Store ideal for your customers to register for conferences, short-course, field trips and other events.

Your customer can either browse the On-line Store, or click on a link from a promotional email or your web page to take them directly to your specific product or service.

Use the On-line Store for:
  • Conferences
  • Short Courses
  • Ticketed Graduation Events
  • Field Trips
  • Products (books, course packs, merchandise)
  • Events
Sorry, but you can’t use the On-line Store for:
  • Selling personal goods or services
  • One off or specific sales (ie Research Contracts, Consultancy Services – raise a Sales Invoice)
  • Replace Internal Trade in uBASE

How does it work?

The University On-line Store works in the same way as any other on-line store (Amazon, Play, etc). You provide information about the product or service you want to sell, and we’ll load these to the On-line Store for you. Your customer adds the product or services they would like to purchase to their shopping basket, and proceeds to checkout (if it is their first visit to the On-line Store they’ll be prompted to create an account). Your customer receives an email confirmation of their payment (once the credit/debit card payment is successfully processed).

You’ll receive a confirmation email to tell you that your product or service has been purchased. The income automatically credits the correct WBS account the next working day.

Additional benefits

  • Add a questionnaire to your product or service to collect additional information from a customer at the point of purchase (if required) eg – registration details for a conference
  • Built in reporting facility displays information about your sales in an excel spreadsheet. The report includes information collected in a questionnaire, replacing the need to keep separate manual records
  • Automatically sends out tailored emails to accompany the confirmation of payment for your product or service. Customers receive specific information relating to their purchase
  • Customers can print off a receipt for their purchase, enabling them to reclaim their costs from their employer (useful for conferences or short courses)
  • Quick and simple refunds. The On-line Store team just require an e-mail from the selling Department confirming the reason for the refund, the customers Payment Reference and the amount to be refunded
  • Add a password or limit access to your product to a specified group of customers

Start using the On-line Store

You do not require any training to use the store; all the technical set up is done by the On-line Store team. Follow these five easy steps to using the On-line Store:
  1. Simply complete the On-line Store Product Request Form

  2. The On-line Store team will load the product or service to the On-line Store for you (we can set this up in advance of your ‘go-live’    date - so it is ready when you need it)

  3. You’ll receive an email from the team with a link to your product or service to enable you to check that everything is OK

  4. We’ll test that the project account code (WBS), and email addresses, that you have provided all work OK

  5. Your product is ready to go-live when you need it

Need help or more information?

Who to contact
If you have any doubt whether your product or service should be placed on the store, please contact a member of the online store team onlinestore@sheffield.ac.uk for advice and guidance.

For guidance on setting up new non-research project accounts contact the Finance Manager for your our Academic Department or Professional Services Department.