Connecting WooCommerce to inventory management: JTL, Lexware or sevDesk?

Which inventory management system suits your WooCommerce shop comes down to one question: do you track stock across several sales channels or a real warehouse, or should orders and invoices simply reach your accounting without retyping? For the second case, the German accounting tools Lexware Office or sevDesk are enough, connected through a plugin such as Germanized Pro. For warehouses and several channels, JTL-Wawi or Billbee are the usual options. JTL is not free here: according to JTL, the WooCommerce connection is only included from the Advanced edition, from 99 euros a month. More important than the system is deciding beforehand which program has the final say on products, stock and invoice numbers.

For context: I am a WooCommerce developer and connect such systems to shops; I am not a tax advisor. I have no contract with any of the vendors in this article and receive no commission. The tools compared here are built for the German market, and prices and features are stated as the vendors list them on 26 October 2026.

Inventory management, accounting or ERP: what your shop actually needs

The three terms often get mixed up. For choosing the integration, the difference matters most.

Type	What it does and when it fits
Accounting Lexware Office, sevDesk	Invoices, receipts, bank reconciliation, VAT, data for the tax advisor, no stock levels. Fits if you only sell in the shop, stock is correct in WooCommerce and invoices should reach accounting automatically.
Inventory management JTL-Wawi, Billbee, Lexware warenwirtschaft	Product master data, stock across warehouses and channels, orders, delivery notes, shipping, invoices. Fits if you sell on several channels (shop, Amazon, eBay, physical store) or run a warehouse with your own shipping.
ERP Xentral, weclapp	Additionally purchasing, production, projects and reporting for several departments. Fits if your business has outgrown the shop and several departments work in the same system.

My rule of thumb: as long as you only sell through WooCommerce and the stock there is correct, you do not need an inventory management system, just a clean connection to accounting. As soon as the same product is sold in two places, in the shop and on Amazon or in a physical store, stock needs its own leading system.

JTL, Lexware, sevDesk and Billbee compared

All details according to the vendors, as of 26 October 2026. Whether a price includes VAT is stated in each case.

System	Connection and cost according to the vendor
JTL-Wawi inventory management, local on Windows	JTL-Connector, a plugin you install and maintain yourself. Wawi from 0 euros, but the WooCommerce connection only from the Advanced edition: 99 euros a month on an annual contract or 119 euros paid monthly, for one shop.
Lexware Office cloud accounting	Through partner plugins: Germanized Pro, German Market or Baebeca. Besides its own plan, the plugin costs extra, for example Germanized Pro at 85 euros incl. VAT for the first year.
sevDesk cloud accounting	Through Germanized Pro, German Market or Faktur Pro. Inventory as the add-on "Inventar" for 19.90 euros a month.
Billbee order processing with stock, cloud	Directly through the WooCommerce REST API, no plugin. At least 9 euros a month excl. VAT, above that by number of orders.
Lexware warenwirtschaft Windows program	Through sync4 by the Lexware partner Dupp GmbH. From 61.90 euros a month excl. VAT.
Xentral, weclapp cloud ERP	The vendor's own WooCommerce integration, cost not compared here.

JTL-Wawi: powerful, but not free and Windows only

JTL-Wawi is available as a local version for 0 euros. For WooCommerce shops that does not help much: according to JTL, the WooCommerce connection is only included from the Advanced edition, and the price list shows 99 euros a month on an annual contract for one shop. According to the system requirements, the database only runs on Microsoft SQL Server under Windows. On a Mac it only works through cloud hosting, which costs at least 49.99 euros a month extra.

With JTL, the Wawi leads. According to the JTL guide, changes you make in the WooCommerce backend have no effect on JTL-Wawi: a price you change in the shop is back at the Wawi value after the next sync. Products with variations and categories, stock, prices, images and delivery times go to the shop. Orders and customers go to the Wawi, and the shipping status goes back to the shop.

Two things to know before setting it up. According to JTL, several common plugins prevent the connector from working, among them Wordfence, Anti Spam Bee and Smush, and managed hosting can cause faulty transfers. On top of that, the connector has been temporarily closed in the WordPress plugin directory since 7 October 2026, pending a review. JTL continues to publish it on GitHub, most recently version 2.4.5 on 15 October. Before a new setup, ask JTL how to obtain the connector at the moment.

Lexware Office and sevDesk: accounting, not inventory management

Lexware Office was called lexoffice until 2024. Both programs are accounting tools. Lexware Office does not track stock: according to Lexware, products there have a price, tax rate and unit, but no stock field. sevDesk offers inventory as the add-on "Inventar" for 19.90 euros a month (sevDesk prices). However, neither sevDesk nor any of the plugin vendors describes syncing that stock with WooCommerce.

Neither has its own WooCommerce extension. Lexware names Germanized, German Market and Baebeca as partners, sevDesk names Faktur Pro, Germanized and German Market. Invoices, cancellations and customer data are transferred. If the shop already runs Germanized, Germanized Pro is the obvious choice: according to vendidero, it sends invoices and cancellations to Lexware Office or sevDesk once they are finalised, and with sevDesk it can also match payments. According to vendidero, Germanized Pro costs 85 euros including VAT for one domain in the first year, then 65 euros a year for updates.

Billbee: stock across several channels without a Windows server

According to its own guide, Billbee connects directly through the WooCommerce REST API, no plugin required. Billbee syncs stock across all sales channels and handles order documents and shipping. The cost depends on the number of orders, at least 9 euros a month excl. VAT (Billbee prices), and refunds and credit notes also count as orders. Lexware Office or sevDesk can be connected behind it for accounting. According to Billbee, the tracking number only gets back to the shop with an additional plugin such as Germanized.

Lexware warenwirtschaft, Xentral and weclapp

If you already use the Windows program Lexware warenwirtschaft (from 61.90 euros a month excl. VAT), WooCommerce is connected through sync4 by the partner Dupp GmbH, according to Lexware. Data is then maintained in Lexware. The ERP systems Xentral and weclapp have their own WooCommerce integrations that sync stock and orders. They pay off when more than the shop depends on them.

How data flows between the shop and inventory management

Technically, almost all integrations run through the WooCommerce REST API. That is the interface through which other programs read and write products, orders and customers. A connector plugin or a vendor service queries the shop at fixed intervals or gets notified when a new order comes in. What matters is not the technology but who leads for which data:

Data	Who leads, where it flows
Products, prices, descriptions	With inventory management that system leads, without it WooCommerce. Flows from the inventory system to the shop.
Stock	The system that sees all sales channels. Flows from there to the shop.
Orders and customers	WooCommerce. Flow from the shop to the inventory system or accounting.
Invoice and invoice number	Exactly one system, never two. The invoice is created there and sent to the customer and accounting.
Shipping status and tracking number	Inventory system or shipping service. Flow back to the shop so the shipping email goes out.
Payments	Payment provider such as PayPal, Stripe or the bank. Flow to accounting for reconciliation.

If nobody decides this, you get the typical mess: a price is changed in the shop and overwritten by the next sync, or a customer receives two invoices with different numbers.

Six places where integrations fail

The setup itself is rarely the problem. It gets difficult with the special cases that do not show up in a test with a single order.

1. Two invoice number ranges. Germanized or a PDF plugin creates an invoice in the shop, and the inventory system creates another one on import. Then one order has two invoices. Decide where invoices are created and switch invoicing off in the other place. German VAT law requires an invoice number that is assigned only once.
2. Missing or duplicate SKUs. Shop and inventory system match products by SKU. If it is missing for some variations or appears twice in the shop, the sync creates new products or books stock to the wrong one.
3. Gross, net and rounding. WooCommerce usually works with gross prices, many inventory systems with net prices. With coupons, shipping costs and mixed tax rates this leads to cent differences, and the invoice no longer matches the order. Every test order should cover this.
4. Syncing too rarely. If stock is only synced every few hours, a product that just sold out in the store or on Amazon can still be bought in the shop. How often to sync should match how fast you sell.
5. Plugins that change orders. Product bundles, product add-ons, subscriptions or gift cards create data a connector does not know. Then line items or prices are missing in the inventory system. Each such plugin needs its own test order.
6. Refunds and partial shipments. A refund in WooCommerce is not yet a credit note in accounting. Clarify where credit notes are created and how a partial shipment gets back into the shop.

And a detour that often gets suggested: export orders as CSV, rework them in Excel and import them into accounting. The GoBD, the German Federal Ministry of Finance rules for digital bookkeeping, name exactly this route as inadmissible in paragraph 109 if the editing is not logged.

Then there is order storage: for new shops, WooCommerce has stored orders in their own tables since version 8.2 (HPOS). If your shop runs that way, the connector has to support it. WooCommerce itself shows in the plugin list which plugins do not.

How an integration project runs

1. Inventory. Which channels exist, how many products and variations, who writes invoices today, how does the tax advisor get the data?
2. Decide the leading system per data type, as in the table above, in writing, so nobody changes it by accident later.
3. Clean up SKUs. Every variation needs a unique SKU, written the same way in the shop and in the inventory system.
4. Connect on a copy of the shop, a so-called staging environment, never on the live shop first. Mistakes in the first sync can be rolled back there without consequences.
5. Test orders for every special case: guest and customer account, coupon, variation, shipping abroad, refund, every plugin from point 5 above.
6. Go live and check daily during the first week: is stock correct, do all orders arrive, is there exactly one invoice per order?

For connecting JTL, Lexware or sevDesk to an existing shop I estimate 8 to 25 hours, as stated on my WooCommerce freelancer page. The difference almost always lies in the special cases from the list above, not in setting up the connector. What a shop costs overall, upfront and every year, is covered in what a WooCommerce shop costs.

E-invoicing: what shops with business customers should plan for

Since 1 January 2025, businesses in Germany must be able to receive e-invoices. For invoices to other businesses, issuing them becomes mandatory after a transition period: other invoices are still allowed until the end of 2026, and until the end of 2027 for businesses with prior-year revenue up to 800,000 euros. Invoices to consumers are not affected. This is set out in the FAQ of the German Federal Ministry of Finance.

For the integration this means: if your shop also sells to businesses, for example as a WooCommerce B2B shop, the system that creates the invoice must produce XRechnung or ZUGFeRD from version 2.0.1 by then at the latest. According to vendidero, Germanized Pro creates e-invoices to the EN 16931 standard. Whether and from when the obligation applies to your business is a question for your tax advisor.

Frequently asked questions

Can WooCommerce manage stock on its own?

Yes, for one sales channel. Under WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Inventory you enable stock management, and WooCommerce then deducts the quantity sold with every order and warns when stock runs low. It does not sync stock from a physical store, Amazon or a second warehouse.

Is JTL-Wawi free for WooCommerce?

No. JTL-Wawi is available as a local version for 0 euros, but according to JTL the WooCommerce connection is only included from the Advanced edition: 99 euros a month on an annual contract or 119 euros paid monthly, for one shop (as of 26 October 2026).

Can I still change prices in the WooCommerce backend?

Not with JTL-Wawi. There the Wawi leads, and changes in the shop are overwritten at the next sync. With a pure accounting connection such as Lexware Office or sevDesk, WooCommerce stays in charge and you keep maintaining prices in the shop.

Do I need Germanized Pro for Lexware Office or sevDesk?

No, there are alternatives. Besides Germanized, Lexware names German Market and Baebeca, and sevDesk also lists Faktur Pro. Germanized Pro is the obvious choice if the shop already creates its invoices and legal texts with Germanized.

What is the difference between Lexware Office and Lexware warenwirtschaft?

Lexware Office, formerly lexoffice, is cloud accounting without stock levels. Lexware warenwirtschaft is a separate Windows program with warehouse and stocktaking, from 61.90 euros a month excl. VAT. It connects to WooCommerce through sync4 by the partner Dupp GmbH.

Integration by a developer

You do not want to work through connectors, SKUs and test orders yourself? I connect your WooCommerce shop to JTL, Lexware Office, sevDesk or another system, decide with you who leads for which data, and test all special cases on a copy before the live shop is touched. More about my shop work is on the WooCommerce freelancer page. Write to me through the contact form or call +49 89 3288 6771.