Magento B2B and Business Central: prices and order flow

Magento B2B and Business Central: when prices, customers and orders have to work together

A B2B webshop is rarely just an ordinary webshop with a login.

For the B2B customer it is not only about finding an item and pressing “buy”. The customer expects to be able to see the right prices, order on behalf of the company, use the agreed payment terms and know whether the item can actually be delivered.

That places somewhat greater demands on the data flow.

So when Magento or Adobe Commerce has to work together with Dynamics 365 Business Central, it is important that the integration supports the way your customers and employees actually work.

Not just the way it looks nice in a flowchart.

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B2B starts with knowing the customer

In a B2C webshop the price is often the same for everyone. In B2B that is rarely the case.

One customer may have a very specific price agreement. Another buys on volume discounts. A third may only see a particular range. And some companies have several users who all order on behalf of the same customer account.

That means the webshop has to know who the customer is before it can show the right experience.

Business Central will often be the source of truth for:

• Customer accounts and contacts
• Customer-specific prices
• Discount groups
• Payment terms
• Credit limits
• Delivery addresses
• Available items and product range

Magento then makes sure the information is presented so the customer can actually use it.

Customer-specific prices without the headache

Prices are often at the core of a B2B integration.

If a customer logs in and sees a wrong price, it creates extra work for the sales team. If the customer can buy at a price that does not match the agreement in Business Central, it can get expensive.

So you need to get the following scoped out:

• Should prices be controlled directly from Business Central?
• Should Magento be able to run campaigns on top of an agreed price?
• How are volume discounts handled?
• What should the customer see before and after logging in?
• Should prices be shown including or excluding VAT?
• What happens if an agreement changes?

Business Central has standard functionality for sales prices, customer prices and discounts, among other things. See Microsoft’s walkthrough of special sales prices and discounts in Business Central.

That does not mean the standard setup automatically fits the webshop. The price logic still has to be mapped and tested, so Magento shows the same reality that sales and finance work with.

What the data flow should look like

A good B2B integration can be divided into four clear data flows.

Customer and account: Business Central to Magento

Customer details, contacts, delivery addresses, credit rules and permissions have to be available when the right user logs in.

Here you particularly need to scope out whether customers may create users themselves, or whether it has to be approved by your team.

Price and product range: Business Central to Magento

The webshop must be able to show the customer’s own prices and only the items the customer is allowed to buy.

Avoid building the same price rules twice. If Business Central is the source of truth, Magento should receive and display the result — not try to guess it all over again.

Order: Magento to Business Central

When the customer places an order, the order must contain the information needed for it to be processed without manual clean-up.

That could be the customer number, requisition number, delivery address, order lines, freight, payment method and comments. If you have particular requirements for partial deliveries or approval, they need to be part of the design from the beginning.

Delivery and invoice: Business Central to Magento

The customer expects to be able to follow their order.

So delivery, back order status, tracking, invoice and any credit note should be able to be sent back to Magento. That gives the customer better self-service and removes quite a few questions from customer service.

Self-service that actually saves time

A B2B webshop does not necessarily have to replace your sales people.

But it can make it easier for customers to handle the most common things themselves:

• Reorder previous purchases
• See their own prices
• Retrieve invoices
• Follow order status
• Manage users and delivery addresses
• Order whenever it suits them

That frees up time for the customer, customer service and the sales team alike. The sales people can spend their energy on advice, bigger deals and the customers who need more than a reorder.

Test more than the tidy standard order

B2B solutions rarely fail on the completely ordinary order.

So you should test scenarios such as:

• A customer with a special price
• A volume discount
• Several users on the same customer account
• Several delivery addresses
• An order with a back order
• A customer who is not allowed to buy the entire range
• A return or credit note

It is in those situations that you discover whether the integration supports your business — or only a simplified version of it.

Read also our guide to data flow between Magento and Business Central if you want an overview of product, stock, order and customer data across the systems.

Are Magento and Business Central the right combination?

If you have complex B2B prices, many customers, large product catalogues or a need for a strong data flow between the webshop and the ERP, Magento and Business Central can be a strong combination.

But it only really works when the integration is built around your business.

Do you need better control of customer-specific prices, customer accounts, order flow and stock between Magento and Business Central? Read more about Connectify’s Magento integration and get a scoping of what makes sense in your particular setup.