Since a few weeks ago, the new Shopify connector for Dynamics 365 Business Central has been formally released. As a result, your end users will have a better shopping experience, and retail businesses will be able to handle their intricate business procedures in a simpler, more laid-back way.
We have gathered all the pertinent data for you in this blog post: We demonstrate the advantages of using it, the features that the Shopify Connector offers, and how to set up the Shopify Business Central connector, in addition to showing you how to use it.
Benefits of Integrating Shopify Business Central
Shopify and Dynamics 365 Business Central’s seamless integration benefit businesses of all sizes.
- automate agile online business operations, replace manual ones.
- increase the quality of their buying (e.g. quick response times, customization of merchandising),
- digitising your sales in an easy manner,
- Simple to monitor sales data
- and to do their jobs more effectively by allowing them to focus on selling and serving consumers once more.
The operational effectiveness is significantly increased as a result of the integration of Shopify with Dynamics 365 Business Central. This results in better outcomes and quicker decisions in addition to saving time and money. You may be confident that you can easily increase your web presence, and the automatic system synchronization reduces difficulty.
Features of Shopify Business Central Integration
Dynamics 365 Business Central’s integration looks like this: Each tab may be used to handle a shop’s debtors, products, orders, gift cards, transactions, and payments.
Managing Numerous Shopify Stores
Managing many shops independently is possible with Dynamics 365 Business Central. In other words, each shop is configured differently.
Then, each shop’s inventory, locations, stocks, and prices can be handled.
Data Synchronization across Systems
Data synchronization can be done in both directions. An overview of data networking is provided below:
The Dynamics 365 Business Central connector for Shopify synchronises some data between the two systems. Customers and items are included in this. Images, varieties, stock levels, barcodes, supplier article numbers, expanded texts, or tags are examples of article data. Additionally, customer data can be synchronized.
The choice of whether to sync customer and item data from Shopify to Dynamics 365 Business Central or the other way around is entirely up to you. They can also be modified at any moment in the future.
Setting up the Integration requirements with Shopify Business Central
The following conditions must be met for the Shopify Business Central integration:
- Dynamics 365 Business Central Online license (optional 30-day trial)
- Account and online store on Shopify
- Putting in the connector*
*The Shopify connector is automatically preloaded if you use Dynamics 365 Business Central Online version 20.0, which has been accessible since April 2022.
Install both the Shopify AppStore and Dynamics 365 Business Central apps.
Synchronization Settings
Below you can make some settings in five tabs in Dynamics 365 Business Central:
- General
- Item Sync
- Inventory Sync
- Customer Sync
- order processing
To do this, search for “Shopify store” in Dynamics 365 Business Central and click on the relevant link. Then choose the New action .
Item Sync
There are basically two ways of synchronizing items (e.g. physical goods, digital goods, services, gift cards):
Import items from Shopify
Import items to Shopify
Depending on your starting point, you can choose the best course of action. Choose to import things from Shopify if you already have a Shopify store with products and are new to Business Central. How to add products to your Business Central. However, you should select the reverse function if your products have already been created in Dynamics 365 Business Central with the relevant data. Let’s say that Shopify imports the articles from the ERP system.
Tip: This parameter can also be modified later. At any point, you can alternate between the two. In order to preserve the items primarily in Dynamics 365 Business Central and export item data to Shopify, we advise doing so.
Inventory Sync
To ensure that your supplies are synced, make sure the Tracked inventory option is selected in this tab. Based on the availability calculation made by Business Central, this is how the product availability information is shown on your goods. There are no additional limits that need to be put in place if you have a small warehouse.
Otherwise, it would be able to limit Shopify’s consideration to a few storage places. A filter for storage locations can limit this. You can also decide how frequently stocks should be synced. You could, for instance, update them daily at 20-minute intervals.
This function is very important, as repeat orders with a planned goods receipt date are also taken into account.
Example:
- Inventory in Business Central: 3
- Back order: 15 (delivery: tonight)
- Displayed inventory in Shopify: 18
As soon as items are ordered, they will be deducted from the displayed stock in the course of the next update. In Business Central, these are then displayed as “Quantity in order“.
You can also use the Default Inventory Policy field to determine whether to prevent negative inventory.
Customer Sync
When processing shop orders, information about the buyer must be available.
Importing customers from Shopify
You either import customers from Shopify in bulk or together with importing orders.
Tip: We do not advocate syncing all customers uniformly. This does, after all, include users who have registered but have not yet completed a purchase. An order import is suggested in its place.
Conclusion
For trading organisations, the Shopify link provides significant added value. The above-mentioned connected data insights enable you to more effectively manage your internal operations while recalibrating the shopping experience for your clients.
Ultimately, you make sure that both customers and employees are happy. Your team may now once more focus entirely on sales and customer service. By integrating Shopify with Dynamics 365 Business Central Implementation, you can respond to questions with lightning speed and always have an overview of stock levels, prices, and customers, including order history, order status, and invoicing.
