Native Shopify Integration in Dynamics 365 Business Central Opens Doors for E-commerce

Back in October, Microsoft announced their intention to provide Business Central users a native connector to Shopify, giving them a new option for expanding into the E-commerce space with a first-class platform. Soon there will be seamless synchronization of orders, stock, and customer information between the two platforms, allowing you to streamline operations and delight your customers.

About Business Central and Shopify

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a cloud-native ERP solution for small- to medium-sized businesses. It allows everyone in the organization to accomplish their tasks unfettered by time or location, unifying finance, sales, service, and operations teams behind one simple, easy-to-use interface.

Shopify is a global leader with one of the most popular E-commerce platforms. Their product for stores with high volume and complexity, Shopify Plus, boasts of more than 10,000 merchants in the fold. Through their Global ERP Program, Shopify is working closely with Microsoft to provide a centralized system, giving users full visibility into their operations across all channels and facilitating business process optimizations.

What Will This Partnership Mean For You?

Having a native, fully-supported Shopify connector for Business Central will bring many advantages for e-commerce retailers. What are some of them?

• Increased Agility. Tight integration allows companies to adapt quickly to ever-changing market conditions. Price changes, product positioning, and description changes are easier to manage from a single application. Combining data from all your operations allows you to spot customer trends, predict demand, and adjust accordingly. Business Central supports multi-tier pricing structures and multiple currencies, making it ready from day one to connect to multiple Shopify stores with ease.
• Increased Efficiency. Eliminating manual transfer of data between your E-commerce platform and your ERP software reduces errors and frees up your staff to attend to other revenue-driving activities. Another benefit of the integration is full visibility into your daily operations. See current stock levels, pricing, customer data, order status and history, and accounts receivables. This will enable your agents to effectively respond to customer inquiries, provide timely return processing and rapid refunds, along with accurate order processing.
• Increased Performance. Move at the speed of your business, gaining accurate insights based on your business data, allowing you to make solid, data-driven decisions quickly. Move ahead confidently with your e-commerce expansion plans, knowing that the native integration between your systems will scale with you, automatically syncing price changes, product updates, customer data, and more. End-of-period closings become a simple process with all the data available in one place, allowing Business Central to support you in creating financial and tax reports in accord with local laws.

When Will These New Features Arrive?

Who wouldn’t want instant productivity gains for their business? If you’re an existing Business Central user, you’ve noted that this functionality isn’t available yet. But it’s just around the corner! According to the latest information from Microsoft, the Shopify connector will be made generally available as a part of Dynamics 365 Business Central 2022 Release Wave 1 in April 2022. Start planning your integration now!

Next Steps

Whether you are an existing user of Dynamics 365 Business Central, or are considering a new implementation for your e-commerce company, CogentNext can help. As an experienced Microsoft Partner, we can help you develop a plan for Shopify integration, or even a migration roadmap for moving over from another accounting or ERP solution.

From the initial consultation, to implementation and training, and to service after the sale, we are committed to your success. Let us show you how partnering with us can start your company on the road to greater success!

By Chandra Subramanian, CogentNext Technologies