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Pronto Xi and Shopify Plus B2B Integration: Key Considerations

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Integrating Pronto Xi with Shopify Plus can give B2B customers a faster and more convenient way to place orders, access account pricing and manage their purchasing online.

However, a successful B2B integration involves much more than transferring products into Shopify and sending completed orders back to Pronto Xi.

Wholesale and trade businesses often have complex rules surrounding customer accounts, pricing, credit limits, inventory availability, product access, order approvals and fulfilment. These rules may already be embedded within Pronto Xi and followed by sales, finance and warehouse teams.

The objective should not be to recreate the ERP inside Shopify. It should be to determine which information Shopify needs to provide an effective online buying experience while allowing Pronto Xi to continue managing the operational and financial processes it is best suited to handle.

This guide explores the key considerations when integrating Pronto Xi with Shopify Plus for B2B eCommerce.

Understanding the Role of Each Platform

Before designing the integration, it is important to establish the responsibility of each system.

Pronto Xi will commonly remain the primary system for:

Shopify Plus will typically manage:

Shopify represents B2B organisations through companies, company locations and individual customer contacts. Each company location can have its own pricing, payment terms, addresses, tax settings, checkout configuration and contacts. This structure can align well with Pronto Xi debtor and delivery account models, but the relationship needs to be mapped carefully.

The integration then becomes the controlled connection between these two areas of responsibility. If you’re looking for an overview of How to Integrate Pronto Xi with Shopify Plus, we have a practice guide available.

1. Mapping Pronto Customer Accounts to Shopify Companies

Customer account structure is one of the first areas that should be addressed.

A Pronto Xi customer may have:

Shopify Plus uses companies as the parent business entity, company locations as the purchasing entity and customers as the individual buyers associated with those locations.

The integration design must establish how the existing Pronto Xi account structure translates into this model.

For example, a national retailer might be represented as one Shopify company with each store configured as a separate company location. Alternatively, each store may need to be treated as an independent company if it has its own debtor account, pricing and payment arrangements in Pronto Xi.

This decision affects:

The relationship should be based on the commercial structure within Pronto Xi rather than simply copying customer records into Shopify.

2. Determining the Source of Customer Data

Once the account structure has been defined, the business needs to decide which system controls each customer field.

Pronto Xi will usually remain the source of truth for approved trade accounts, account numbers, financial terms and debtor status.

Shopify may become the source of online-specific information, such as:

Clear ownership prevents customer information from being overwritten or duplicated.

For example, a buyer might update their telephone number through Shopify, while changes to their company credit terms must continue to be approved and maintained in Pronto Xi.

The integration should define whether each field is:

Without these rules, customer data can become inconsistent across the two platforms.

3. Managing Customer-Specific Pricing and Catalogues

Pricing is often the most complex part of a Pronto Xi and Shopify Plus B2B integration.

A business may have:

Shopify Plus allows catalogues to be assigned directly to companies and company locations. Catalogues can control which products customers can access, fixed prices, percentage adjustments, quantity rules and volume pricing. Shopify Plus also supports unlimited B2B catalogues and direct company-level catalogue assignment. 

The main question is whether Pronto Xi pricing can be represented as manageable Shopify catalogues or whether prices need to be retrieved or calculated through a more customised integration.

For businesses with a small number of structured price lists, synchronising prices into Shopify catalogues may be appropriate.

For businesses with thousands of customers on individually negotiated prices, creating and maintaining a separate catalogue for every possible pricing arrangement may become difficult. A more scalable pricing model or tailored pricing service may be required.

The integration should also consider:

Pricing should be proven through detailed scenarios before development begins.

4. Deciding How Inventory Availability Will Be Displayed

B2B customers frequently rely on accurate inventory information when placing larger or operationally important orders.

Pronto Xi may manage inventory across:

Shopify needs a simplified view that customers can understand and use confidently.

That does not always mean displaying the exact inventory quantity recorded in Pronto Xi. Depending on the business, the website might display:

The calculation should also define whether stock already allocated to other orders is excluded and whether safety stock should be withheld from the online channel.

Inventory updates usually need to run more frequently than product information or account data. The appropriate frequency will depend on order volume, warehouse activity and the consequences of overselling.

5. Defining Product Data Ownership

Pronto Xi may hold important operational product data, including:

However, ERP product data is not always designed for digital merchandising.

Shopify may require additional content such as:

A common approach is to retain operational fields in Pronto Xi while managing customer-facing content in Shopify or a product information management platform.

The integration must avoid overwriting enriched Shopify content whenever product records are updated from Pronto Xi.

Each product field should therefore have a clearly defined source of truth.

6. Handling Units of Measure, Pack Sizes and Quantity Rules

B2B products are not always sold as individual units.

A product may be:

Shopify supports quantity rules and volume pricing within B2B catalogues, but these settings need to align with how the product is stocked, priced and fulfilled in Pronto Xi. 

The integration should establish:

Unit-of-measure errors can result in incorrect order quantities, pricing discrepancies and warehouse fulfilment problems. They should be treated as a core integration requirement rather than a storefront configuration detail.

7. Managing Credit Terms and Payment Options

Many B2B customers purchase on account rather than paying for each order at checkout.

Shopify supports payment terms at the company-location level, including net terms and payment due on fulfilment. Shopify Plus can also support deposit requirements, partial payments and payment requests associated with fulfilments.

 However, the commercial approval of those terms may remain within Pronto Xi.

The integration design should determine:

Displaying “30-day terms” in Shopify does not necessarily confirm that an order falls within the customer’s current credit availability.

Where real-time credit validation is required, additional integration logic may be needed. In other cases, the order can be submitted for internal review before it is accepted.

8. Determining When an Order Becomes a Pronto Sales Order

A completed Shopify checkout does not always need to create an immediately approved Pronto Xi sales order.

Different order workflows might include:

  1. The Shopify order is automatically created as a sales order in Pronto Xi.
  2. The order is created in Pronto Xi with a review or hold status.
  3. The customer submits an order request that must be approved before being transferred.
  4. The order is validated against pricing, inventory or credit rules before being accepted.
  5. A sales representative reviews and modifies the order before processing.

Shopify can also require B2B orders from selected company locations to be submitted as draft orders for review rather than being processed automatically.

The correct workflow depends on the organisation’s internal controls.

Important questions include:

The customer experience should clearly communicate whether the order has been accepted, submitted for review or placed on hold.

9. Supporting Purchase Orders and Buyer Approvals

B2B customers may require their own internal purchasing controls.

These can include:

Some requirements can be managed within Shopify, while others may require custom account functionality, checkout extensions or an external procurement workflow.

The integration must ensure that required references are transferred into the appropriate Pronto Xi sales order fields.

It is also important to distinguish between approval inside the customer’s business and approval inside the seller’s business. These are separate workflows and may require different statuses, notifications and audit records.

10. Returning Fulfilment and Invoice Information to Shopify

The integration should continue after an order reaches Pronto Xi.

Customers may expect to view:

Pronto Xi will often remain responsible for the operational fulfilment process. Relevant status information can then be returned to Shopify so the customer does not need to contact the sales team for routine updates.

Partial fulfilment requires particular attention. One Shopify order may be supplied across multiple shipments, warehouses or dates. The integration needs to preserve those relationships and avoid incorrectly marking the full order as fulfilled.

11. Choosing the Integration Architecture

Pronto provides integration capabilities through its Pronto Connect API Platform, which uses an industry-standard web services architecture. Pronto also offers Pronto Xi Sync for connecting Pronto Xi with external systems, including Shopify. The appropriate options available to a business can depend on its Pronto Xi version, licensing, infrastructure and implementation. 

A Pronto Xi and Shopify Plus integration may use:

Direct integration can be appropriate where the requirements are controlled and the number of connected systems is limited.

Middleware may be preferable where the business needs:

Not every process needs to occur in real time.

Customer account changes might synchronise periodically, while inventory availability may need to update much more frequently. Order transfer may happen immediately, but invoice documents might be synchronised in scheduled intervals.

The architecture should reflect the importance and frequency of each data flow.

12. Planning for Errors and Exceptions

Integration failures are inevitable over the lifetime of a platform.

A product may contain invalid data. A customer record may be missing a required field. An order may reference an unavailable account. An API may temporarily fail. A price may not match the expected format.

The solution should provide:

An integration should not rely on someone noticing that an order failed to appear.

Exception monitoring and operational ownership are just as important as the initial data mapping.

13. Testing Real B2B Scenarios

Testing should be based on complete business scenarios rather than individual API responses.

Representative scenarios might include:

Testing should involve sales, finance, warehouse, customer service and eCommerce stakeholders.

A technically successful transaction is not enough if the resulting order cannot be processed efficiently by the operational team.

Building the Right Foundation

Pronto Xi and Shopify Plus can provide a strong foundation for B2B eCommerce when each platform is given a clearly defined role.

The most successful integrations begin by understanding how the business currently manages accounts, pricing, products, inventory, credit and fulfilment. The online experience can then be designed around those requirements without unnecessarily reproducing every ERP process within Shopify.

For businesses considering a Pronto Xi and Shopify Plus B2B integration, the key is to resolve these decisions before development begins.

OSE works with businesses to design and deliver integrated Shopify Plus B2B platforms, including complex connections with Pronto Xi. Our team can help assess the existing environment, map the required data flows and develop an integration approach that supports both the customer experience and the operational needs of the business.

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