New E-commerce Opportunities with Dynamics 365 Business Central and Shopify

We’re excited about the news that Dynamics 365 Business Central and Shopify will soon have native integration, allowing Business Central users two-way communication with a top-notch E-commerce solution. This integration will enable seamless synchronization of orders, stock information, and customer data between the two platforms, empowering customer service agents and delighting customers.

About the Key Players

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a comprehensive business solution geared toward small- to medium-sized companies. Cloud-native, it delivers anytime / anywhere access while unifying finance, sales, service, and operations teams behind one simple, easy-to-use interface.

Shopify is a leader in the e-commerce space, boasting more than 10,000 merchants using Shopify Plus to manage online stores with high volume and complexity. Through their Global ERP Program, they’re working with Microsoft to deliver on the vision of a centralized system that unifies commerce data with business data, giving a 360-degree view of all operations and allowing businesses to optimize business processes and operations.

How Will Dynamics 365 Business Central and Shopify Help Your Business?

This exciting, fully-supported integration will bring major benefits to e-commerce retailers. Here are some highlights:

• Adaptability: Connecting these two business solutions will empower businesses to quickly adapt to a constantly changing business landscape. Product pricing and positioning become much easier, and consolidated data allows you to perceive customer trends and adjust accordingly. Business Central has support for multi-tier pricing structures and multiple currencies, making it ready from day one to connect to multiple Shopify stores with ease.
• Efficiency: Eliminating manual transfer of data between platforms reduces errors greatly, speeds up the process, and frees your employees to focus on customers’ demands. By connecting Business Central and Shopify, you gain 100% visibility into stock levels, your current pricing structure, customer data and order history, order status, and payments. Your representatives can respond more quickly to customer inquiries, customers maintain a favorable impression of your company because of timely returns and refunds, and orders are accurately processed and shipped.
• Performance: In addition to the efficiency gains mentioned above, you gain powerful insights that aid in making decisions quickly and that bring better results. This in turn enables you to move forward with your expansion plans, confident that everything is well-managed with automatic synchronization of price changes, product updates, and customers. And Business Central makes end-of-period closings a snap, taking the unified data from both systems and helping merchants to generate accurate financials and tax reports according to local laws.

When Can You Get Started?

With all of the productivity gains to be had as a result of this new alliance, many are eager to implement them as soon as possible. When can we expect these features to arrive? 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.

Since April is just around the corner, it’s time to start planning your implementation now!

What Can You Do Now With Dynamics 365 Business Central and Shopify?

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!

Contact us today to learn how we can make the process an easy transition for you.

By Chandra Subramanian, CogentNext Technologies