B2B Edition is a SaaS application that offers enterprise-level B2B functionality to businesses of all types and sizes. It enables business owners to facilitate their B2B operations online and to provide customers with self-service account capabilities and seamless transactions.

With capabilities that allow users to easily manage front- and back-end B2B processes, B2B Edition fits the needs of growing B2B Commerce businesses and can improve the B2B self-service experience for both store owners and their customers.

The Buyer Portal is the newest version of B2B Editions' buyer-side functionality! It offers a personalized and branded buying experience, streamlines buying processes, and reduces friction. Merchants have complete control over customization options for different customer segments and regions. B2B Edition now takes over the entire account experience to provide enhanced buying functionality for all registered users on a BigCommerce. These benefits enhance customer satisfaction, increase loyalty, and foster repeat business, which is important for any B2B merchant.

The Buyer Portal includes all the same B2B Edition Buyer features everyone has come to love, plus:

The B2B Edition app will be pre-installed in the BigCommerce control panel under "Apps". Only the BigCommerce store owner can log in to the B2B Edition application when the store is provisioned. Once accessed, the store owner can add additional users. Details on adding additional users are in Step 5 of this guide.

Enabling the B2B Edition checkout is necessary to activate Billing and Shipping Addresses, payment method visibility for each company, and the "Purchase Order" payment method at checkout.

To enable "PO Payments":

Did you purchase additional B2B storefronts?

Please add your storefront(s) in BigCommerce first. To do so navigate to Channel Manager inside the BigCommerce control panel. You now have the option to + Add New Storefront. Once a new storefront is successfully added set it to "Active".

You can now add your new B2B storefront! Navigate to Storefront inside the B2B Edition application and activate your new B2B Storefront!

Many Buyer Portal settings (Step 5) are both global and storefront specific. Click on a storefront’s name to manage, or select edit in the action menu to configure storefront-specific settings.

When editing storefront-specific settings, you can check the Use global box to apply “global settings” configured outside of the Storefronts area.

It may be helpful to understand how different buyer types experience the buyer portal while customizing your buyer portal. Read more here.

Now it's time to brand and customize your Buyer Portal and associated front-end actions.

If the new user has a user account inside BigCommerce and single-click app access to B2B Edition:

When the user tries to open the B2B Edition application for the first time, a new B2B Edition account will be automatically created with a "New User Default" role and the user will be signed in automatically and given instant access.

Be sure to change the user role after account creation.

Alternate Method:

When adding new users from your company inside the B2B Edition Application you will be required to assign a role for each new member. B2B Edition gives you a lot of flexibility in the levels of permissions for each new user. There are 4 predefined roles that can be assigned and are already set up inside B2B Edition. These include:

Administrator

Like store owners, store admins also have every permission available inside B2B Edition. A typical use case would be a manager or stakeholder that needs access to all facets of B2B Edition.

Sales Rep

Sales reps are considered members of the "Sales Staff" role, which means they will only be able to view the companies, orders, and quote requests of companies assigned to them.

Accountant

Accountants are members of the team that need view-only access to merchant financial data.

Financial Manager

Financial Managers differ from Accountants in that they take a more active role in managing the company's finances. They require permission to add and edit as well as view financial data.

Not all users set up in the B2B Edition application will fit into a predefined user role. Luckily you can set up your own custom user roles inside B2B Edition!

There are 4 ways company accounts are created inside the B2B Edition application. Once a company account is created you can manage their orders, users, addresses, and settings from the Companies area of the B2B Edition dashboard.

2. Create a company account by converting customer groups already created inside BigCommerce. This is the best method when company users have already been added inside BigCommerce but not B2B Edition.

3. Create company accounts in bulk via a CSV import. This is the best method when creating multiple companies at once.

4. There is a fourth way in which the B2B merchant can request a B2B account on the front end of the website via the Trade Application Form. Once approved the company is auto-created inside B2B Edition.

***Don't forget to set up notifications to receive emails when trade applications are submitted! You can also set these applications to be automatically approved and created with default payment methods and price lists.

Integrating any other systems with BigCommerce and B2B Edition? Then understanding how company data flows between BigCommerce and B2B Edition is essential! Reading this document will help you plan for your integrations with BigCommerce B2B edition.

Offer wholesale pricing? Special discounts? Do you have a complex pricing schedule that is customer-dependent? Price lists set the pricing structure of companies inside B2B Edition. A price list can be applied to each company created in B2B Edition which defines the pricing structure assigned to that company.

Creating a Price List in BigCommerce (Products > Price Lists)

Price Lists can be assigned to Company accounts from the Companies area of the dashboard in two different methods. The first method is to click the Edit icon next to a Company’s Price List. This will open a drop-down menu where you can select an existing Price List.

You can set a price list to be the default for all new Company accounts from Settings › General › Set Default Price List.

Once you’ve created company accounts for your customers, you’ll want to establish Super Admins to act as liaisons between your business and theirs.

The Super Admin feature is useful for members of your sales staff that regularly assist customers with their purchases. Super admins are typically used by merchants for sales reps that are assigned multiple companies to manage. A super admin is a member that can use the masquerade function to create orders, quotes, and manage invoices for companies on the front end of the website.

Super admins are similar to sales staff in function. However, they access and manage companies differently. Super admins manage companies on the front end of the website by using an account that can inject them as an admin into the company account to temporarily act on behalf of the company. Sales staff manage companies on the back end. Both can only access companies they are assigned to. The main difference in functionality is that only Super Admins can place orders on behalf of a company while only Sales Staff can quote a customer. A user can be both a member of the sales staff and a super admin.

In addition to the merchant side back-end features offered by B2B Edition, your buyers receive advanced capabilities designed to streamline the buying experience on your store. The new buyer portal now takes over the buying experience for all users, not just B2B buyers. However, guest, B2C, and B2B buyers have their own individual permissions and buying experience. Read more about how these accounts differ. We will focus on B2B buyers, as this encompasses the entire feature set.

After a company account is approved and created in B2B Edition the buyer's BigCommerce account dashboard will be transformed upon login to reveal additional features provided by B2B Edition.

B2B Buyer Features Include:

The Orders menu lists all current B2B orders and tracks their status. This gives you quick and easy access to manage all of your B2B orders in one convenient location.

Note: The only orders that are included in this list are for the companies set up in the B2B Edition application. For B2C orders please see the BigCommerce order menu.

With the quoting feature, you can build a quote from scratch to offer customer-specific discounts or negotiate offer details with the buyers. You can also manage a quote request submitted from a company's storefront account.

There are three ways to create quotes inside B2B Edition.

Once a quote has been created there is an in-quote messaging system to communicate and negotiate between parties. When both parties are satisfied, the buyer can self-service checkout inside BigCommerce or the Sales Rep can convert the quote into a BigCommerce Order.

Don't forget to head over to the settings section to set up quote-specific settings!

Invoicing in the Buyer Portal was built with integrations in mind. Many B2B merchants perform their invoicing in an outside system (ERPs, Account software, etc) and have very specific needs on how their invoices are displayed to buyers.

In the buyer portal, the Invoice PDF is the invoice detail or source of truth. You can now utilize externalPdfUrl on the Invoice API to add and display your own PDFs. This gives merchants the flexibility to display the invoice in any manner they see fit, and substantially reduces customizations required to do so.

Don't forget to head over to the settings section to set up invoice-specific settings!