Key Takeaways
- Integrating Business Central with BigCommerce keeps products, pricing, inventory, orders, and customer data in sync between your storefront and your ERP — no manual re-keying.
- You have three realistic integration paths: a pre-built AppSource connector, an iPaaS/middleware platform, or a custom build on BigCommerce's REST/GraphQL API. Each fits a different order volume and budget.
- A working integration follows six steps: map your data, generate BigCommerce API credentials, connect Business Central, map fields, test in a sandbox, then go live with monitoring in place.
- Most sync failures come from tax/shipping mapping, multi-location inventory, and product variants — not from the platforms themselves.
- Implementation typically runs from a few weeks (pre-built connector) to a few months (custom middleware build), depending on catalog complexity and how many locations or sales channels you run.
Why Connect BigCommerce to Business Central at All?
If you're running BigCommerce as your storefront and Business Central as your back office, and the two systems aren't talking to each other, you already know the symptoms: someone re-typing orders into the ERP every morning, stock counts that are wrong by lunchtime, and a finance team reconciling numbers by hand at month-end.
Connecting the two removes that manual layer. Business Central stays the single source of truth for items, pricing, and inventory, and BigCommerce becomes the storefront that reflects it — in both directions.
What Actually Syncs Between the Two Systems
A properly scoped integration typically moves the following data:
- Products and pricing — SKUs, descriptions, images, categories, and tiered pricing pushed from Business Central to BigCommerce
- Inventory levels — on-hand stock (by location, if you sell from multiple warehouses) pushed to BigCommerce in near real time to prevent overselling
- Orders — new BigCommerce orders created as sales orders in Business Central, with tax, shipping, and discounts mapped correctly
- Customers — new storefront sign-ups and guest checkouts synced into Business Central as customer records
- Fulfillment and tracking — shipment status and tracking numbers sent back to BigCommerce so customers see accurate delivery updates
- Returns, credits, and gift cards — for merchants who need financial data to reconcile cleanly
This is the same core data model used across most e-commerce integrations, so if you've evaluated before, the concepts will look familiar — only the API and authentication details change.
Three Ways to Integrate Business Central with BigCommerce
There's no single "correct" way to connect these platforms. The right choice depends on your order volume, how customized your BigCommerce storefront is, and how much control your team wants over field mapping.
1. A Pre-Built AppSource Connector
Several ISVs (i95Dev, Tinx, and others) publish ready-made BigCommerce connectors on Microsoft AppSource. You install the extension inside Business Central, generate an API token in your BigCommerce account, and configure out-of-the-box sync flows for products, orders, inventory, and customers.
Best for: merchants who want a fast, low-code setup and don't need heavily customized data flows.
2. iPaaS or Middleware
Platforms like APPSeCONNECT, Celigo, and Alumio sit between BigCommerce and Business Central and give you a visual interface to design, monitor, and adjust data flows — including transformations that a native connector can't handle (custom fields, multi-entity mapping, error handling with retries).
Best for: businesses with high order volume, multiple sales channels, or a storefront that's been heavily customized.
3. A Custom Build on the BigCommerce API
BigCommerce exposes both REST and GraphQL APIs. A developer can build a direct integration using Business Central's own web services (OData or the standard API pages) alongside BigCommerce's REST endpoints. This gives full control over every field and workflow but requires ongoing maintenance as either platform's API changes.
Best for: larger merchants with specific workflows that off-the-shelf connectors and middleware can't accommodate.
| Approach | Setup speed | Flexibility | Ongoing maintenance |
|---|---|---|---|
| AppSource connector | Fast | Limited to what the app supports | Low — vendor-maintained |
| iPaaS / middleware | Moderate | High — visual mapping and logic | Moderate |
| Custom API build | Slow | Full control | High — you own upkeep |
If your current setup already feels stretched, it's worth reading why out-of-the-box Business Central sometimes fails to keep up before you commit to the fastest option purely for speed.
Step-by-Step: How to Integrate Business Central with BigCommerce
Regardless of which method you choose, the underlying setup process follows the same pattern.
Step 1: Map Your Data Before You Touch Any Settings
Before installing anything, document which fields need to sync and in which direction. Decide whether Business Central or BigCommerce "owns" each data type — in most setups, Business Central owns items, pricing, and inventory, while BigCommerce owns the customer-facing order experience.
Step 2: Generate BigCommerce API Credentials
In your BigCommerce control panel, go to Settings → API → Account-level API Accounts to create an API account and generate a Bearer token. You'll also need your store hash, found in your BigCommerce backend URL — it forms part of the API endpoint (https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/{store-hash}/).
Step 3: Connect Business Central
For an AppSource connector: open Extension Management, search the AppSource gallery for the connector, and install it. For middleware: create the BigCommerce and Business Central connections inside the iPaaS platform. For a custom build: authenticate against Business Central's web services using OAuth.
Step 4: Map Fields and Set Sync Rules
Match items, customers, tax codes, and shipping methods between the two systems. Pay particular attention to tax and shipping mapping — this is where most order-sync errors originate, especially if you use item lines vs. G/L accounts for shipping charges.
Step 5: Test in a Sandbox
Run test orders, stock adjustments, and new customer sign-ups through a staging environment before going live. Confirm that inventory decrements correctly across every warehouse location you use.
Step 6: Go Live and Monitor
Once live, keep an eye on sync logs for the first few weeks. Most platforms flag failed records (a mismatched SKU, a missing tax code) rather than silently dropping them — make sure someone on your team is actually reviewing those alerts.
If your Business Central environment is still new, our guide covers the groundwork worth having in place before you layer an e-commerce integration on top.
Common Integration Challenges (and How to Avoid Them)
- Multi-location inventory — decide upfront which warehouse(s) feed BigCommerce's stock count, and how you'll handle allocation across locations.
- Product variants — color/size variants need consistent SKU structures on both sides, or sync will create duplicate or mismatched listings.
- Tax and shipping totals — orders that don't map tax and shipping correctly will post with the wrong totals in Business Central, creating reconciliation headaches later.
- Custom fields — if your BigCommerce storefront uses custom product attributes, confirm your chosen integration method can actually carry them over; not all pre-built connectors support custom fields out of the box.
These same categories of mapping issues show up in too — inventory and fulfillment data are usually the trickiest part of any system-to-system sync, not the order flow itself.
What About Data You're Bringing Over From an Old System?
If you're integrating BigCommerce with a Business Central environment that was recently migrated from another ERP, clean up your item and customer data before you turn the integration on — syncing bad data just moves the problem to a second system. Our breakdown of walks through how we handle that cleanup before go-live.
Cost and Timeline
Pricing and timelines vary widely based on catalog size, order volume, and how many locations or custom fields are involved:
- Pre-built connector: typically a few weeks, lower upfront cost, ongoing subscription fee
- Middleware/iPaaS: several weeks to a couple of months, moderate cost, more flexibility
- Custom build: two to four months or more, highest upfront cost, full control
If you're also budgeting for the underlying ERP rollout, our can give you a starting estimate before you scope the integration work separately.
Where AI Fits In
If you're on a recent Business Central release, Copilot features can help with tasks like drafting product descriptions or flagging unusual order patterns after your BigCommerce data is flowing in — see for a realistic look at current capabilities, rather than the marketing version.
How We Approach These Projects
We've scoped and built BigCommerce-to-Business Central integrations across manufacturing, distribution, and retail clients — you can see examples of that implementation and integration work in our project portfolio. Every engagement starts the same way: mapping your actual order and inventory flows before recommending a connector, middleware, or custom build, rather than defaulting to whichever is easiest to sell.
If you're weighing this integration against a broader ERP decision, our is a useful side read.
FAQs
Does Business Central have a native BigCommerce connector?
Not from Microsoft directly. Third-party ISVs publish BigCommerce connectors on AppSource, and BigCommerce also lists Business Central integrations in its own app marketplace.
Can I sync inventory in real time?
Yes, most connector and middleware options support near real-time inventory sync (often within a minute of a change), though true real-time depends on API rate limits and your sync schedule settings.
Does BigCommerce use REST or GraphQL?
Both. BigCommerce offers a REST API and a GraphQL API (mainly for storefront data); most ERP integrations, including Business Central connectors, use the REST API.
Is a custom integration always better than a pre-built connector?
No. A custom build only makes sense when your workflows genuinely can't be handled by an existing connector or middleware platform — otherwise it adds cost and maintenance for no real benefit.
Need help scoping a BigCommerce–Business Central integration for your business? to talk through the right approach for your catalog and order volume.
Excellent overview of Business Central and BigCommerce integration. The real-time synchronization insights and automation benefits make this a valuable resource for businesses seeking operational efficiency.