Why this B2B distributor replaced Power Automate with a native Business Central connector Bob’s industry insights #5

In this episode of Bob’s Industry Insights, we look at a B2B distributor that already had Business Central and WooCommerce in place—but couldn’t rely on the integration between them. After years of patching issues with Power Automate, they started looking for a more stable, ERP-native approach. What went wrong? And what does “reliable” really mean in a B2B context?

You recently spoke with a B2B distributor struggling with their e-commerce integration. What triggered the review?

They reached a breaking point.

The integration technically worked, but only most of the time. Pricing updates didn’t always arrive, order data required constant verification, and the team no longer trusted the system to “just work.”

Instead of scaling operations, they were babysitting flows.

What kind of organization are we talking about?

It’s a pure B2B distributor with a structured onboarding process. Customers don’t just create an account and start ordering. They apply, submit company information, get approved manually, and then receive access.

Orders are placed both online and offline, pricing is customer-specific, and multiple users from the same company need access to shared data. Business Central is the operational backbone and must remain the single source of truth.

What was going wrong with their existing Power Automate setup?

The biggest issue was unpredictability.

Power Automate flows were used to synchronize customers, pricing, and orders. Sometimes they triggered instantly. Sometimes they were delayed. Sometimes they failed silently.

When a pricing update didn’t show up in the webshop, there was no clear indication why. No retry mechanism. No guaranteed logging. The result was manual checks, re-uploads, and growing distrust in the integration.

Why did reliability become such a critical issue?

Because this was B2B.

If a consumer sees the wrong price, it’s annoying. If a B2B customer sees the wrong price, it becomes a contractual problem. The team needed confidence that when something changed in Business Central, it would reliably appear online—or clearly fail with a reason.

An integration that works “most of the time” is worse than no integration at all.

What were their main integration requirements?

Product data wasn’t the priority. They had already invested heavily in website content and wanted to preserve it.

Their real focus was operational:

• Customer-specific pricing synced from Business Central
• Accurate order creation in Business Central
• Inventory availability reflected online
• Shipment and tracking updates visible to customers
• Full order history, including orders entered directly in Business Central

The webshop needed to function as both a storefront and a self-service portal.

 

Why was B2B pricing the biggest challenge?

They don’t use price lists.

Instead, they manage individual prices per customer per product—sometimes hundreds of unique prices for the same SKU. Business Central handles this natively. WooCommerce does not.

Third-party pricing plugins helped partially, but syncing remained unreliable. Missing prices meant lost trust, and validating completeness became a daily task.

The conclusion was clear: pricing logic belongs in the ERP, not split across systems.

 

How did customer structure and order history factor in?

Each customer company has multiple users—purchasing, finance, operations—who all need access to the same data.

Out of the box, WooCommerce treats them as separate accounts. That means no shared order history, no shared invoices, and no shared shipment visibility.

On top of that, customers place orders both online and offline. Without exposing Business Central documents online, customers only see part of their reality—which leads to support calls.

 

What does Tinx offer as a solution?

A native connector that runs directly inside Business Central, not on top of it.

This approach provides:

• ERP-native change tracking and scheduling
• Built-in logging, retries, and error notifications
• Customer and pricing synchronization driven from Business Central
• Inventory and fulfillment updates without middleware
• Optional B2B extensions for order history, pricing, and customer portals

Everything runs where the data lives.

 

Why did a native connector win over custom development?

Predictability.

Custom flows and scripts often work well at first, but become fragile as platforms evolve. Every change introduces risk, testing overhead, and maintenance cost.

By using a standardized, Business Central-native connector, the organization avoided building yet another solution they’d have to maintain themselves. Updates, platform changes, and edge cases are handled centrally.

For a B2B distributor with complex pricing and customer structures, that stability mattered more than flexibility.

 

Running Business Central and still double-checking your e-commerce data every day?

If pricing doesn’t always sync, orders need manual verification, or customers can’t see their full order history, the problem may not be your platforms—but how they’re connected.

👉 Schedule a demo or introduction call to see how a native integration changes the game.