How ecommerce ERP integration boosts business efficiency and productivity.

Running an ecommerce business means juggling multiple tasks — scheduling, inventory management, communications, and accounts payable — often across separate systems. It’s your job to ensure everything works together seamlessly.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools consolidate resources, such as supplies and personnel, into a single system. Integrating ecommerce platforms with ERP software further streamlines processes, boosting efficiency and reducing stress.

If you’re considering ERP integration or optimizing workflows, it’s crucial to understand the basics before making decisions.

In this guide:

• What is ecommerce ERP integration?
• Important ERP features for ecommerce platforms.
• Why ERP integration is important for your ecommerce business.
• The benefits of ecommerce ERP integration for your business.
• How to get started with ERP integration for ecommerce.
• Your pathway to ecommerce ERP integration.

Ecommerce ERP integration is the process of connecting your ecommerce platform with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to enable seamless, automated communication between the two. It allows you to access and view your business data in one place, eliminating the need to switch between programs. These two core business programs working together can dramatically improve efficiency and productivity.

The back end of an ecommerce platform processes orders, collects payments, and manages inventories. Many companies have separate ERP systems that handle tasks such as accounts payable, supply chain management, personnel management, and other core business functions.

When an ecommerce platform is integrated with an ERP platform, the two work together to help managers streamline their work processes. The ERP consolidates all data in a single, centralized location. This synchronization can also automate current logistical processes, streamlining them significantly to increase productivity.

Some ERP tools integrate more easily with ecommerce platforms than others. For instance, some ERP applications come with built-in ecommerce integration capabilities, while others offer those features as add-ons. There are a few key features you’ll want your ERP software to have to maximize the benefits of your ecommerce integration.

Automated finances.

Financial data is crucial to your business, and it’s essential that your ERP system can manage it effectively. You want your ERP to be able to automate as many aspects of accounts payable and accounts receivable as possible. With strong finance features already set up, every live sale can be immediately updated in your ledger once your ERP is integrated with your ecommerce platform.

If you’re using separate accounting software, you’ll also benefit from integrating it with your ERP setup. Without integrating finances into your ERP, you’ll be stuck communicating between programs manually, wasting employees’ time and introducing the opportunity for data entry errors.

Automated inventory management.

Inventory is fundamental to any ecommerce business, as is inventory management. With ERPs, businesses can manage inventory location, quantity, and cost from a single system — automating key processes and eliminating human errors.

Real-time inventory updates ensure you always know when it’s time to reorder, avoiding stockouts, backorders, and delayed order fulfillment. Having up-to-date inventory statistics is especially important for high-volume sellers and businesses with multiple warehouses or a large variety of products.

Consolidated CRM.

Standardizing customer relationship management (CRM) across your entire business ensures that you manage all customer accounts equally at every step of the customer journey. Robust CRM features within your ERP make handling customer requests easier, allowing you to spend less time searching for the right account and more time focusing on improving service and customer retention.

• Consolidating customer data across channels simplifies omnichannel reporting, ensuring that the correct purchase is always attributed to the correct customer.
• Built-in communications enable you to automatically reach out with discounts or promotions to targeted subsets.

Shipping and distribution.

Working alongside inventory management, an ERP should empower you to manage all shipping information, distribution, and order tracking. The best software will automate repeatable tasks, such as generating and printing shipping labels and creating order forms, making life significantly easier for warehouse workers while also preventing manual errors.

The best reasons to integrate your Microsoft Dynamics ERP system with Adobe Commerce will depend a lot on your specific business model and long-term goals. However, at a high level, ERP integration gives you:

• More options for self-service customer reports. When Adobe Commerce can access data stored in Microsoft Dynamics, you can give customers access to all their interactions with your brand in one place. You can also allow them to view credit limits, buying trends, and more.
• Smarter business intelligence. When Microsoft Dynamics can access online sales and customer data from Adobe Commerce, you can gain a more comprehensive view of your business’s overall performance.
• Workflow process automation. Connecting Microsoft Dynamics and Adobe Commerce enables you to automate workflows, including fulfillment and restocking inventory, and accelerate business processes, such as new product introductions.
• Fewer mistakes. With ERP integration, your Adobe Commerce store will display the latest product availability and pricing information. This means customers will not be able to order products that are out of stock or be charged the incorrect price.

Once you have the right ERP setup, integrating your ecommerce platform benefits your business inside and out — your employees’ jobs will be more straightforward, and your customers will appreciate the increased efficiency. There are several measurable benefits to ecommerce ERP integration. Let’s review a few of the most important points.

Increased productivity.

Boosted productivity is the calling card of ERP integration. That’s because consolidating all the data from across your business ensures that you and your teams no longer waste time trying to reconcile different data sets or find the information you need. The ERP provides a single, centralized system for all your data, which, in turn, synchronizes your departments and workflows. ERPs also automate certain tasks, giving employees more time to work on higher-value duties.

Better customer experience.

It’s not just your management team that reaps the benefits of increased productivity — your customers will notice too. Improved CRM capabilities, combined with automated payment, shipping, and tracking, result in a smoother, faster, and higher-quality experience for customers.

Improved data access.

Not only does the ERP let you view all your company data in one place, but by integrating it with an ecommerce platform, you’re also receiving customer data in real time.

Having all the data you need in one location enables smarter, faster decisions. When everything is integrated, it’s also easier to produce company reports — no information is siloed or out of reach. This makes tax compliance easier.

Increased process visibility and streamlining.

Integrated ecommerce streamlines every step of the process, from making it easier to manage to fully automating it. Whether it’s with accounting or order tracking, ERPs can automate repetitive tasks, reducing user error and streamlining processes. Greater efficiency lowers processing times, increases conversions, and improves customer satisfaction.

Lower expenses.

When set up properly, an ERP can immediately identify specific inefficiencies in your business and help you correct them. Beyond that, ecommerce integration lets you stay on top of your inventory in real time, facilitating just-in-time inventory management and ensuring you’ll never buy more than you need. And any time your ERP ecommerce integration saves you time, it’s also saving you money.

As you prepare to launch a new ERP ecommerce integration, there are several general steps you can expect to follow to develop your ERP integration strategy.

1. Identify your ecommerce apps and platforms. This may seem obvious, but the first step is to know which platforms you want to integrate with the ERP. Your business may have one core ecommerce platform, or you might have an array of apps and platforms that handle different channels or sectors.
2. Identify your most important data. Get clear on the information most important to integrate to ensure its prioritization and accuracy. This may be your orders, customer data, or other financial information.
3. Identify your manual and inefficient processes. Consider how your employees spend their time and which tasks stand out as repetitive or prone to error. Perhaps accounts payable always has a backlog of invoices, or your teams struggle to take manual inventory at the end of each quarter. These are the tasks you’ll want to focus on automating after ERP integration.
4. Determine the type of ERP you need and identify those that integrate with your existing ecommerce platform. For instance, you should know whether you want to deploy your ERP on-site on your servers or in the cloud. This may vary depending on the volume of your data and the security precautions you need to take. You’ll also have choices for types of ERP system models, like generalist all-purpose systems, more customizable modular systems, or software suites.
5. Decide how you want to integrate. There are several ways to integrate your ecommerce platform with your ERP. You may be able to use your ecommerce platform’s API, your ERP may have native ecommerce integration capabilities, or you might need to use a third-party solution with a pre-built integration process.

Challenges of ERP ecommerce integration.

Integrating ecommerce with ERP can be challenging. Although the benefits of integration are appealing and the steps for getting started are straightforward, certain roadblocks may still arise.

• Old software. If you haven’t updated your systems in a while, integrating with newer software will require additional effort. This is a bigger issue with ERP software than with other systems, and it can be daunting to shift over a system that’s responsible for so much.
• Customization. If you’ve already heavily customized your existing ERP or ecommerce platform to suit your business, chances are that the standard integration strategies won’t work as well. You’ll have to create a custom plan. It’s still doable, but be aware that it will require extra effort to integrate your customizations with the rest.
• Pricing. New systems can be pricey, and you may have to pay a higher cost upfront with the hope that it’ll be worth it once everything is in place. Luckily, ERP systems typically pay for themselves in the long run through increased efficiency and productivity. However, there is still an upfront investment that requires some financial planning.
• Business data variety. Ecommerce can be a complex space, and various data types can make your integration a bit more challenging. Different platforms may store data in various formats, and some types of information — such as browsing histories or abandoned carts — can be complex to quantify and organize. Depending on compatibility, moving existing data to a new platform or introducing a new platform that needs to communicate with an existing one can add hurdles.

ERP system integration can sound intimidating, especially if your team doesn’t have a lot of technology experience. But connecting Microsoft Dynamics with Adobe Commerce may be easier than you think. There are more than 350 Adobe Commerce solution partners to choose from as well as pre-built connector solutions.

This checklist can help you start thinking about your ERP integration strategy and get organized to take the next step on improving your business goals and workflow:

1. Understand your business goals. Your integration should support your business goals today and in the future. You should ask yourself how connecting Microsoft Dynamics and Adobe Commerce could help you achieve omnichannel selling, adding B2B or direct-to-consumer sales, and expanding into cross-border markets.
2. Document your workflows. Once you’ve established your business goals, take a closer look at the workflows supporting them. Workflows define where data needs to go and when. For example, your checkout workflow may include confirming product availability, selecting a payment method, and implementing fraud detection processes. Each merchant’s workflow is different — and B2B workflows can sometimes be complex.
3. Evaluate your ecommerce data. Four critical data types you may want to synchronize between your Microsoft Dynamics and Adobe Commerce platforms are inventory, product descriptions and specs, pricing, and order tracking. For each key piece of data, you’ll need to determine where it should reside (for example, the system of record), how frequently it should be updated, and how it’ll be managed and maintained.
4. Consider your infrastructure requirements. Your infrastructure requirements will depend on whether you’ll be running Microsoft Dynamics and Adobe Commerce in a cloud, on-premises, or hybrid environment. At a high level, your infrastructure should be flexible and scalable enough to support fluctuating levels of web traffic, transaction volume, and system usage.
5. Account for your online payment models. A growing number of businesses offer subscription-based pricing and various installment plans. If you use a third-party software package to manage these kinds of payments, it should be factored into your integration plan.
6. Identify the right stakeholders. It’s important to consult the teams that use your ERP system and ecommerce platforms on a regular basis before you integrate them. Finance, operations, marketing, and sales may all have insights to contribute. Don’t forget to include customers and suppliers.
7. Define your ERP system budget. Establishing a budget for your ERP integration strategy is crucial before selecting a partner. If your budget is limited, you will have to prioritize your requirements.
8. Pick the right partner. Unless you have a large IT department, it is advisable to select an experienced integration partner. In particular, the partner should have ample experience with Microsoft Dynamics, Adobe Commerce, and your industry. They should have at minimum ten to twenty case studies to share and may propose a proven, extensively tested connector, which is a packaged software framework that can dramatically accelerate your integration.
9. Assign your project team, including a designated contact for support. To keep your integration project running smoothly, you will need to assign an internal team to work with your partner to refine requirements, test functionality and manage the overall project schedule. You’ll also need to assign someone—either an internal contact or your partner—to support your integration over time.
10. Define SLAs for your ERP integration. Your ERP integration strategy should include service level agreements (SLAs) around data flows. These SLAs should consider the typical latency of your Microsoft Dynamics implementation, including planned maintenance and unplanned slowdowns, which may happen during major reporting cycles.

Streamline your ecommerce ERP integration process.

Integrating your ecommerce systems with an ERP enables them to operate simultaneously and efficiently. Communication between the platforms enables the automation of simple tasks, streamlines key processes, and makes accurate information about your business readily available to decision-makers.

The first step to successfully integrating is to take stock of your current systems. Make sure your ecommerce platform is up to date.

When you’re ready to get started, Adobe Commerce is ready to help. As the leading ecommerce platform, Commerce integrates seamlessly with your ERP to automatically sync your inventory, orders, customer data, and shipping details. Ready to learn more? Watch this short overview video to get started.