BigCommerce Definitions and Mapping

Once your sales channel is configured there are a number of mapping exercises to map values from the external channel to values inside of Business Central.  These mappings are required to allow the automations to create sales orders Business Central.  

CSM Shipping Methods

CSM shipping methods are set up to map Business Central shipping agent codes to the correlating field on the external platform. BigCommerce refers to these as Shipping Quotes and they support a number of standard delivery methods.  BigCommerce also requires the setup of a Shipping Zone record that represents different geographical regions. Each shipping region then has separate enabled shipping quotes.  Shipping quotes represent static delivery scenarios such as free shipping and flat rate shipping, as well as specific shipping carriers.

It is recommended that you use CSM shipping methods to link your Business Central shipping agent codes and your BigCommerce shipping quotes. When shipping information is sent between your Business Central and BigCommerce environments, this association will ensure that the proper order information is maintained in both platforms. Because shipping quotes exist within BigCommerce shipping zones, it is also necessary to identify these shipping zones for sales channel records in Business Central. You can instruct CSM to retrieve shipping zone and shipping quote records from BigCommerce and automatically create corresponding CSM records:

• Open your BigCommerce Sales Channel 
• From the Related ribbon choose Setup then Shipping Methods
• From the Actions ribbon choose Retrieve Shipping Methods
  • If CSM is able to identify a Business Central shipping agent code that is identical to a CSM shipping method record’s external ID, it will automatically link these records.
  • If CSM cannot identify a shipping agent code that matches a CSM shipping method’s external ID, a new shipping agent code will be created and assigned to the CSM shipping carrier line.
•  It is possible to add a line for shipping charges to sales orders that have a shipping method defined, allowing you to post these charges to a dedicated account in Business Central:
  • If you want to post a shipping method’s shipping charges to a Business Central account, leave the Shipping Order Behavior field set to Default, then use the Shipping Order Charge Type and Shipping Order Change No. fields to identify the account to which charges will be recorded.

• • If you do not want to post a shipping method’s shipping charges to a Business Central account, change the value in the Shipping Order Behavior field to Skip, then leave the Shipping Order Charge Type and Shipping Order Change No. fields blank.

 Note: CSM also retrieves shipping zone records from the connected BigCommerce store and assigns them to the CSM sales channel. You can review these records from the CSM sales channel record by choosing the Related ribbon, then selecting the Setup menu and choosing the Shipping Zones action. These records are not associated to corresponding Business Central records and exist purely to facilitate the linkage of CSM shipping methods to Business Central shipping agents. It is not recommended that you modify these retrieved shipping zone records 

CSM Payment Methods

CSM payment methods are designed to map Business Central payment methods to the external platform.  BigCommerce refers to these as Payment Methods.  It is recommended that you use CSM Payment Methods to link your Business Central payment methods and your BigCommerce payment methods. This association will ensure that the proper payment information is maintained in both platforms.

• Open your BigCommerce sales channel 
• From the Related ribbon select Setup, then Payment Methods
• From the Actions ribbon choose Retrieve Payment Methods 
  • If CSM is able to identify a Business Central payment method code that is identical to a CSM payment method record's external ID, it will automatically link these records.
  • If CSM could not identify a match you will need to manually assign a Payment Method Code. 

• Payment methods that represent credit card transactions should have a balancing account assigned so that Business Central can automatically post and apply the payment entry in the customer’s ledger when the sales order is invoiced.

  • You can assign a balancing account to the Business Central payment method code that is linked to the CSM payment method, or you can define one for the CSM payment method by using the Bal. Account Type and Account No. fields on the CSM payment method line.
  • Automatic Application: enter a check mark in this field to instruct CSM to automatically apply payments that are recorded for the payment method to the associated Business Central sales invoice or credit memo.
  • Single Capture: enter a check mark in this field to instruct CSM to permit only a single payment capture activity against this payment method.
  • Perform Invoice Capture: enter a check mark in this field to instruct CSM to automatically perform and send a capture transaction (such as a credit card settlement) to the external channel following the transmission of invoice activities recorded for the payment method.
  • Perform Capture for Zero Amt: enter a check mark in this field to instruct CSM to automatically perform and send a capture transaction to the external channel following the transmission of invoice activity when an invoice amount is zero recorded for the payment method.Additional setup options for each payment method include:

Note: if you want to retrieve refunds that are entered for orders on BigCommerce into Business Central, the payment method(s) that will be assigned to orders or refunds must have a defined balancing account in Business Central.

Accepting Gift Certificates and Store Credit 

If you accept gift certificates and/or store credit as payment methods on your sales channel, you need to set these up as CSM payment method types. By default, BigCommerce uses dedicated bigcommerce_gift_certifcate and bigcommerce_store_credit codes for these types; these will be automatically loaded when you execute the above Retrieve Payment Methods action in the CSM Payment Methods window.

To set up payment methods for gift certificates and store credit:

• Select the appropriate payment method line in the CSM Payment Method window and enter a Business Central payment method code in the Payment Method Code field.
  • The payment method codes you assign to these lines must have a defined balancing account in Business Central in order to properly record activity. It is recommended that you assign a liability account from your balance sheet as this balancing account.
• Place check marks in the BigCommerce Store Credit and BigCommerce Gift Certificate fields for the relevant CSM payment method lines. This will allow CSM to properly adjust the order total on CSM orders that include these payment methods.

CSM Shipping Carriers

CSM shipping carriers are designed to map Business Central shipping agent codes to the external platform.  BigCommerce calls these shipping providers.   

It is recommended that you use CSM shipping carriers to link your Business Central shipping agent codes and your BigCommerce shipping providers. When shipping information is sent between your Business Central and BigCommerce environments, this association will ensure that the proper order information is maintained in both platforms. You can automatically load new CSM shipping carrier records that are based on BigCommerce’s default records:

• Open your BigCommerce Sales Channel 
• From the Related ribbon select Setup then Shipping Carriers
• From the Actions ribbon choose Retrieve Shipping Carriers

  • If CSM is able to identify a Business Central shipping agent code that is identical to a CSM shipping carrier record’s external ID, it will automatically link these records. 

  • If CSM cannot identify a shipping agent code that matches a CSM shipping carrier’s external ID, a new shipping agent code will be created and assigned to the CSM shipping carrier line.

Note: the functionality to load CSM shipping carriers does not extend beyond the default carriers that are supported by BigCommerce. 

CSM Tax Groups

CSM Tax Groups are used by Listing Management and will be described in the Listing Management documentation.

Multiple Currencies

If you configure your sales channel to assign currencies from retrieved orders, you must map the currency codes from your BigCommerce channel to corresponding records in Business Central.

When an order is retrieved from BigCommerce, CSM will review the currency on that order and assign a Business Central currency code to the related sales order based on this channel mapping.

To define currencies for your sales channel:

• Open our BigCommerce sales channel 
• Choose the Related ribbon, then select the Setup menu and choose the Currencies
• In the Currencies window, choose the Actions ribbon, then choose the Retrieve from Channel

CSM retrieves currencies from the sales channel’s connected BigCommerce store and creates new CSM currency records for each one.

• Enter the appropriate currency in the Currency Code field 
• When you are done mapping BigCommerce currencies to Business Central records, close the Currencies
• In the CSM Sales Channel window, expand the Order Management FastTab and place a check mark in the Allow Multi-Currency field.

CSM Order Status Matrix

The CSM Order Status Matrix is data that CSM uses to determine a Channel CSM Order Status based on information received from BigCommerce. This data is pre-loaded. Please change these status values carefully to ensure CSM integrity when assigning a status to a Channel Order.

Note: By default, the order status matrix setup is configured to assign a status of Error to CSM orders with a BigCommerce status of Completed and no existing sales order in Business Central.

Order Notes Placement

When CSM retrieves an order from BigCommerce, it is possible to include any notes that have been entered for it. By default, CSM will automatically retrieve both customer-entered notes and any notes that have been generated from the system or entered through the BigCommerce administration portal along with the rest of the order information. Retrieved order notes are entered as CSM order document lines on the related CSM order.

If you wish, you can instruct CSM to place retrieved order notes on the sales order that is created from the CSM order:

• Open your BigCommerce sales channel 
• Choose the Related ribbon, then select the Setup menu and choose the Order Notes Placement
• On a new line, enter the code or reference value that the channel uses to identify the order note type in the Order Document No. field.

If you are unfamiliar with the correct syntax used by the channel, we recommend you retrieve an order with the desired comment type into Business Central, then review the CSM Order Documents FastTab. The identifying value will be presented in the Order Document No. field.

• In the Placement field, use the dropdown to indicate how you want these comments to be placed on sales orders. You can choose to have comments placed on sales lines or as sales order comments 

State and Province Cross References

BigCommerce includes the full name of a state/province be used on orders and customers, rather than the two-character codes that are typically used in Business Central. As such, it is necessary to establish cross references between these codes and BigCommerce’s expected values. If these cross references are not defined, attempting to update orders from Business Central will lead to errors. For example, if we update an order with a state code of “CT” in Business Central and instruct CSM to update the corresponding order in BigCommerce, the process will fail, as BigCommerce will only recognize a value of “Connecticut.”  

• Open your BigCommerce sales channel
• From the Related ribbon, choose Setup then CSM Cross Reference
• It is possible to manually enter these cross references values but to streamline this process CSM for BigCommerce includes a CSMCrossReferenceStateProv.xlsx file that includes cross references for all US states and Canadian provinces.
  • Open this file, select and copy all cells, then paste them into the CSM Cross Reference table in Business Central.

If you require additional states/provinces beyond the United States and Canada, you can obtain the proper abbreviations and names via BigCommerce’s API reference tool:

• On the left-hand side of the API reference tool, choose Geography, select Countries, and then choose Get All Countries.
• Locate the Parameters area on the righthand side of the page
• For the Limit parameter, enter a value of 250.
• Choose the Send API Request button
• Scroll through the results until you find the relevant country.  Take note of that country’s ID. 
• On the left-hand side of the API reference tool, choose Geography, then select States, and then choose Get All Country’s States.
• Locate the Parameters area on the righthand side of the page
• For the country_id path parameter query, enter the country ID you obtained in step 5
• Choose the Send API Request button

BigCommerce will return the state abbreviations and names for the relevant country. You can now export this information to a spreadsheet program such as Excel, format it appropriately, and then copy this information to Business Central.

Next: CSM Customer Mapping