B2B Integration: How to Connect Systems, Customers and Partners

Most companies handle a single order in several systems. It arrives through an online store or a customer's procurement portal, becomes a sales order in the ERP, sits against an account in the CRM, gets billed in the accounting software and ships from a partner's warehouse system. When those systems don't exchange data, people do it by hand. That means spreadsheets, orders typed in twice and invoice runs that go late into the evening.

B2B integration software connects those systems and moves the data between them automatically, so an order entered once reaches every system that needs it. This guide covers how it works, the three places companies use it, where projects go wrong and what to ask before you choose a provider.

What is B2B integration software?

B2B integration software connects business applications and moves information between them without anyone re-entering it. Some of those applications are your own, such as an ERP and an ecommerce platform. Others belong to other companies, such as a supplier's order management system or a customer's procurement portal.

Here's a typical case. A customer places an order, and the integration creates the matching sales order in your ERP, updates inventory and passes the shipping details to the systems that need them.

A reliable integration does four jobs:

• It notices business events. It picks up when something happens, such as a new order, a shipment or an approved invoice.

• It moves and maps data. It carries information between applications and translates it along the way, because no two systems organize customers, products or line items the same way.

• It keeps information current. It runs on a schedule or as events happen, depending on what the process needs.

• It handles errors. It catches failed transactions, tells the right people and makes recovery possible when something goes wrong.

The goal isn't to connect two applications once. It's to keep information moving correctly as your processes, applications and partners change, and that's where most of the work turns out to be.

How B2B systems exchange data

Different applications support different ways of exchanging information. The right method depends on the systems involved, the kind of data and how often it needs to move.

API integration. Systems exchange data through their application programming interfaces (APIs), the connections software makes available to other software. Syncing ecommerce orders into an ERP and sending closed deals from a CRM to billing are common examples.

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). Companies exchange business documents in standard formats, such as purchase orders (850s), advance ship notices (856s) and invoices (810s). Retailers, manufacturers, distributors and suppliers use EDI widely. Through our partnership with Orderful, MindCloud manages 850s, 856s, 810s, functional acknowledgments (997s), payment orders (820s) and inventory updates (846s) across trading partners.

File-based integration. Files such as CSV or XML move between systems, usually on a schedule. This is often the practical choice for older applications that offer little or no API access.

An integration platform, often called iPaaS (integration platform as a service), brings these methods together. It gives you one place to connect applications, map data and run workflows, whichever method each system needs.

These methods aren't competing choices. A business might use APIs for its own applications, EDI for its trading partners and a nightly file transfer for one older system. What matters is that the whole process works from start to finish, not just one connection in it.

Three types of B2B integration

1. Connecting your own systems

Orders come in through an ecommerce platform, inventory lives in the ERP, customer relationships sit in a CRM and the money is tracked in accounting software. When those systems run independently, someone moves information between them by hand.

Common connections include:

• Ecommerce to ERP: orders, customer records and inventory kept in sync between the storefront and the ERP.

• ERP to accounting: invoices, payments and financial records passed across without being entered twice.

• CRM to billing: a customer record or billing workflow created when a deal closes.

Lionel Trains, which has made toy trains since 1900, is a good example. MindCloud built and manages 11 automated workflows across Shopify, NetSuite and More2, Lionel's marketing agency. Paid Shopify orders become NetSuite sales orders, inventory syncs between the two systems, fulfillment and tracking go back to Shopify, and Shopify payouts reconcile in NetSuite as journal entries. Lionel's team used to spend 3–5 hours every week maintaining its integrations, and MindCloud eliminated that maintenance.

"We would not be able to do our e-commerce in Shopify if we are not able to integrate into NetSuite. It seems simple, but it is a complex and deep project — and MindCloud has been essential."

Ari Miller, Director of Web Services, Lionel Trains

The full story is in the Lionel Trains case study.

2. Connecting with your customers

A B2B order is rarely just an order. Your customers may expect negotiated pricing, purchase order confirmations, shipment updates and invoices to arrive in their own systems, in the format their own processes need.

Common connections include:

• Order confirmations and shipment updates sent to customer systems.

• Invoices delivered in the format a customer's accounts payable team accepts.

• Customer-specific pricing and catalogs kept consistent across sales channels.

• Purchase orders and order status exchanged with procurement platforms.

For example, a distributor that receives purchase orders through a customer's procurement system can have those orders land in its ERP automatically. As each order moves along, the confirmation and shipping details flow back to the customer, so neither side retypes anything or chases the other for an update.

3. Connecting with your partners

Suppliers, distributors, logistics providers and software partners all run their own applications. Connecting with them lets you coordinate work that crosses company lines.

Common connections include:

• Purchase orders and acknowledgments exchanged with suppliers.

• Shipment and inventory updates received from logistics providers.

• Product availability and pricing kept in sync with distributors.

• Relevant records shared with software and service partners.

For example, a manufacturer can send purchase orders from its ERP straight to a supplier's system. When the supplier confirms, the acknowledgment flows back into the manufacturer's ERP and nobody on either team re-enters it.

Partner integrations take extra care because you don't control the other side. Partners change their data formats, update their systems and set their own requirements, and the integration has to keep up with all of it.

Where B2B integration projects go wrong

Getting the first connection working is only part of the project. Most of the problems show up later.

Underestimating maintenance. APIs change, credentials expire and new business requirements keep arriving. If nobody clearly owns the integrations after launch, they become an unplanned job for an internal IT team that already has a full plate.

Choosing a platform without the people to run it. A self-service integration platform can suit a company with a dedicated technical team. Without that team, a managed provider that builds the integrations and keeps them running is usually the safer choice.

Starting with technology instead of the process. Before you look at tools, find the processes that cause the most manual work, delays or errors. Once you know the outcome you want, it's much easier to decide what needs connecting and how.

Overlooking security. Integrations carry customer, financial and operational data. Ask any provider for its SOC 2 audit report and find out how it controls access to your systems before anything goes live.

How to choose B2B integration software

The right choice depends on your applications, your team and where the business is headed. Ask every provider four questions:

1. Who builds and runs the integrations? Find out whether your team or the provider handles implementation, monitoring, troubleshooting and maintenance after launch.

2. Does it support your applications? Check your actual systems, including custom fields, existing workflows and anything you plan to add.

3. What is the total cost of ownership? Count implementation, licensing, internal developer time and ongoing maintenance, not just the subscription price.

4. How is your data protected? Review security practices, encryption, access controls and any compliance requirements specific to your industry, such as HIPAA.

It's also worth asking each provider to walk through one of your real processes, including the exceptions. How they handle the order that doesn't fit the pattern tells you more than any feature list.

The hard part comes after launch

Most integration projects don't fail on day one. They fail months later, when an API changes, a credential expires or a partner updates its system and nobody is watching. That's the work MindCloud takes off your plate.

We build and run managed integrations on our own platform, with one in-house team from start to finish. Solutions engineers gather your requirements and write the plan you sign off. Our integrations team builds and tests until you approve the result. After launch, a 10-person operations team monitors every integration, keeps data from going stale and fixes problems before you notice them, for as long as you're a customer. You get a dedicated person on Slack instead of a ticket queue, and nothing is outsourced. MindCloud is SOC 2 compliant and audited annually, and HIPAA compliant; the details are in our trust center.

"Completed ahead of schedule and their support afterwards has been exemplary. It's like having my own internal development team."

Bryan Ballard, VP of Information Technology, XKIG

If orders, invoices or shipping data still move by hand somewhere in your business, tell us where. We'll walk through how we'd connect it and who would keep it running.

Talk to us