B2B Components

The B2B Components offer you the opportunity to equip your store with the most important B2B functions. 
The B2B Components also offer store customers, who have been authorized accordingly by the store operator, a variety of functions to map their own company structure. These include roles and contacts (sub-accounts for the customer's employees), orders including the approval process as well as order lists and individual order numbers.

The B2B Components are available to you as of the Shopware Evolve plan via the Shopware Commercial extension.

Activation for single customers

If you would like to assign B2B Components functions to single customers, you can do so by selecting a customer in Admin under Customers > Overview and activating the individual options.

Approval per customer group

In the customer groups in your administration under Settings > Shop, you can directly preset whether and which B2B functions a customer group should receive when registering. To do this, you must activate the customised registration form for the desired customer group.

To do this, you can activate or deactivate the individual functions Quick Orders (1), Employee Management (2), Quote Management (3), Order Approval (4), Shopping Lists (5) and/or Organisation Units (6), which are described below in this article.

Quote management

Quote management allows B2B customers to request individual quotes for the products in their shopping cart. Merchants can then review and edit the quote request in the Administration and send it back to the customer.

During the quote process, you can add comments and discounts to individual quote items, include shipping costs, and track changes using the quote, message, and document history. Extended statuses and optional notifications help you display the current processing status of a quote transparently.

Create a quote request (Storefront)

As a logged-in B2B customer, you can create a quote request based on the products in your shopping cart.

First, add all the required products to the shopping cart. The included items, subtotal, and shipping costs are displayed there. To start the quote request, click Create quote draft (1).

After clicking Create quote draft, the quote draft detail view opens. Until you send the quote request, it has the status "Draft" and is not visible to the merchant.

In the detail view, you can review the included items and amounts, select additional notification recipients, and edit the quote items.

The following information and functions are available in the quote draft detail view:

• Details (1): This section contains general information about the quote. This includes the creation and update dates, the creator, the associated organisation unit, the expiration date, and the order number, if available.
• Shopping cart summary (2): This section displays the financial details of the quote. These include the net subtotal, quote discount, net total, VAT, and gross total.
• Additional recipients (3): Select additional users who should receive notifications about this quote.
• Manage items (4): Open the quote item editing view. There, you can add products, change quantities, enter requested prices, and add comments to individual items.
• Search items (5): Search the items included in the quote. You can also sort the results using the adjacent selection field.
• Delete draft (6): Deletes the quote draft that has not yet been sent. This action is available while the quote has the status Draft.
• Send quote request (7): Opens the dialogue for sending the quote request. There, you can review the amounts again and optionally add a message or change request for the merchant.

After reviewing and editing the quote draft, you can send it to the merchant. To do this, click Send quote request.

The Send quote request dialogue summarises the number of included items, the net subtotal, VAT, and the gross total.

• Message or change request (1): Optionally add a message, question, or change request for the merchant. This message applies to the entire quote request.
• Send (2): Sends the quote draft to the merchant. The quote request only becomes visible to the merchant after it has been sent and can then be processed.

Click Cancel (2) to close the dialogue without sending the quote request.

Manage quotes in the customer account

In the customer account, you can find an overview of all created quote drafts and quote requests under Quotes.

The overview shows information such as the current status, quote number, creation date, validity, total amount, creator, and associated organizational unit. Click the quote number to open the corresponding detail view.

Use the search field to search the existing quotes. Open the three-dot menu at the end of a table row to access additional actions available for the respective quote.

The displayed status and available actions depend on the current processing status of the quote.

History and messages in the Storefront

In the history, you can review previous status changes and messages related to a quote in chronological order. This allows you to see when the quote was created, sent, or otherwise updated.

• Show history (1): Click Show history to open the quote history in a sidebar. The individual processing steps are displayed there with the corresponding status, date, and time.
• Send comment (2): Enter a message for the merchant in the message field and then click Send. The message is sent directly to the merchant and then displayed in the history.

This allows you to track the progress of the quote and communicate directly with the merchant without leaving the quote detail page.

Manage quotes in the Administration

In the Administration, you can find an overview of all quote requests and quotes under Orders > Quotes.

The overview shows information such as the current status, quote number, request date, customer, total amount, expiration date, and associated order number.

Click a quote number to open the detail view and edit the quote.

The status indicates the current stage of the quote process. For example, the statuses Open request, Quote sent, Accepted, Cancelled, and Expired can be displayed in the overview.

Open the three-dot menu at the end of a table row to access additional actions available for the respective quote.

Send a quote

After reviewing the quote items, prices, discounts, and shipping costs, you can send the quote to the customer.

When sending the quote, you can define its validity, add a message, and decide whether a document should be attached.

The following settings are available in the Send quote dialogue:

• Expiry date (1): Define the date and time until which the quote is valid. The expiration date is a required field. The time zone used is displayed below the field.
• Message (2): Optionally add a message for the customer. The message is sent together with the quote and stored in the history.
• Documents (3): Specify whether no document should be attached, a quote document should be created and attached automatically, or a custom document should be uploaded.
• Send (4): Sends the quote to the customer with the selected settings and documents.

The lower section of the dialogue summarises the customer, the number of included products, and the quote costs. The summary includes discounts applied to individual items, a possible quote-level discount, VAT, estimated shipping costs, and the gross total.

Click Cancel (4) to close the dialogue without sending the quote.

Withdraw or cancel a sent quote

After sending a quote to the customer, you can withdraw it if required or cancel the quote process completely.

• Withdraw quote (1): Withdraw a previously sent quote if, for example, you discover an error or want to make further changes. You can then edit and save the quote and send it to the customer again.
• Cancel quote (2): Cancel the quote to stop the quote process. The quote is not deleted and remains visible to both the customer and the administrator with the status "Cancelled".

Messages and quote history

In the History section, you can review the previous communication relating to the quote. Messages are displayed with the sender, date, and time.

You can use the message field to reply directly to the customer. The message is sent to the customer immediately and then displayed in the history.

Customer requests can relate to the entire quote or to individual quote items. This makes it possible to identify the context in which a question, price request, or change was submitted.

Click Resolve message to mark a customer request as processed.

Employee Management

From Shopware version 6.5.6.0 and the Evolve plan, it is possible to use the employee management. This allows you to create employees and assign roles to them. In order for the Company tab to be available for the respective customer, the employee management must be activated in the customer's edit mode.

 

You can invite a new employee to the company by clicking the Add employee account button (1). For this purpose, the first name, last name and e-mail address must be entered. The role is optional. In the overview, you can check the status of each employee. After the invitation has been accepted within 2 hours, the employee is part of the organization. Via the three points, you can deactivate it if necessary.

You can create a role via the button Add role (2).

First, you enter the name (1) for the role. You can also decide whether this role should be used as the default role for new employees (2).  Furthermore, you can set the permissions (3) for the employee here. These are limited to the areas of employee management, role management and orders.
 

In the frontend, the respective employee can also create roles and manage employees. To do this, first log in and go to the your account icon (1). Here you can then go to the respective employee management (2) or to the role management (3). The configurations here are the same as in the admin.

An employee account can be assigned to multiple companies and organizational units. This means that employees who work across multiple areas of a company do not need separate accounts or login credentials.

If an employee is assigned to multiple companies or organizational units, they can switch between the available contexts either during login or directly in the customer account. For more information, see the Organisation units section.

Order Approvals

As of Shopware version 6.5.8.0 and the Shopware Evolve plan, it is possible to use the approve orders function. This enables your customers to activate this function for a B2B account. 

The function can be activated for each customer by first going to edit mode in the admin's customer overview and then setting the "Order approvals" function to active.

Activation in the frontend

You must then create a role in the activated customer account in which you activate the corresponding functions. The role is created by clicking on Roles --> Add role in the overview. Alternatively, you can also create the role in the Administration.
 

Approval rules

You use the approval rules to define who is authorised to grant order approvals and for whom. You use the roles you have defined for this assignment.

Click on Create rule to create a new approval rule. If you have already defined rules, they will be listed here. You can edit or delete an existing rule via [...]

Create a new rule

If you want to create a new rule, the following fields must always be filled in.

• Name (The name of the rule should be chosen so that you can immediately recognise what function the rule has)

• Priority (The priority determines which authorisation rule has priority. The higher the number, the higher the priority of the rule. For example, if two rules apply, the rule with the higher priority is applied)

• Gives order approvals (Here you select the role that can grant the approvals | e.g. managing director, purchasing manager, etc.)

• Needs order approvals (Here you select the role that requires approval of the order | e.g. trainee, buyer, etc.)

• Applies to (The options are All orders, in which case it is always applied, or Custom condition, which allows you to set up rule-based authorisations)

• Status (This shows you whether a rule is active or inactive)

Custom condition

If you select Custom condition for the Applies to item, further selection conditions are displayed. The functionality corresponds to that of the Rule Builder, which you already know from the Shop Admin.

• Condition (in the dropdown you can choose between different items to determine when the authorisation rule should be applied. You can select Total, Total, Shipping costs, Subtotal of all items, Shipping method used, Payment method used, Total volume of all products or Total weight of all products).

• Operator (the selection differs depending on which condition you have previously selected. For example, if you want to react to a sum, "is equal to" or "is greater than or equal to" would be available here. If the condition is dependent on a dispatch type, you can choose between "is one of" and "is not one of").

• Value (here you enter a comparison value. If you have selected a sum, you define a monetary value. When comparing to a shipping method, you choose between your shipping methods and for other selections (e.g. volume) you enter the appropriate unit).

B2B customer accounts can then only order orders with approval. The B2B accounts will then also see this in the order completion.

The main B2B account is then shown this and has the option of accepting or rejecting it.
 

Organisation units

Organisation units allow companies to represent their internal structures in the online store. They can be used, for example, for locations, branches, departments, teams, or cost centres.

Organisation units can be arranged hierarchically. To do this, create additional subordinate organisational units below an existing organisational unit.

Employees can be assigned to multiple companies and organisational units. They can switch between the available contexts without logging out or using different login credentials.

Why is this important?

Many B2B customers consist of multiple locations, departments, or business areas that are legally or organizationally separate. These areas often require their own employees, addresses, payment methods, shipping methods, and budgets.

At the same time, individual employees may be responsible for several of these areas. The hierarchical structure and context switching ensure that they work with the data and settings of the currently selected organisational unit.

What can this function do?

Organisational units allow you to divide a customer account into independent or hierarchically structured areas.

For each organisational unit, you can configure employees, shipping and billing addresses, payment methods, shipping methods, product catalogues, and budgets.

Employees can be assigned to one or more companies or organisational units. The data and settings available to them depend on the currently selected context.

Subordinate organisational units can have their own budget. Optionally, they can also be granted access to the budget of the parent organisational unit.

Each unit has access only to its own orders, addresses, and users.

This ensures that each organisation can only order for itself, without being able to view other units.

Example:

A merchant supplies a company with multiple locations. Each location is created as an organisational unit. The purchasing and workshop departments are configured as subordinate organisational units of the respective location.

A central buyer can be assigned to multiple locations. After logging in, she selects the location or department for which she wants to place an order. During the session, she can switch contexts without having to log in again.

A separate budget can be configured for each department. In addition, the department can be granted access to the budget of its parent location.

Configuration in the storefront

If the organisation units function is activated for your customer, they can set up and manage their organisation independently in the storefront.

All existing organisation units are clearly displayed in a list. You can easily create a new unit by clicking on ‘Create unit’.

• Organisation unit name (1): Enter a unique name for the organisational unit. This field is required.

• Description (2): Optionally add a description to provide more information about the purpose or area of responsibility of the organisational unit.

• Sub organisation unit (3): Enable this option if the new organisational unit should be subordinate to an existing organisational unit.

• Parent organisation unit (4): Select the organisational unit to which the new unit should be subordinate. This field is displayed when you enable This is a sub organisation unit and is then required.

• Assign employees (5): Select the employees who are allowed to access the organisational unit. Employees can be assigned to multiple organisational units.

• Shipping addresses (6): Specify which shipping addresses the organisational unit is allowed to access. The selected addresses are available to the assigned employees in the corresponding context.

• Billing addresses (7): Specify which billing addresses the organisational unit is allowed to access. The selected addresses are available to the assigned employees in the corresponding context.

• Payment methods (8): Select the payment methods that can be used within the organisational unit.

• Shipping methods (9): Select the shipping methods that can be used within the organisational unit.

Select an organisation unit after logging in

If an employee is assigned to more than one organisational unit, they select which organisational unit they wish to access after logging in.

The selection window lists all organisation units to which the employee is assigned. Select the required unit in the Organisation unit field and then click Continue.

After the selection, the employee can access the data and settings of the selected organisation unit. This includes, for example, orders, shipping and billing addresses, payment methods, shipping methods, and budgets.

As long as no organisation unit has been selected, the Continue button remains disabled. Click Cancel to close the selection window.

The selected organisation unit can be changed later directly in the customer account.

Switch organisation unit in the customer account

Employees who are assigned to multiple organisational units can switch the organisational unit currently in use directly in the customer account. They do not need to log in again.

The currently selected organisation unit is displayed in the top-right corner next to the language and currency selection (1).

Click the name of the organisation unit or the switch icon next to it to change the organisational context.

After switching, the data and settings of the selected organisation unit are available to you. This includes, for example, addresses, orders, payment methods, shipping methods, and budgets.

Configuration in the administration

In the admin area, you can find the organisational units of a customer in the ‘Company’ tab within the respective customer profile.

By clicking on ‘Edit’, you can edit the respective organisational units and carry out exactly the same configurations as your customers directly in the storefront.

Assign an employee to another company

Employees can be assigned not only to multiple organizational units, but also to multiple companies. This allows an existing employee account to be used for different companies without requiring separate accounts or login credentials.

This is useful, for example, when an employee works for several independent companies or locations that cannot be represented by organizational units within a single company.

In the Administration, open the required customer account and switch to the Company (1) tab.

In the Assigned employees (2) section, employees from other companies who have also been assigned to the current company are displayed. Click Assign employee account to select an existing employee account from another company and assign it to the current company.

An employee who is assigned to multiple companies or organizational units can then switch between the available contexts without having to use separate login credentials.

Advanced product catalogues

With the advanced product catalogues, certain product categories can be specifically enabled or disabled for individual organization units. This makes it possible to precisely control which products employees are allowed to see and order in the storefront. This provides more control, an overview and individual product selection for each organization unit.

Settings in the storefront

The feature was implemented in the storefront on the detail page of the respective Organisation unit, in the “Category & product visibility” area. The released product categories can be individually configured there.

With this switcher, newly created categories will be automatically “checked,” which means you allow employees to see them.

When an employee of that organization unit logs in, they will see only the allowed categories in the navigation.

If they try to access other categories or products outside of these allowed categories — whether via direct link or any other way — they will be blocked, and a 404 Not Found page will be displayed.

Settings in the administration

In the administration, the function has been implemented in a new tab on the detail page of the respective organization unit. The visible product categories can be controlled centrally there.

Budget

From Shopware version 6.7.4.0 and the Shopware Evolve Plan onwards, it is possible to manage budgets for your organisational units.

Budget management enables you to establish spending limits for organisational units, providing greater control over the purchasing process. This feature helps to enforce company spending control policies directly in the ordering process.

A budget defines how much an organisational unit is allowed to spend within a certain period. If this limit is exceeded, an order can only be completed with approval. The system automatically informs the responsible persons and allows approvals to be managed directly within the system.

Budget configuration

In the administration area, you can view the budgets of a customer with activated B2B functions by opening the desired customer under Customers > Overview and then selecting the Company tab.

The view in the storefront is identical in content for your customers and differs only in its presentation.

The overview displays all created budgets, including information on status, name, total amount, available amount, amount used, and cost centre.

Here you can create new budgets (1) and edit (2) or delete (3) existing budgets using the context menu ‘...’.

When you click Create budget, the input mask opens, allowing you to configure a new budget and specify all relevant details.

• Active (1): Defines whether the budget is active.

• Budget name (2): The visible name under which the budget appears in the overview and during checkout.

• Cost centre (3): Optional field for internal organisational assignment.

• Amount in € (4): The maximum available budget amount.

• Technical name (5): Internal, unique identifier for the budget.

• Organisation units (6): Selection of the organisational unit for which the budget applies.

• Start date (7): The date from which the budget becomes valid.

• Renews (8): Defines the interval at which the budget automatically resets. You can choose between None, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Biannual, and Yearly.

• End date (9): The date when the budget expires.

• Allow approval requests (10): Allows orders to be submitted for approval when the budget is fully used.

• Show remaining budget (11): Displays in the storefront how much budget is still available.

• Enable notifications (12): Activates email notifications to assigned contacts when budget thresholds are reached.

• Trigger notification when (13): Defines the condition under which a notification is triggered. You can choose between X percent of budget used, Specific notification date and X days before end date.

• Trigger value (14): Specifies the threshold value at which the notification is sent, for example, ‘80’ for 80% of the budget.
• Recipients (15): Selects which users or organisational units should receive the notification. You can search for individual contacts or add multiple recipients at once using Select all.

Budget selection at checkout

In the checkout area, customers with activated B2B functions can select an available budget to complete their order within the defined spending limits. The system transparently displays how much of the budget has been used and how much remains available.

• Budget selection (1): Using the drop-down menu, the customer can select the desired budget to be used for this order. Only active budgets with sufficient credit are available for selection.

• Budget status (2): Shows the current status of the selected budget, broken down into used budget and remaining budget. The progress bar visualises the percentage of usage. 

Individual Pricing

From Shopware version 6.7.8.0, individual prices are available to you, provided that you have activated the organisation units in the employee management.

You can configure percentage-based, fixed, or tiered discounts based on defined rules and assign them to specific organisation units or customer tags.

This allows you to display negotiated conditions directly in the storefront – without any manual adjustments.

You can find the individual prices in the admin under Catalogues > Individual pricing (1).

To create an individual price, click on Add individual pricing (2).

Create new individual pricing

After clicking Create new Individual Pricing, the price rule creation window opens.

In the General  (1) tab, you will find the General settings (2) as well as the Target assignment (3).

In the General settings (2) section, you can activate or deactivate the individual pricing rule and optionally display list prices for your products. You also define the name of the pricing rule and set its priority here.

You can also define a validity range. In the Description field, you can enter your own description for the price rule.

In the Target assignment (3) section, you select the desired target group for the individual pricing rule. You can choose between Companies and organisation units, as well as Tags.

In the Conditions (4) tab, you configure the settings for the Target products (5) as well as for the Discounts(6).

In the Target products (5) section, you can define whether the desired discount should be applied directly to all products or only if a specific rule is met. When configuring a rule, you can select various conditions and operators that are also used in the Rule Builder.

In the Discounts (6) section, you can choose a discount type. The following discount types are available: Percentage off, Fixed amount off, Final price to fixed value, or Volume pricing.

After entering all required information for your price rule, click Create individual pricing (7) in the top-right corner to save the pricing rule.

Example configuration:

Here we show you an example of what such a configuration might look like. In this case, you want to grant a customer a percentage discount of 2% on a specific product.

The prerequisite for assigning a company or organisational unit is that your customer is either registered as a company or has set up organisational units in their customer account.

In the Target Assignment section, select the target group Companies andorganisation units (1), as the customer is registered as a company and you want to grant a discount to users throughout the entire company. Then click on the Assign (2) button. A new window will open.

First, search for the desired customer in the search field (3), then select them in the Companies/Organisation Units (4) area by clicking User Docs AG (5). After selecting the company, you can use the drop-down menu (6) on the right-hand side of the window to select that you want to grant the individual price rule to the entire company. Then click on the Assign (7) button.

The window closes, and you will see the assigned company (8) in the Target assignment.

There, you can also delete the assigned company again via the context menu if necessary.

Now switch to the Conditions (9) tab.

Since you do not want to apply a discount to all products in your shop, but only to a specific product, select the condition ‘Product’ and the operator “Is equal to” in the Rule Builder (10). In the third field, select the product ‘Main item’. Further down, finally select the discount type Percentage off (11) and enter the value ‘2’ for 2% in the field (12) next to it. Finally, click on the Create individual pricing (13) button to save your price rule and make it available.

View in the storefront

In the storefront, your logged-in customer will now see the discount you have granted (14), which in this example is 2%.

Quick orders

Starting with Shopware version 6.5.4.0 and the Shopware Evolve plan, it is possible to use the quick order function.
This allows your customers to expedite the ordering process by adding items to the shopping cart via item number or a CSV file.

Activation

The function can be activated per customer by first entering edit mode in the user configuration in the admin and then setting the "Quick order" function to active.

Frontend view

In the frontend, you can access the feature by clicking on the account icon (1) and then selecting Quick Orders (2).

To speed up the general ordering process, you can search for products by name or product number (1) and adjust the quantity (2) directly. With the Add to list button (3), you can add the products to an existing shopping list or alternatively create a new shopping list and then add the products. As soon as all products have been selected, you can add them to the shopping cart (4).

You can upload a ready-made CSV file using the Upload file function (5). After clicking on the button, a window will open where you can upload your file. The file must contain the columns ‘product_number’ and ‘quantity’. You can also download a template there. If you want to delete the list, click the Clear list button (6).

Shopping list

From Shopware 6.6.3.0 you can use the shopping lists in the B2B Components.

On the one hand, the shopping list can be used by B2B users to create a shopping list for a later purchase. On the other hand, the retailer can use the shopping list to provide an order suggestion for specific use cases.

Activation

You can decide for each customer whether the shopping lists should be used. Open the customer in the administration and activate the slider for the shopping lists, as shown in the screenshot.

Frontend view

In the front end, you can access the feature by clicking on the account icon (1) and then selecting Shopping lists (2).

If you have not used shopping lists before, you can start directly by clicking on Create list.

As soon as the first shopping list has been created, you will see this view:

 

You can also create a new list via Create list. For each existing shopping list, you can access the context menu via ... . Open shows you which products you have saved. If you want to use an existing list as the basis for a new one, you can obtain a copy of the selected list with Duplicate. If you are not happy with the name, you can use Rename. If a list is no longer required, you can delete it with Delete.

An order with the selected products is created when you execute Add products to cart.

Admin view

As a store owner, you can create or edit shopping lists for B2B customers in the admin.

Once you have activated the shopping lists for the relevant customer in the B2B Components area, you will receive an additional Company tab (1) in the customer account.  
This tab shows the list of all shopping lists (2) for this customer. This contains an overview of how many products the list contains, the total value of the list and who created the list. As soon as you are in edit mode (3), you can add list (4) or edit an existing list (5).

When you edit or create a new list, you can first define the name (1) in the General tab. For new shopping lists, you can also specify the sales channel (2) they are intended for. For existing lists, this is fixed and cannot be changed.   
In the Items section (3), you can add or remove products and similarly change quantities to the order overview.

You can either save the list directly using the Save button (4) or save the changes as a new list or as a duplicate using the right arrow.

Add products to a shopping list

To add products to your shopping list, you can directly click on the grey plus sign in a category list. In the product detail view, you will find a plus sign labelled Add to list.

Under Add to you will find the names of your existing shopping lists. Simply click on the name of the list to which you would like to add the product. If you want to create a new list, you can use the last menu entry for this.

Sales Agent

Sales agents and independent dealers can access B2B relevant customers via the Sales Agent Login. This function can be set up as a separate installation.

It is set up on your own server or subdomain by your agency or administrator and linked to your store.

You can find more information in the article Sales Agent.