FAQ

Our solution is the best fit for businesses that are already rooted in their ERP, with a large product range and complex pricing. If you're just starting up and want a webshop that does everything, there are other solutions that may suit your needs better.

We're happy to have a chat and help work out whether there's a match between your business, our platform and your existing systems. If our solution isn't the right match, we'll gladly point you in the right direction.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch. You'll find our contact details on the contact page here.

We have integrations with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Uniconta and Visma.net. They run online and are updated continuously, and we maintain our extensions and integrations as their APIs are modernised.

Since 2008 we've also worked with the older systems many Danish companies have built their business on over many years, such as NAV. We've had our hands in pretty much every version and know the particular corners and customisations they usually have. Most of those installations are on a fixed version today, and we know how to make them work with a modern e-commerce solution. We also have customers on Visma Business and Iptor.

You can read how the integration works for each system on the pages under integrations. If you run a system we haven't integrated with before, we start with a chat with your ERP provider.

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We take care of the integration with your ERP and monitoring it, and of making sure prices in the webshop match the ERP. We map the data so the webshop works from the start, and we run PIM, the webshop and the platform.

You and your ERP partner carry on with what you know. Products, customers and prices are maintained in the ERP, orders are handled there, and your partner takes care of customisations and support in the ERP as usual. It's also you who give us access to the ERP and decide which of your staff have access to what on the platform. Product copy, images, specifications and attributes that don't naturally belong in the ERP are maintained in PIM.

The line isn't always clear-cut. For example, the order has to go into the ERP in a way that suits your setup, and we work that part out together with your ERP partner. What it takes for your particular ERP is described on the page about the integration.

If you choose to build the front end in another webshop system, you and your web agency are responsible for it.

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No, not to get started. The integration with your ERP is set up through configuration, and PIM and the webshop are set up with settings, without you needing to be technical.

Development only comes into play when the solution needs to do more than the standard. If the webshop needs customising, for example with special workflows or data from third parties, we do it. If the order needs handling differently in your ERP, or your ERP doesn't have an API, it's your ERP partner who knows the setup, and we'll work that part out together.

If you choose a front end other than Chainbox Webshop, it's your own agency that builds it and fetches data via our API.

Read about Chainbox Webshop →
Read about headless e-commerce with Chainbox →

Your data stays in the ERP, and the ERP is still the master. We bring it across to our platform, and PIM and the webshop use it from there. That means the webshop doesn't put load on the ERP, even when lots of customers are buying at the same time.

In return, there's a small delay, and how big it is depends on the ERP. On the online systems, changes to products and customers usually come across quickly, while prices and invoices follow scheduled runs. On the older systems, we agree with you what should come across when, so the ERP's own jobs can run undisturbed. If you need to look something up directly in the ERP at checkout, for example remaining stock or credit limit, the webshop can be customised for that if the ERP supports it.

How often each type of data is updated for your ERP is described on the page about the integration.

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The order lands in the ERP on the right customer account, exactly as if it had been keyed in there, with delivery address, comments, shipping and fees. From there you handle it like any other order, and release, picking, packing and shipping work as usual.

How the order gets in depends on the ERP and your setup. With the online systems it goes via the API or a journal, and with the older systems usually via a journal or a file. We go through that part with your ERP partner. Once the order is in the ERP, it follows your normal order flow, and if the customer paid by card, the payment details come along so the card can be charged at the right point in that flow.

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Prices are calculated from the price structure in your ERP, so customers see their own prices when they're logged in. It's our responsibility that prices in the webshop match the ERP.

Price structures in B2B are rarely simple. There are price lists that build on each other, customer and discount groups, campaigns, volume discounts and currency. The common combinations are included in the standard integrations, and on some ERPs the price is checked again when the order is transferred, so any difference is caught and the order is put aside for manual handling.

But no two pricing setups are the same, and many have customised the price calculation in their ERP over the years. That's why we go through your prices with you before we start, and it's one of the reasons we prefer to show the solution on your own data.

See what's included for your ERP →
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The webshop keeps running, and customers can still buy. Orders wait in a queue and are transferred when the ERP is back.

We monitor the integrations, and if a job fails, it's retried automatically before our operations team is notified. We've run integrations with these systems for many years and have fixed playbooks for the typical outages, whether it's an update at the ERP provider or a server on your side that's been switched off.

Some errors have to be fixed at the source, such as duplicates after an outage or invisible characters in an item number. Then the job stops and sends a notification, and you or your ERP partner fix it in the ERP.

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It depends on the system and your setup. With the online systems there's often not much to do beyond giving us access, and if orders need special handling, your partner can build on top of our integration without changing it.

With the older systems, orders have to go in via a journal or a file, and here it's your ERP partner who knows the setup. We have experience from lots of other customers that your partner can build on, and we're happy to talk to them directly about the easiest way to solve it.

We'd rather work with your own partner, because they know your setup. If you don't have an ERP partner at all, we may be able to point you to one with Chainbox experience.

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PIM, customer logins and the webshop live on our platform, not in your ERP, so they stay put when you change ERP. We connect the new ERP alongside the old one, you test until you're ready, and at go-live we switch without any webshop downtime.

Many of our customers have done this, some of them more than once. Hertels Boresko, Kontor Syd and Urtegaarden moved from older ERP systems to Uniconta, and Fairpoint, DALI and Sprit & Co moved from NAV and older systems to Business Central. They all kept their e-commerce solution running throughout the switch.

If you're on an older ERP today, our solution can be a way to take a step forward, so you're in a better position the day you upgrade or switch.

Read about the Uniconta integration →
Read about the Business Central integration →
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Most of what would otherwise take a phone call or a sales rep. Customers log in and buy with their own prices and range, and a customer can have several logins for their staff. They can see open and previous orders and invoices, including those placed outside the webshop, and reorder based on what they usually buy.

Your own sales reps and order desk can log in as a sales rep, switch between customers and place orders on the customer's behalf. Larger customers can buy from their own procurement system via punch-out.

B2B and B2C can run in the same solution.

Read about Chainbox Webshop →

Yes. The webshop runs as a dedicated installation just for you, which is why it can be customised, while PIM and the other apps are shared standard software for all customers. Customisations are usually about special workflows, lookups directly in the ERP or data from third parties.

If you run the standard version, the webshop is updated automatically. If it's customised, the customisations have to work with each new version, so it comes with an update agreement where your solution is brought up to the latest version 4 times a year. That replaces the big upgrade projects that otherwise come along every few years.

You buy licences for a single solution that we run, and the data is always yours.

Read about Chainbox Webshop →

Yes. If your range has outgrown your webshop in, for example, Shopify, Shopware or Magento, Chainbox PIM and the integration with your ERP can sit behind it while you keep your front end. Your agency fetches data via our API, and the integration with the ERP stays with us, so it doesn't need rebuilding if you later change webshop system or ERP.

Usually your agency makes the first contact, so together we can work out whether there's a technical match and how much developer support they need.

Read about headless e-commerce with Chainbox →

When a product is created in the ERP, it shows up in PIM shortly after. The ERP owns the data that belongs there, and those fields can't be changed in PIM. What you add in PIM stays in PIM and isn't written back. You decide which fields are owned by the ERP and which are edited in PIM.

From there, you enrich the products with copy, images, specifications and attributes, either one at a time, in bulk updates or via spreadsheets and the API. Most of our customers have more than 20,000 item numbers in PIM, and many have over 100,000.

Read about Chainbox PIM →

Yes to both. PIM doesn't depend on the webshop, and your own front end or other sales channels can fetch data via the API and be notified when something changes. It's the webshop that builds on PIM, not the other way round.

Data in PIM can be exported or fetched via the API, including images and files.

Read about Chainbox PIM →
Read about headless e-commerce with Chainbox →

We do. The whole solution is SaaS, and we take care of hosting, operation, security, monitoring and updates. We monitor the whole chain from ERP to webshop as one.

The webshop runs in its own environment, separate from the shared systems, so they can't interfere with each other, and it can be updated without downtime. If you need it, the webshop can also have a test environment that's separate from production.

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If you're covered by NIS2, or your customers are, you need to be able to show who has access to your systems and data, and that access is protected by more than a password.

Your staff log in in one place with two-factor authentication and get access to the parts of the solution your administrator gives them. If someone leaves, their access is closed in one place, and an audit log shows who has had access to what. Your customers log in to the webshop and only see their own prices and orders.

All data at Chainbox is hosted in the EU.

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Lots of companies get convincing demos with generic data, but when reality hits, the result isn't always as good. With your own data, we can work out together with you and your ERP partner whether there are customisations in the ERP data or special modules the web solution needs to take into account. So a demo with your own data can settle several kinds of questions, and we can show that we can deliver a solution that matches the complexity of your business.

The demo usually runs on a copy of your data or a test environment, so your day-to-day business isn't affected. If you use Uniconta or Business Central, we can also give the demo in one of our demo companies.

During the demo, your data sits on our platform in the EU. It's free and there's no commitment, and if you don't go ahead, we delete the demo and your data.

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We have long customer relationships, but short notice periods. Subscriptions are invoiced quarterly, and you can give notice no later than 30 days before the end of a quarter. Before then, you can export your data from PIM and Webshop Management or fetch it via the API.

When you cancel, we delete installations and databases, and 30 days later they're also gone from our backup.

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