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Closed Beta Opportunity: Company Account Hierarchy in B2B Edition
Closed Beta Opportunity: Company Account Hierarchy in B2B Edition
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Starting on December 5th, we are accepting requests to participate in the closed beta for Account Hierarchy in the B2B Edition Buyer Portal Experience. Account Hierarchy allows you to configure parent-child relationships between different Company accounts and create user roles that allow buyers to manage their subsidiary accounts in the Buyer Portal.
Match your clients’ complexity
No two B2B relationships are the same, and this is especially true for clients with a complex business structure. While some businesses can manage their interactions with your storefront from a single Buyer Portal, other businesses may have more advanced needs, such as:
Local chain stores with multiple locations
Individual franchises that report to a franchisor
Global corporations with regional warehouses and retail stores
With Account Hierarchy, you can compartmentalize data in up to five layers of branched Company accounts, allowing users in the upper levels of the hierarchy to view and manage information across all child Companies. Each business’s hierarchy is flexible, meaning that each Company can have independent settings like customer group assignments and available payment methods, and you can reorganize Companies in the hierarchy at any time.
Account Hierarchy also adds advanced buyer permissions and scope levels to support clients who require greater control over their Company accounts. This unlocks the ability to support different teams across a complex business, such as regional procurement managers who make purchases and request sales quotes within each subsidiary account, or accounts payable managers who process and pay aggregated invoices across all accounts.
Changes to the B2B Edition control panel and Buyer Portal
As part of the Account Hierarchy closed beta, we’ve added the Parent company setting to define a Company’s parent account. This setting is present in the Company creation window, as well as the Basic information tab of an existing Company’s detail page.
We’ve also added the Company hierarchy tab to the Company detail page. This provides a single location for you to view the existing hierarchy of a given Company, navigate to the detail pages of other Company’s in the hierarchy, and add or delete child accounts.
In the Settings › Company users and roles area of the control panel, the following enhancements allow you to create custom roles for buyers who manage subsidiaries in their Company hierarchy:
The Company Hierarchy permission — When enabled, this allows buyers to view the hierarchical structure of their business and access.
The Company and subsidiaries level — Granting this scope level to permissions in a user role allows buyers in that role to access corresponding areas of the Buyer Portal for any subsidiary account.
In the Buyer Portal, buyers with the proper permissions have multiple settings to switch the Company account they are representing. This allows them to perform the same buyer actions and workflows for child Companies or their own Company.
Buyers can also access order and invoice records for individual subsidiaries or all Companies in their hierarchy by using the filtering settings at the top of the Company orders and Invoices tabs.
How do I sign up?
The closed beta for independent Company account behavior is only available for stores using the B2B Edition Buyer Portal experience and independent Companies behavior. If your store is not currently using independent Companies behavior, you can request it by contacting our support team.
To request participation, fill out the beta application form. The BigCommerce Product team will review your submission to determine if your store is a good fit.
After your form submission has been reviewed and approved, you will receive an email from our Product team letting you know that the functionality has been enabled on your store. They will also provide instructions on how to use Account Hierarchy and a form for you to submit any feedback you have during the closed beta.
The final word
Supporting the business needs of your clients is integral to a successful B2B relationship. With Account Hierarchy, you can build tailored and flexible buyer management experiences and sell effectively to large businesses with complex organizational requirements.
