Customers and companies

The Companies area is where you manage who buys from you and on what terms. Open it at Companies (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab) . It has three screens: Companies , Customers and customer groups.
A company is a business you sell to. It can be split into locations, such as stores or regions. A customer is a person who signs in to your store and orders, on their own or for a company.
A customer group sets prices (through its price lists), payment methods and order rules. Every B2B customer is in one. The Base customer group covers everyone else.
On Shopify, companies and locations are your Shopify B2B companies, kept in sync both ways. Customers and customer groups work on every platform.

How it fits together

SparkLayer uses four building blocks:

Company: a business you sell to, such as a shop chain or a distributor. You give it a customer group, an optional price list, pay later and the sales agents who look after it.
Location: part of a company, such as a store, a region or a warehouse. Locations can sit inside each other. Each one uses the settings of the level above unless you change them.
Customer: a person who signs in to your store and orders. A customer can belong to a company and be added to some of its locations.
Customer group: the rules a set of customers buy on: their price lists, payment methods and order limits.

A company holds locations, and people are added to the locations they order for:

Who belongs to what

Company

The business. It's in a customer group, and can have its own price list and pay later setting

Locations

Stores or regions inside the company. Each uses the company's settings unless it sets its own

People

The customers who order. Each person is added to the locations they order for, as a Buyer, Approver or Manager

A customer doesn't have to belong to a company. Someone who buys for themselves, or a store that doesn't use companies, gets their customer group's settings.

Where a buyer's prices come from

A buyer's prices come from a customer group and its price lists:

Where a buyer's prices come from

Customer group

The customer's group, or their company's group if they're in a company

Price list

The group's price lists, unless the company, the location or the customer has a price list of its own

Buyer signs in

They see those prices, the group's payment methods and its order rules

What overrides what

Each setting starts broad, and you can replace it with a more specific one. The most specific setting wins.

What	Starts from	Replaced by
Prices	The customer group's price lists.	A Price list on the company, then on a location. For one person, use customer pricing.
Payment methods and order rules	The customer group. Each group follows the Base customer group until you override a rule.	A different Customer group on the company, or on a location.
Pay later	The company.	One of its locations.
Sales agents who look after them	The company.	One of its locations.
Who orders for a business	Never inherited.	Each person is added to the exact locations they order for, as a Buyer, Approver or Manager.

Which sales agents can order for a customer is also set on the sales agent's page, where you tick the customer groups they can see.

How a buyer's price is chosen

SparkLayer uses the most specific price list that applies, in this order:

The customer's own price lists, set with customer pricing.
Their location's price list , if it or a location above it has one. It applies to that location and the locations inside it.
Their company's price list , if it has one. It applies to everyone at the company.
Their customer group's price lists. That's the company's customer group if it has one, otherwise the group from the customer's own tag. A group without price lists uses the Base customer group's. If a product is in several of the group's lists, the first list it's in wins.

With no price list at any level, the buyer sees your standard prices.

Rules, such as payment methods and order limits, follow the same order: the location's customer group, then the company's customer group, then the group from the customer's own tag.

Where to find it

The two versions of the app have the same screens:

SparkLayer Dashboard: the Companies group in the sidebar, with Companies, Customers and Groups.
Shopify app (SparkLayer Wholesale in Shopify admin): Companies, with the tabs Companies, Customers and Customer groups.

To do this	Go to
See the businesses you sell to, and set their pricing, pay later, people and sales agents	Companies (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab)
Split a company into locations and choose who orders for each	Companies,Manage locations (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab)
Find a customer, invite a buyer and check customer sync errors	Customers (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab)
Set price lists, payment methods and order rules for groups of customers	Customers,Groups (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab)
Make a customer a sales agent and choose who they look after	Sales Agents,Agents (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab)
Turn company users and company locations on or off	Settings,Configurations,Ordering (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab)
Turn on messages on orders and quotes	Settings,Configurations,Quotes and invoices (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab)

Get your first buyer ordering

Create a price list at Pricing,Price lists (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab).
Give it to a customer group at Customers,Groups (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab). Use the Base customer group, or a new group with its own prices.
Add a buyer to the group in your platform (on Shopify, with a tag), or invite a buyer from Customers (opens in your SparkLayer Dashboard in a new tab) and choose their customer group. On Shopify, buyers can also apply for a trade account with a SparkLayer form, for you to approve into a group.
Place a test order as a buyer to check their prices and checkout.

More detail

Setup walks you through the same steps, and ticks each one off as you go. For the same steps as one guide, see Set up wholesale prices for your trade customers.
Already have trade customers in Shopify? See Move your existing wholesale customers onto SparkLayer.
To give a business its own terms, create a company and choose its customer group and price list.

Key terms

Term	Meaning
B2B customer	A customer who sees your B2B prices and ordering rules when they sign in.
Company	A business you sell to. On Shopify, a Shopify B2B company.
Company location	A store, region or site of a company. Locations nest, and inherit from the level above.
Location role	What a person can do at a location: Buyer, Approver or Manager.
Customer group	The rules shared by a set of B2B customers. Every store has a Base customer group.
Company user	A colleague a customer invites to share their account, with a Standard or Limited role.
Sales agent	A member of your team who orders on behalf of customers.