An ERP integration connects WooCommerce to the system that runs the rest of the business, so products, stock, prices, orders and customers stop being maintained twice. We build and support these integrations for Australian retailers and wholesalers, including Microsoft Business Central, Wedderburn Atria and Salesforce connections that run in production today. This guide covers the decisions that matter: what data flows in which direction, which integration pattern to use, and what a production integration needs beyond the happy path.
What counts as an ERP here
For this guide, an ERP is any system of record behind the store: Microsoft Business Central or Dynamics, NetSuite, SAP Business One, MYOB Advanced, Pronto, or an industry system like Wedderburn Atria for scales-based retail. The integration questions are the same for all of them, and most also apply to POS and 3PL connections.
Decide the source of truth first
Before any code, decide which system owns each type of data. Most problems we are called in to fix come from skipping this step. The pattern that works for almost every retailer:
- The ERP owns products, prices, stock and customer account data.
- WooCommerce owns orders, online customer registrations, and web content such as descriptions and images.
- Nothing is owned by both. When both systems can edit the same field, the sync will eventually overwrite someone’s work.
The practical version of this rule: the integration creates products in WooCommerce from the ERP, but routine updates only touch prices, stock and names, so the web team can improve descriptions and images without losing them on the next sync. We use exactly this split in our Atria connector.
What flows where
Tap each data type to see the usual direction, frequency and the detail that catches people out:
Interactive: data flows
The four integration patterns
There are four ways to connect the systems, and the right one depends on the ERP, the order volume and the budget:
Interactive: pick a pattern
Real time or scheduled?
Orders should move in real time, triggered by the order event. Products, prices and stock are fine on a schedule, and 15 minutes is the default we use, matching how scales and shelf-edge systems already update in-store. Real-time stock sounds attractive but adds cost and failure points, and for most catalogs a shorter interval on fast movers solves the same problem.
What a production integration needs beyond the sync
Moving the data is the easy half. The integrations that survive years in production all have:
- A sync log in the WordPress admin, so staff can answer “did order 31560 reach the ERP” without a developer.
- Retries with alerts. APIs go down. The integration should retry, and tell someone when an order still has not gone through.
- A reconciliation check, comparing order counts between systems daily, because silent failures are the expensive ones.
- Clear conflict rules, written down, for who owns each field (see source of truth above).
- A test environment, because you do not want the first refund test to be a real customer’s money.
Some of the integrations we run in production
- Microsoft Business Central and WooCommerce for a precious metals retailer, including customer verification flows. Details on our Business Central integration page.
- Wedderburn Atria and WooCommerce for butchers and fresh food retailers, covered in detail in this post.
- Salesforce and WooCommerce for a financial services group, syncing customers and transactions.
- Carrier, 3PL and EDI connections for wholesale and B2B stores.
FAQ
Can we just use Zapier or Make?
For low volumes and simple mappings, yes, and it is a reasonable way to start. It becomes the wrong tool once you need conflict rules, retries, partial shipments or anything per-line-item, which is usually around the time the store gets busy.
How long does an integration take to build?
A scoped custom connector with the standard flows (products, stock, prices down, orders up) is typically weeks, not months. The scoping call matters more than the build: most of the time goes into agreeing the rules, not writing the code.
Does HPOS change anything?
Any integration touching orders should use the WooCommerce CRUD API so it works with High-Performance Order Storage. Everything we build is HPOS compatible, and it is worth confirming for any existing connector before enabling HPOS.
Talk through your integration
If you are connecting WooCommerce to an ERP, POS or 3PL, we are happy to talk through the options before you commit to a pattern. EUX is a WooCommerce Pro Partner, one of only three in Australia, and integrations are the core of what we build. See our WooCommerce integrations page or contact us.
