Customer and item matching

Last updated on August 18, 2026

Every webshop order contains customer and product identifiers that are specific to your webshop. Business Central uses its own customer and item numbers. Before Tinx Connector can convert a webshop order to a sales order, it must identify which Business Central customer and items the order refers to.

Workflow

The following diagram shows the matching process during order import.

The following workflow corresponds to the previous diagram:

1. During the webshop order import, Tinx Connector receives the web response. The response contains details about the order, including the customer and the products.
2. Data from the web response is recorded on the Webshop Orders page. One record per order.
3. Webshop values are recorded in the Webshop Customer ID and Webshop SKU fields on the Webshop Orders page. Tinx Connector must identify the corresponding Business Central values for the fields: Customer No. and Item No., respectively.
4. The Webshop Customers page contains all existing matches between the webshop values and Business Central values for the customers. The Webshop ID field should correspond to the Business Central customer number in the Customer No. field.
5. If the match is found, the corresponding Business Central values are recorded in the Default Customer No. - ID fields on the Webshop Orders page.
6. The same process applies to products.
7. When both Default Customer No. - ID and Item No. fields are populated, the records on the Webshop Orders page are ready for the order creation in Business Central.
8. Tinx Connector uses those values to populate corresponding fields in the Business Central tables, and based on that, the sales order can be created.

Item matching

During the webshop order import, Tinx Connector checks whether the products in the order exist on the Webshop Products page. For each webshop order with an unmatched product, the Blocked Order field on the Webshop Orders page is set to Yes. To learn more, see Synchronize products. If you want to allow Tinx Connector to match items directly in Business Central without using the Webshop Products page, you can disable the blocked check on the E-commerce Setup page.

Customer matching

You can use the following methods to match webshop customers to Business Central customers.

• Customer No.
• Email address
• Different Customer No. Order

Matching based on customer number

In this method you use the webshop customer ID to match. If a customer is found on the Webshop Customers page, that customer’s number is used. This method is shown in the diagram. For more information, see Workflow. You can use either the Default Customer No. - ID or the Customer No. Sales Channel method instead. Second method is necessary if you have multiple sales channels. For more information, see E-commerce Setup and Sales Channel: Where to set up the webshop.

Which field the default mapping uses to populate Sell-to Customer No. depends on your webshop. Shopware and Magento use Default Customer No. - ID. Shopify uses Customer No. Sales Channel. WooCommerce legacy mapping uses Default Customer No. - ID, while the new mapping uses Customer No. Sales Channel. The following two sections describe this difference for WooCommerce in detail. For more information about the legacy and new default mapping for WooCommerce, see Default mapping.

When the mapping uses Default Customer No. - ID

In the customer matching based on the Default Customer No. - ID, Tinx Connector identifies the Business Central customer through an intermediate step using the Webshop Customers page. The workflow describes the process in more detail. For more information, see Workflow.

When the matching is complete, Tinx Connector populates the Default Customer No. - ID field on the Webshop Orders page, step 7 of the process can begin. During that step, Tinx Connector uses the value in the Default Customer No. - ID field to populate the Sell-to Customer No. field on the sales order.

The following description is applicable to the legacy WooCommerce mapping used by companies that started using Tinx Connector before July 29, 2026. The new default mapping for WooCommerce uses a different message definition (WOO-123) to create sales orders in Business Central.

The following screenshot shows the mapping of the WOO-087 message definition for WooCommerce. The role of this message definition is to create sales orders in Business Central based on webshop orders imported from WooCommerce. For more information, see Enable webshop orders import. The mapping in the third line instructs Tinx Connector how to populate the Sell-to Customer No. field on the sales order. This mapping reads the value from the Default Customer No. - ID (field 73) on the Webshop Orders page (TINX Sales Order table 11205270).

When the mapping uses Customer No. Sales Channel

In the new default mapping, the WOO-123 ∙ Create Sales Header message definition maps the Sell-to Customer No. field differently. Instead of reading the value directly from a single field, the mapping uses the AdvancedFieldValue type. The Default Value field on this line is set to 139 (Customer No. Sales Channel), not field 73 (Default Customer No. - ID) as in the legacy mapping.

An Advanced Field Value allows you to add more links to the current record. To review these links, on the Message Line Field page, select the line, and then on the action bar, in the Field group, choose the Advanced Field Value action. This opens the TINX Message Line Field Link page.

The following screenshot shows the additional link added to the the Sell-to Customer No. line. It is using the Sales Channel (field 118), filtered to the sales channel that is processing the order.

The sales channel link makes the lookup safe for companies with multiple sales channels. If you connect several WooCommerce stores, order IDs or customer IDs can overlap between stores. Without the sales channel as part of the lookup, Tinx Connector could return the customer number from the wrong sales channel.

Matching based on e-mail address

Use this method when customers are sometimes created in Business Central before they place an order in your webshop.

Email-based matching prevents duplicate customer cards when the connector processes webshop orders from new customers who are not yet matched in Tinx Connector.

By default, when your customer places an order on your webshop, Tinx Connector looks for a match in the Webshop Customers table. For more information, see Workflow. If no match is found, the connector creates a new customer card by default. Email-based matching adds an extra check before creating that new customer card.

When an unmatched webshop customer places an order, Tinx Connector searches Business Central for a customer with the same email address. If a match is found, the order is applied to the existing customer instead of creating a new customer card.

This is particularly useful for businesses with both physical stores and webshops. Consider a customer who previously made a purchase in a physical store and has a customer card in Business Central. When they place their first online order, email-based matching links their online and offline purchase histories to the same customer card. This avoids duplicates.

To enable email-based matching, turn on the Check E-mail New Customers toggle on the E-commerce Setup page. For more information, see To set up customer import.

Matching customers based on email and custom field

You can use custom fields to include additional logic in the email-based matching process. You can match on both email and a custom field (such as the currency code). This lets you create separate customer cards for the same customer when different currencies are needed.

The following screenshot shows an example of the setup for matching customers based on both email and currency.

Matching based on different Customer No. Order

In this method you match based on the contact-customer relationship. Use this option when the order is placed by one contact but must be booked to a different customer account, for example, in a B2B sub-login setup.

We update the Tinx documentation. This article has recently undergone huge changes. If you have suggestions on how we can improve it, send an email to docs@tinx-it.nl.

Related information

Synchronize customers
Error messages
Customer templates
Synchronize orders
Key concepts in Tinx Connector
Troubleshooting checklist