Role-based B2B commerce that models how your customers actually buy.
Organizational hierarchies, role-based access controls, and approval workflows that turn your B2B storefront into a genuine self-service hub for buying teams of every size.
The Problem This Solves
Before CommerceWeave
Generic commerce platforms treat every B2B buyer as an individual consumer. There is no way to model corporate account hierarchies, assign role-based purchasing permissions, or enforce approval workflows that reflect how enterprise buying teams actually operate.
With CommerceWeave
Every buyer sees the correct products, pricing, and account information for their role. Purchasing managers approve or deny orders before they route to the ERP. Administrators configure new buying groups in minutes rather than weeks.
How It Works
Organizational Hierarchy Modeling
CommerceWeave supports multi-level organizational structures that reflect how mid-market and enterprise businesses actually purchase. A distribution customer running Epicor P21 might have a parent company, three regional entities, and twelve branch locations — each with distinct catalogs, pricing contracts, and purchasing authorities. The portal models this natively: parent accounts can see consolidated order history and invoices across child entities, while branch-level buyers are limited to their assigned catalog and location-specific pricing. This hierarchy is populated directly from ERP customer account data during the initial integration mapping phase, with the AI copilot generating the account structure from your ERP schema and flagging any entities that require manual configuration decisions.
Role-Based Access and Purchasing Permissions
Four standard roles ship out of the box — buyer, approver, administrator, and sales rep — with a fully configurable permission model that allows organizations to add custom roles or modify the defaults. Buyers can browse, add to cart, and submit orders up to their assigned purchasing limit. Orders above the limit route automatically to the designated approver, who receives an email notification with a deep link to the pending order in the portal. Approvers can approve, reject, or modify the order quantity or line items before routing to the ERP. The sales rep role enables customer-on-behalf ordering, where a sales representative can log in, select a customer account, and place orders with full visibility into that customer's pricing, inventory, and order history — a critical workflow for distributor and wholesale sales teams.
Contract Pricing Enforcement by Role
Pricing displayed in the portal is not managed by CommerceWeave — it is served directly from ERP pricing authority. When a buyer with contract pricing logs into the portal, CommerceWeave queries the connected ERP in real time to retrieve that customer's applicable price book, contract terms, and any volume tier modifiers. This architecture eliminates the synchronization lag that causes pricing drift in batch-sync approaches. A buyer who calls the customer service team and receives a quote will see the same price when they log into the portal immediately after, because both the phone system and the portal are reading from the same ERP pricing source. Role-based pricing ensures that buyers from different account tiers never see each other's contract prices.
Approval Workflow Configuration
Approval chains are configured through a rules engine rather than hard-coded logic. Administrators define approval triggers based on order value thresholds, product categories, specific SKUs, or combinations of these criteria. A wholesale buyer might require approval for orders above $5,000, while all purchases of a controlled-access product category require approval regardless of value. Approval notifications are sent via email with configurable templates, and approvers can act on pending orders from the email link without logging into the portal. The full approval audit trail is stored and visible to administrators, providing the compliance documentation that finance and operations teams require for high-value purchase authorization.
Architecture & Integration Notes
The B2B portal uses before/after hooks on the customer authentication flow to load role-specific configuration at login. A policy override controls the purchasing limit enforcement logic, allowing customization of the threshold evaluation without modifying core order submission code. The account hierarchy data is exposed via the Admin API, enabling CRM or ERP systems to push account structure updates programmatically. All role configurations are versioned and survive platform upgrades without regression.
AI Copilot for B2B Account Portal & Role Management
The AI copilot generates the initial account hierarchy mapping from your ERP customer schema, proposes role configurations based on your account data patterns, creates test user accounts for each role type, and validates that pricing and catalog restrictions are correctly enforced before go-live. Ongoing self-service administration — adding new roles, adjusting approval thresholds, onboarding new buying groups — is guided by the copilot with validation at each step.
AI Copilot — Available on Growth & Enterprise Plans
AI Copilot reduces implementation time for b2b account portal & role management by automatically generating field mappings, test datasets, and validation scripts based on your ERP schema — so your team can ship faster without writing repetitive configuration code.
Ready to see B2B Account Portal & Role Management in action?
Book a Commerce Blueprint call and get a live walkthrough tailored to your ERP and business requirements.
Before & After CommerceWeave
| Area | Before | After CommerceWeave |
|---|---|---|
| Area 1 | All B2B buyers see the same generic storefront regardless of their account or role | Each buyer sees a personalized portal filtered to their account, catalog, and pricing |
| Area 2 | High-value orders are approved via email chains and spreadsheets | Configurable approval workflows route orders automatically based on defined rules |
| Area 3 | Sales reps cannot see customer pricing or place orders on behalf of accounts | Sales rep role enables full customer-on-behalf ordering with ERP-accurate pricing |
| Area 4 | Adding a new buying group requires a developer sprint | Administrators configure new buying groups in minutes with AI copilot guidance |
Related Features
Contract Pricing & ERP Price Authority
Contract pricing, tier pricing, volume breaks, and customer-specific terms served in real time from your ERP — the single source of truth for every price your customers see.
Quotes, Approvals & Order Workflows
From quote request through negotiation, approval, and order conversion — a complete B2B order workflow that replaces email chains, spreadsheets, and off-system approval processes.
Multi-Store / Multi-Branch / Multi-Currency
Run distinct storefronts for different brands, entities, or branches from a single CommerceWeave installation. Shared or independent catalogs, pricing, inventory, and currency — configured per entity without code changes.
Frequently Asked Questions — B2B Account Portal & Role Management
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