These are the questions people most often ask about xMatix Commerce, whether they are evaluating it, running it or teaching it. Each answer says what the platform does today and links to the page that explains it in full. For the mechanisms, start with the Commerce section and the Sales documentation.
Common questions
Is Commerce a separate product with its own order pipeline?
No. Commerce is the selling layer of the same platform. It adds merchandised store catalogues, cart-style order capture, the dealer purchase-order handoff, partner microsites and the online storefront, and every one of them produces a standard sales order. There is no integration seam between "the shop" and "the back office": one order document, one pricing engine, one receivables ledger. A storefront order is stamped with the channel it came from, so you can still tell where it was placed, but it appears in the same order lists, reports and mobile app as every other order.
How do dealers and customers actually place orders?
There are five routes, and they all end in the same sales order:
- Product Catalogue on an open order: browse the store's catalogue and add lines cart-style.
- Create Dealer Order: the dealer's purchase order becomes your sales order, and the outstanding quantity is tracked line by line.
- By hand in the Sales app.
- Field-sales capture during visits, including van sales.
- The online storefront: a cart and checkout on a portal, a partner microsite or your own front end.
Dealer ordering covers the first two. Direct-to-consumer selling covers the storefront.
Is there an online storefront with a checkout?
Yes. When a portal is linked to a commerce channel, visitors get the published catalogue with a real cart and checkout. Guests can check out without an account, and the basket follows them into their account when they sign in. The storefront offers three ways to pay:
- Online payment through your own merchant account.
- Pay on account for signed-in customers with credit terms.
- Cash on delivery, if the channel switches it on.
Price, stock, coupon and delivery-slot checks all run before any money moves. A paid order lands Approved when the channel's Auto Approve Prepaid is on. Otherwise, and always for pay on account and cash on delivery, it lands Draft. See Portal storefronts and Payments and gateways.
Can each dealer have its own prices and discounts?
Yes. It is set up once, not typed on every order. Put dealers in a Price-type customer account group, or scope a price list by selling company, branch or partner account group. New documents then pick the matching active list automatically. When several lists match, the highest Sequence Number wins, so set it on purpose. A narrower list does not automatically beat a broader one. Contract discounts work the same way through discount groups, with Discount-type account groups. Price changes are dated rules, so documents dated before a change keep the old price. See Price lists and Catalogue and pricing.
Does the storefront show each customer their own price?
Not on the browse pages. The published catalogue shows one price per product, fixed when the store was last published. The customer's own terms are applied in the cart. The cart uses, in order:
- A price list naming that customer.
- A list for one of their customer groups.
- A general list.
It never prices from a list meant for someone else, and checkout uses that cart total. To refresh the browse prices, republish the store. Back-office documents use a different way of choosing the list, described in Catalogue and pricing.
Are trade schemes applied automatically, or worked out after the fact?
Automatically, when the document is saved. The scheme engine evaluates every approved Auto Apply scheme that is in its validity period. Qualifying slabs write scheme discounts onto the lines and add free-item lines. Apply On Selection schemes wait until someone applies them. Each applied benefit is recorded in the scheme ledger. Scheme-wide and per-partner budgets are counted from that ledger, and a benefit that no longer fits its budget is skipped. Scheme recommendations show how far an order is from the next slab while you build it. Storefront carts run the same engine but use up no budget until the order is placed. See Schemes and credit and Trade schemes.
What stops an over-extended dealer from ordering more?
A Credit Limit set per customer and per selling company. When a sales order is created, xMatix refuses it if the customer is already over the limit on their open receivables. The message reads "Credit limit exceeded for …", followed by the open amount, the order amount and the limit. An invoice is checked when it is created only if it carries a Finance Amount. The order check is part of saving the order, so it applies to storefront orders as well. Separately, the storefront offers pay on account only up to the customer's available credit. When the Sales setting Route credit limit breaches to an approval process is on, neither check blocks the document, and your approval process makes the decision instead. See Credit limits.
How are new dealers brought on?
Through a partner onboarding application. It records the applicant, the firm, the site, banking details and KYC documents. When it enters review, it checks the requirements you set for each partner type. Your approval process can then approve or reject it. Activate Partner turns an approved application into a live partner account. Activation creates the partner code, the head-office branch and the storage location, and sets the account up as a company. From then on the dealer is an account like any other, with its account groups, price-list scope and store link. Partner onboarding applications walks through each step.
Can partners sell our range on their own storefronts?
Yes. A partner microsite is a storefront channel for one partner, on its own web address and serving that partner's delivery areas. Orders are stamped with the partner as the selling company. A channel can also route each order to the partner that covers the shipping PIN code. Commission is worked out at the microsite's settlement percentage when the daily settlement job runs. See Partner microsites and order routing.
Can consumers create their own accounts?
Yes. Switch on Self-service signup on the portal. A shopper who signs up gets a new account with Account Type Consumer, a contact and an external login, and receives an email to set a password. A signup never takes over an existing customer's records, even when the email matches. The only exception is a guest who verified their checkout email and creates the account from the order confirmation screen. That login joins the account the guest order was placed on. See Consumer self-signup and accounts.
What happens after the order is placed?
The order follows the standard order-to-cash process: stock allocation, picking and fulfilment, delivery, invoicing and payment. All of these are documented under The sales order lifecycle and Invoicing and payments. Commerce adds nothing proprietary after the order, so reporting, finance and inventory see dealer and storefront business without any translation. One storefront-specific point: refunds of online payments are issued from your payment provider's dashboard, not from xMatix. xMatix then records them against the payment.