TrueCommerce, a global provider of trading partner connectivity and integration solutions, has announced the Purchasing Group feature for its Nexternal eCommerce platform. Purchasing Groups provide buying and approval controls for B2B customers to self-manage purchases within their organization at a Merchant’s online store. It works by allowing Master Customers to create Purchasing Groups that comprise of sub customers. The Master Customer controls the approval status awarded to each sub customer, approves appropriate orders and has visibility to all of the orders placed by their organization.

“The established online order management processes are being reinvented almost in real time, and the current challenging economic situation has made them even more fluid,” said Ross Elliot, president of TrueCommerce. “Agile self-management of customer communities is a definite competitive advantage, and we have made additional technology investments to offer this option to our customer base.”

The Purchasing Group feature benefits include:

• Business customers can monitor and control their spending 
• Order notification and approval workflow reduces the B2B buying process friction when a business purchase approval is required
• Unique login for each customer within the group
• Roll-up group reporting allows customers to collectively evaluate and track the group’s purchase history
• Group members can add comments to approved or rejected orders
• Master Customers can set up multiple groups with different approval rules and members

"B2B digital commerce is inherently more complex than the typical eCommerce scenarios we are all used to. B2B sellers must offer their sellers granular workflows, where teams of buyers, with various roles and permissions, collaborate on orders," said Jordan Jewell, Research Manager for Digital Commerce at IDC. "TrueCommerce's addition of purchasing groups will help B2B merchants on the Nexternal platform enable more complex buying journeys that their clients need."

About TrueCommerce

TrueCommerce is the most complete way to connect your business across the supply chain, integrating everything from EDI, to inventory management, to fulfillment, to digital storefronts and marketplaces, to your business system, and to whatever comes next. To stay ahead in today’s dynamic global market, companies need to be able to do business in a lot of different directions at once. But too often, doing so means too many solutions and too much assembly required. For decades TrueCommerce has helped businesses be more connected, more supported, and more prepared for what’s next. That’s why thousands of companies – ranging from startups to the global Fortune 100, across various industries – rely on us.