BigCommerce ERP Integration: How Online Orders Automatically Create Work Orders

If you run a manufacturing or make-to-order business alongside an e-commerce store, you've probably experienced the gap: a customer places an online order, and then someone manually creates a work order in your ERP an hour (or a day) later. That lag creates fulfillment delays, inventory discrepancies, and operational friction that grows worse with volume.

TallyArc's BigCommerce integration eliminates this gap entirely. The moment a customer places an order on your BigCommerce store, TallyArc receives a real-time webhook notification and automatically creates a Work Order in the manufacturing module — matched to your bill of materials, with the correct quantities and customer details. No manual step, no delay.

How the real-time webhook integration works

BigCommerce supports webhooks — HTTP callbacks that fire when specific events occur on your store. TallyArc registers a store/order/created webhook with BigCommerce when you connect your store. Here's the sequence:

1. A customer completes checkout on your BigCommerce store
2. BigCommerce fires the store/order/created webhook to TallyArc within seconds
3. TallyArc validates the webhook (HMAC signature verification), fetches full order details from the BigCommerce Orders V2 API, and reads the line items
4. For each product in the order, TallyArc looks up the matching Bill of Materials in your manufacturing module
5. A Work Order is created automatically, numbered with a WO-BC prefix (e.g. WO-BC0001), linked to the order ID and customer
6. The work order enters the standard manufacturing lifecycle: Draft → Released → In Progress → Complete

The entire process — from customer clicking "Place Order" to a work order appearing in your manufacturing queue — takes seconds. Your shop floor has production instructions before the customer's order confirmation email has finished loading.

The WO-BC prefix: identifying BigCommerce-sourced work orders

Work orders created from BigCommerce orders are prefixed with WO-BC followed by a four-digit sequential number (e.g. WO-BC0001, WO-BC0002). This makes it immediately obvious in your work order list which orders came from your e-commerce channel versus internal production requests or manually created orders.

This prefix convention also makes filtering and reporting straightforward: you can see at a glance how many of your open work orders are fulfilling online customer orders, and track e-commerce fulfillment separately from internal manufacturing.

Inventory stays in sync automatically

TallyArc's BigCommerce integration is bidirectional. When you update raw material inventory in TallyArc (through goods receipts, material consumption on work orders, or manual adjustments), the system recalculates the Available to Promise (ATP) quantity for each finished good and pushes updated stock levels to BigCommerce automatically.

This means your BigCommerce product listings always reflect your actual manufacturing capacity — not a stale inventory snapshot. When a raw material runs low, product availability on your storefront updates accordingly, preventing oversells before they happen.

Product catalog sync

When you add a Bill of Materials in TallyArc, the system can push the product to your BigCommerce catalog with pricing, description, and category assignment. Products are listed under your configured storefront category (e.g. "Shop All") and set as visible and available immediately.

Images can be generated automatically for catalog products using TallyArc's built-in product image generator — useful when you're setting up a new product line and need placeholder images before professional photography is ready.

Setting up the BigCommerce integration

1. In TallyArc, go to Sales Channels and click Connect on the BigCommerce tile
2. Enter your BigCommerce API credentials (Client ID, Access Token, Store Hash) from your BigCommerce API Accounts page
3. Ensure your API token has the following scopes: Products (Read-Write), Orders (Read-Only), Webhooks (Read-Write)
4. TallyArc registers the order webhook automatically on connect
5. Click Sync Products to push your existing BOMs to your BigCommerce catalog

From that point, every new online order creates a work order in real time. Your manufacturing queue and your e-commerce store are one system.