Moving to Business Central raises a question with a recurring subscription attached: does an integration platform need to sit between the ERP and every channel you sell through? For a consumer-goods distributor selling through 18 to 20 trading partners, a mix of big-box retailers, B2B marketplaces, and its own online stores, the answer came down to counting, partner by partner.
Partner List
Every trading partner in one column. Against each, two facts: does this partner require EDI (electronic data interchange, the structured document format large retailers mandate), or would an API connection serve you better? And roughly what monthly order volume runs through them?
Those two facts matter because the paths solve different problems. EDI is a requirement your customer imposes. If a large retailer transacts by EDI, you transact by EDI, and there is no negotiating it. An API connection is something you choose, usually when you want richer or more current exchange, such as exposing available-to-promise inventory so a channel cannot take an order you cannot fill.
EDI Requirement
If even 2 of your partners are national retailers that require EDI, that alone justifies a dedicated EDI service. SPS Commerce and TrueCommerce are the 2 names that come up most often alongside Business Central. They handle the mapping, the trading-partner setup, and the ongoing document flow, so none of it gets built and maintained in house. That part of the decision tends to make itself.
Remaining Channels
Business Central ships with native connectors for some channels, Shopify and Amazon among them, so any partner covered by one of those comes off the list. What remains is the set with no out-of-the-box connector: TikTok Shop, various B2B marketplaces, and retailers such as Walmart that can run either EDI or API.
Count what is left, and weigh it. A small handful of low-volume connections may not need a second paid product at all. A Microsoft shop already owns a platform to build on, since Power Automate and the wider Power Platform can move data on a schedule or a trigger, and at modest volumes that is a well-worn path. High transaction volumes change the arithmetic, and that is the point where a middleware layer starts to pay for itself.
| Situation | Likely Fit |
|---|---|
| Retailers that mandate EDI | A dedicated EDI service such as SPS Commerce or TrueCommerce |
| Shopify, Amazon | Native Business Central connectors |
| A few low-volume channels with no connector | Build on Power Platform |
| Many channels, or high volume, with no connector | A middleware layer |
Sequence
A middleware platform is a real recurring cost, and it is easy to buy one to cover a gap that turns out to be 2 or 3 lightweight connections. Separating the EDI requirements, which need their own service regardless, from the API preferences, some of which are already native, often shrinks the leftover scope to something buildable without another subscription. Sometimes it goes the other way and there are enough non-native, high-volume channels to warrant middleware. Either result rests on evidence rather than on a guess.
That list is a morning's work, and it decides a line item you carry every year. Bring us the partner list if you want a second read on which connections are native, which need EDI, and which are light enough to build.