Frequently Asked Questions

We hear a lot of questions from our clients and prospects, in the section below you can get the answer to some of the questions we hear often. If there is a question that is not found below please feel free to reach out and we will be happy to help.

How does this work?

Our extension instantly makes your existing Shopify store punchout compatible. The extension connects to our cloud platform which handles the communication between your customers platform on your shopify store.

We can customize the data mapping between your store but usually the connection works without any additional configuration.

When customers connect to your store we create a punchout session and modify the shopping cart page to redirect these users to their ERP or eProcurement system instead of standard checkout.

This allows your customers to find your products or services and purchase them directly from their Ariba, Coupa, etc platform.

What is a punchout catalog?

A punchout catalog is an integrated connection to a buyers e-procurement or ERP system that presents your goods and services to the buyer on your website.
The catalog integration happens over cXML or OCI standards and allows the buyer to “punch out” to your application.

This integration allows the user to find items on your catalog and return them to their platform for workflow approval, accounting assignment and additional steps.

In the punchout process the first step is to create a shopping cart in your punchout enabled catalog. The cart is then transferred to the external system to complete the punchout process and the application keeps track of these orders and shows a list of the carts that have been transferred to external eProcurement and ERP systems.

Are punchout connections based on standards?

Yes, connections to punchout sites most commonly happen over cXML (Commerce extensible Markup Language) or OCI (open catalog interface) connections.

Nearly all procurement systems and ERP solutions use these standards to communicate with your punchout enabled catalog.

What types of transactions are supported?

Our Shopify plugin allows the transferred cart part of the punchout process. This is the most utilized punchout option where customers connect to your store from their platform and find the goods and services they need.

The process to receive the purchase orders and create invoices is handled outside of Shopify.

Do you support custom mapping / extrinsics?

Yes, in some cases your customer will ask for specific data to be added to the cXML or OCI data format. This additional data is sometimes needed by the customer to process the transaction effectively and PunchOut can support custom data mappings in our cloud integration framework. Please contact us to update your mappings.