What the solution is
Salesforce Commerce Cloud is the commerce part of Salesforce's cloud. What separates it from every other platform in the catalogue is not the commerce features but the neighbours: customer data, service, marketing and sales sit in the same platform and share the customer picture.
That is both the argument and the problem. If you already have Salesforce as your CRM, the commerce part is an extension of something you know, and the customer picture becomes one. If you do not, you are buying a very large platform to get a storefront, and then there are cheaper routes in the catalogue.
The integration to Business Central is i95Dev Connect, available on Salesforce AppExchange. The same vendor stands behind the Magento integration in this catalogue.
How the integration works
i95Dev Connect is a connector with a middleware layer, synchronising customers, orders, stock, items and prices between Salesforce and Business Central. The vendor stresses that the connector covers B2B flows such as company accounts, quotes, credit limits, payment terms and split shipments.
We have not been able to read technical documentation for the Salesforce edition specifically, and the assessment of the mechanics therefore rests partly on the vendor's description of their connector family as a whole. That is a real uncertainty, and it is worth settling, because Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Magento are very different platforms to integrate with.
Only Business Central online is documented. There are three parties in the setup, meaning Salesforce, i95Dev and your Business Central partner, and that is one of the most important practical facts: who is responsible when something does not work should be agreed in writing rather than discovered along the way.
Prices, discounts and agreements
Prices and price lists are synchronised from Business Central, and credit limits and payment terms come along. The agreed price can therefore come from the ERP.
Campaigns, cart rules and bundles belong in Salesforce. The platform has a very strong campaign and personalisation engine, and that is one of the reasons to choose it. That is why the solution carries the label for logic set up in two places.
The scaling trap of a transferred price matrix applies. With many thousand company accounts times many thousand items, those rows have to be kept fresh, and with a platform in this price class it is worth asking for a concrete figure rather than an assurance.
The order and the finance function
The order is created as a sales order in Business Central, and split shipments and split invoices are named as part of the connector's coverage. That is one of the items that becomes expensive if it is missing.
Because there is a middleware layer with a queue, there is a place outside both systems where an order can wait. With the order volume a Salesforce customer typically has, monitoring and alerting have to be in place before go-live rather than after.
VAT is decided by Salesforce on open selling, and an external tax engine is standard in this class. Reconciling the payment settlement is a separate job with real monthly work.
Who the solution fits
The solution fits a larger company that already has Salesforce as its CRM and wants commerce, service and marketing in the same customer picture. Within that profile there is no better choice, and the price becomes easier to defend because the platform is bought anyway.
It also fits an international setup with many markets, where personalisation and campaign work are competitive parameters. That is where the platform's strength lies.
The solution does not fit if Business Central is the whole business system and the storefront is the one addition you lack. Then you are buying a very large platform to get a storefront, and licence, implementation and operations all sit at the top of the catalogue.
What to settle before you decide
Pricing follows revenue. Salesforce Commerce Cloud is classically priced as a share of the revenue through the store, which means the bill grows with success. That is a different risk profile from a fixed subscription, and it should be calculated over three years rather than one.
Ask for technical documentation on the Salesforce edition of i95Dev Connect specifically, not on the connector family. That is the largest gap in our research, and it is the vendor's own material that can close it.
Ask to have the division of responsibility written down between Salesforce, i95Dev and your Business Central partner. Three parties is one more than most solutions in the catalogue, and it is the most frequent source of delay in projects of this kind.