Prepare your store
Lesson 2 of 18 6 min read
The access, SKU clean-up and decisions to have in place before you connect Shopify.
Most Shopify integrations that struggle in their first week struggle for the same reasons: SKUs that don't match, or decisions nobody made in advance, such as which customer account web orders should go to. In this lesson you'll gather everything you need so the setup itself is quick.
The prerequisites
You need three things before you can create the Integration:
- An active Shopify store. Any Shopify plan will do.
- Admin access to that store. Some steps, such as approving access for Supply Lens, need the store owner.
- A Supply Lens account, with permission to add Integrations.
Get your SKUs in line
Supply Lens matches products by SKU. When an order arrives with a SKU it can't match, it holds the Document and raises an error rather than creating a partial or wrong order. That protects you, but it's far better to fix SKUs before go-live than one held order at a time afterwards.
Work through this checklist for every product you plan to sync:
- Every SKU that will appear on a Shopify order exists in your back-office system's item master.
- SKUs match exactly across systems, including letter case (
Widget-Aandwidget-aare different), separators (hyphens or underscores) and leading zeros. - There are no duplicate SKUs in either system.
- Every variant (each size or colour, for example) has its own unique SKU, in a format you've agreed across systems.
- Bundles and kits are accounted for: either the bundle SKU exists as a single record in your back-office system, or you've agreed with your Supply Lens contact how component lines will be handled.
- Where another system uses different codes for the same product, cross-reference records are in place in Supply Lens before going live.
Variants without SKUs
Every variant needs its own SKU. A variant with a blank SKU gives Supply Lens nothing to match on, so find and fill these in Shopify before you start.
Decisions to make before you configure
You'll meet each of these as a setting later in the course. Agreeing them now, with whoever runs finance and fulfilment, saves rework.
| Decision | Why it matters | Where it's set |
|---|---|---|
| Which orders should come in? | For example, only paid and unfulfilled orders, and whether to include point-of-sale orders. | Order settings |
| Which customer should each order belong to? | One generic web customer, or matched to real customer accounts (common for B2B). | Order settings |
| How should tax be coded? | Shopify labels a 20% and a 5% UK line the same way; you may need rate-specific tax codes. | Order settings |
| Should Shopify email customers when you ship? | Turning this on sends Shopify's fulfilment email. | Shipment settings |
| Which stock figure should Shopify show? | Available or on-hand, and whether to stop negative stock showing. | Inventory settings |
| Where do products live? | Imported from Shopify into the back office, or maintained elsewhere and pushed to Shopify. | Product settings |
It also helps to gather a few representative sample orders (a normal order, a discounted one, a multi-item one and, if you sell them, a gift card or B2B order). You'll use them when you test.
Hilltop Coffee gets ready
Priya exports Hilltop's Shopify products and Unleashed products and compares the SKU
columns. She finds that Shopify uses HC-ESP-1KG while Unleashed has HC-ESP-1kg. Because
case matters, she fixes the Unleashed codes before going any further. She also agrees with
the finance team that all web orders go to a single Unleashed customer called
SHOPIFY WEB, and that point-of-sale orders from their café stay out of the integration
for now.
Recap
- You need an active Shopify store, admin access (store owner for approvals) and a Supply Lens account.
- SKUs must match exactly across systems; unmatched SKUs hold the order.
- Check for blank, duplicate and differently cased SKUs, and plan for bundles.
- Agree the order, customer, tax, notification, stock and product decisions before you configure.
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