Approve an application
Review a wholesale application and approve it in one step, with payment terms, tax, pricing tier and contact role set as B2B Desk creates the Shopify company.
Approving an application creates the company, its location and its contact in Shopify, then sets their payment terms, tax, contact role, pricing and tags, all in one step. Everything is filled in from the application and from a preset, so most approvals are a check and a click.
Open the application
Go to Applications. The To review view lists applications that are New or Needs info, oldest first. Click a company name to open it.
Before you approve, look at three cards:
- Application: the applicant’s answers, addresses and Documents.
- Duplicate check (in the sidebar): whether the company or person is already in Shopify. If it finds a match, see Handle duplicates and existing companies.
- Timeline (in the sidebar): what has happened so far, such as an information request.
Fill in the approval form
The approval form sits below the application. Work through it from the top:
- Apply a preset. Choose one under Apply a preset to fill in payment terms, tax, pricing, role and tags. You can still change any of them below. See Save your approval settings as presets.
- Company and location. Under Add the applicant to, keep A new company. Check Company name and Location name (“Buyers pick it at checkout, for example Boulder store.”). Both start as the applicant’s company name. Company note is optional and only staff see it. To change the addresses, click Edit addresses.
- Main contact. The contact gets a customer account to sign in and order. If the applicant already has a customer account, Use the existing customer account is ticked, and their name and email stay as they are.
- Payment and tax. Choose Payment terms, or leave No payment terms so buyers pay at checkout. Tick Submit all orders as drafts for review to approve each order yourself, and Tax exempt to charge no tax. Tax ID starts with the number from the application. Tax exemptions lists only exemptions that apply to the location’s state or province.
- Pricing and access. Pick the Pricing tier (B2B market): “The market decides which catalog prices the buyer sees.” On Plus, pick Catalogs instead. Choose the Role at the location and any Customer tags.
- Welcome email. Send the welcome email is on by default. It tells the buyer how to sign in and order.
Then click Approve at the top of the page. There’s no confirmation step.
Roles at the location
| Role | What the contact can do |
|---|---|
| Location admin | “Places orders, sees every order for the location and manages its addresses and payment methods.” |
| Ordering only | “Places orders and sees only their own orders.” |
What happens after you click Approve
The application moves to Approving and the page shows “Setting up the company in Shopify with its terms, tax, role and pricing. This page updates on its own.” Each step runs in order in the background. When they finish, you see “Application approved” and an Approved banner with View company.
If a field needs fixing first, a banner like “Fix 2 fields to approve” links to each one, for example “Use a two-letter country code, like US”.
If a step fails in Shopify, the banner names it, like “Company created; payment terms failed”. Finished steps never run twice. See Finish an approval that stopped.
What the buyer gets
If Send the welcome email was on, the buyer gets “Your wholesale account is ready”. It tells them to sign in at your store’s /account page with the email they applied with, using a one-time code instead of a password. Once signed in, they see their wholesale prices and payment terms.
You can’t undo an approval in B2B Desk. To reverse one, edit or delete the company in Customers › Companies in your Shopify admin.