Our WooCommerce wholesale plugin sets trade prices. What if they differ from the ERP?

The platform prices each line from your ERP and compares that with what the customer was charged at checkout. If the two disagree, the line is flagged in the review queue showing both figures, and a person decides which stands. That catches plugin rules that have drifted from the price list without anyone noticing, before the order is created or invoiced.

Can phone orders taken by the sales team go through the same dispatch process?

Yes. Phone and manual orders are entered on the same form the reviewers use, with the customer and products picked from your ERP. Because a person is keying them, they are approved as soon as they’re saved, then appear on the warehouse devices and go through packing and carrier booking exactly like a WooCommerce order.

What hardware does the warehouse need?

Rugged Android handhelds, which we recommend, configure and lock to the platform; a 4x6 label printer; an A4 printer for ship notes; and a small print PC we set up to drive both through PrintNode. You also need reliable Wi-Fi across the floor, or SIM cards in the devices. Staff sign in to a shared handheld with their name and a four-digit PIN.

What if a delivery costs more than the customer paid at checkout?

Once the parcel is weighed and measured, the platform gets a live price from the carrier or your rate card. If that differs from the delivery charge on the order, the order is held for the office instead of being booked straight away, so someone can decide whether to absorb the difference or amend the order before it is invoiced.

Can we start with order capture and add the warehouse later?

That’s how most projects run. The first phase covers capture, review and ERP sync, so WooCommerce and emailed orders reach your ERP checked and approved. Warehouse devices and carrier booking follow as a second phase once the first is settled. Each stage is useful by itself, and nothing in phase one has to be rebuilt to add phase two.

From WooCommerce checkout to a booked delivery

A bespoke platform that picks up each WooCommerce order, trade accounts and plugin fields included, checks it against your ERP and carries it through picking, packing and carrier booking.

Book a discovery call How pricing works

WooCommerce
Unleashed
DPD
PrintNode

09:41

Order queue

Dan W. · 7 to pick

3pm cutoff

SO-10482DPD

Northgate Trade

6 lines · TomorrowIn progress · Dan

SO-10479DPD

Ridgeway Building

3 lines · TomorrowTo pick

SO-10477TPN

Halden Facilities

11 lines · 23 OctTo pick

SO-10474Collection

Coastline

2 lines · 17 OctTo pick

Collections · 2

09:41

SO-10482

Northgate Trade · 4 of 6 picked

Fixings & consumables

CT-300

Cable ties 300mm, pack of 100

×40

PK-48

Packing tape 48mm × 66m

×20

GL-NIT-L

Nitrile gloves, box of 100

×30

Shelving & mounting

SB-KIT-L

Shelf bracket kit, large

×12

Spares

PT-WS-2

Pallet truck wheel set

×1

Tools & storage

TB-450

Tool bag, heavy duty

×6

Continue to packing

09:41

Packing

SO-10482 · DPD parcels

Parcel 1

Weight (kg)18.2

L (cm)60

W (cm)40

H (cm)40

Parcel 2

Weight (kg)12.6

L (cm)50

W (cm)40

H (cm)30

Add parcel

Total weight30.8 kg

Continue to photos

Zestcode Automation builds order platforms that take a WooCommerce order the moment it’s placed and carry it all the way to a booked delivery: checked against your ERP, approved, picked on a handheld, packed, labelled and tracked. It suits UK distributors and manufacturers whose WooCommerce store serves trade accounts as well as retail buyers, and whose warehouse still works from printed order sheets.

Plenty of distributor stores built on WooCommerce are far from standard. A wholesale pricing plugin sets trade prices, a custom checkout field collects the customer’s own PO number, another plugin offers a requested delivery date, and the account number lives in user meta. Generic connectors map the standard order fields well and quietly drop the rest, which is where the manual fixing starts.

Following one trade order from basket to van

Take a hypothetical order: a garden centre with a trade account orders 14 lines at 10:40, types its PO number into your custom field and asks for delivery on Thursday.

The order arrives. The platform reads it from WooCommerce, including the fields your plugins add, so the PO number and requested date travel with it.
The customer is matched. The trade account number or billing email is matched to the customer’s account in your ERP. A new trade customer can be created from the review screen in one click.
Each line is checked. Product codes are looked up in the ERP, stock is checked, and the price is compared with the ERP price rather than taken on trust from the plugin.
Someone approves it. Trade orders wait in the queue for a person. Card-paid retail orders can be set to approve automatically, but only once you ask for that.
The ERP order is created. Approval creates the sales order in your ERP with the garden centre’s PO number as the reference, just as your team would key it.
The warehouse picks it. The order appears on rugged Android handhelds, sorted by delivery date. The pick list follows product groups, the order is refreshed from the ERP when opened (so an office change made since approval is picked up), and packers record weights, dimensions and at least one photo.
The carrier is booked. Completing the pack prices the delivery live, books it, sends the label to a 4x6 printer and the ship note to an A4 printer through PrintNode, saves the tracking number and completes the order in the ERP.

Every step is logged against the person who did it, so a query on Friday can be traced from the checkout to the carrier booking. The warehouse and shipping pages show the device and label screens.

What we ask about your store before quoting

The written specification starts with how your WooCommerce site really behaves, not how a default install does. Typical questions:

Which plugins change prices, and should the ERP or the plugin win when they disagree?
Where do PO numbers, account numbers and delivery dates live in the order data?
Which orders are paid at checkout, and which go on account?
Do any customers order both online and by email, so duplicates need watching across both?
Which carriers and services do you use, and do your accounts have web or API access enabled?

Does the WooCommerce site itself need to change?

Usually not. The platform reads orders through WooCommerce’s own API using keys created in the store’s settings, so your theme, checkout and plugins stay as they are. Whether tracking numbers are also written back to WooCommerce, so customers see them in their account, is agreed during specification rather than assumed.

Budget, phases and ownership

Order to dispatch is usually delivered in two phases, around 14 weeks in total, for £20k–£30k excluding VAT. Phase one (capture, review and ERP sync) can stand alone at £8k–£12k. The prices here are indicative, and the fixed quote follows a free written specification.

Running it is inexpensive: hosting at roughly $25 a month, PrintNode at $9 a month once printing is automated, and a few pence per emailed order for AI reading. When the build is finished you own it outright, in hosting accounts held in your company’s name, without licence fees per user. Ongoing maintenance with us is available but never required.

Common questions

Straight answers to what people ask us about this before a call.

Our WooCommerce wholesale plugin sets trade prices. What if they differ from the ERP?
The platform prices each line from your ERP and compares that with what the customer was charged at checkout. If the two disagree, the line is flagged in the review queue showing both figures, and a person decides which stands. That catches plugin rules that have drifted from the price list without anyone noticing, before the order is created or invoiced.
Can phone orders taken by the sales team go through the same dispatch process?
Yes. Phone and manual orders are entered on the same form the reviewers use, with the customer and products picked from your ERP. Because a person is keying them, they are approved as soon as they’re saved, then appear on the warehouse devices and go through packing and carrier booking exactly like a WooCommerce order.
What hardware does the warehouse need?
Rugged Android handhelds, which we recommend, configure and lock to the platform; a 4x6 label printer; an A4 printer for ship notes; and a small print PC we set up to drive both through PrintNode. You also need reliable Wi-Fi across the floor, or SIM cards in the devices. Staff sign in to a shared handheld with their name and a four-digit PIN.
What if a delivery costs more than the customer paid at checkout?
Once the parcel is weighed and measured, the platform gets a live price from the carrier or your rate card. If that differs from the delivery charge on the order, the order is held for the office instead of being booked straight away, so someone can decide whether to absorb the difference or amend the order before it is invoiced.
Can we start with order capture and add the warehouse later?
That’s how most projects run. The first phase covers capture, review and ERP sync, so WooCommerce and emailed orders reach your ERP checked and approved. Warehouse devices and carrier booking follow as a second phase once the first is settled. Each stage is useful by itself, and nothing in phase one has to be rebuilt to add phase two.