Applications Guide

When a customer submits a registration form on your storefront, an application is created with a pending status. From there, you review the submission and take one of three actions:

• Approve — creates a Shopify customer account and sends a welcome email
• Reject — declines the application and notifies the customer
• Request more information — asks the customer for additional details before deciding

The status flow is: pending → approved / rejected / info-requested. You can manually update the status at any time from the application detail page.

The applications list shows all submissions across your forms. Each row displays the customer name, email address, associated form name, submission date, and a colour-coded status badge.

Before your first application arrives, this page shows a 'No applications yet' panel with three actions — copy your registration link, open Shopify's navigation editor to add the link to your store menu, and preview the form as a customer.

Use the status filter tabs at the top of the list to narrow down applications:

• All — every application regardless of status
• Pending — applications awaiting your review
• Approved — applications you have approved
• Rejected — applications you have declined
• Info Requested — applications where you have asked for more details

You can also search by customer name or email address using the search field to quickly find a specific application.

Click any application to open its detail view. Here you will find the full submission data including all form fields, any uploaded files, and the complete action timeline showing every status change and note.

Approving an application triggers three actions:

1. Creates a Shopify customer account using the submitted contact information (name, email, phone, and address fields)
2. Applies customer tags from your Approved tags list (Settings → Customer Tags) plus any per-option tags attached to the applicant's selected form field options, so you can identify B2B customers in Shopify admin and set up automatic discount rules
3. Sends an approval email notifying the customer that their application has been accepted

Rejecting an application sends a rejection email notification to the customer. The application remains in the system for your records — it is not deleted. You can still view the full submission and timeline at any time.

If you need additional details before making a decision, you can request more information from the customer:

1. Click Request Info on the application detail page
2. Write a custom message explaining what additional information or documents you need
3. The application status changes to info-requested and the customer receives an email with your message
4. After receiving the customer's response through other channels (email, phone, etc.), you can manually update the application status to continue the review

Note: Customer responses are received through your regular communication channels (email, phone). The application timeline can be updated manually to reflect the response.

When you approve an application, B2B Onboard applies tags from two sources: the Approved tags list configured in Settings → Customer Tags, and any per-option tags attached to options the applicant selected on select or multi-select form fields. Both are merged additively — existing tags on a returning customer are preserved and never removed.

Tags are useful for:

• Identifying B2B customers in Shopify admin — filter your customer list by tag to see all wholesale accounts
• Automatic discount rules — create Shopify discounts that apply only to customers with specific tags
• Segmentation — use tags to build customer segments for targeted marketing or reporting

Select multiple applications using checkboxes on the Applications page to approve or reject them all in one action.

Bulk actions respect Shopify API rate limits and process sequentially. Each application in a bulk action gets its own timeline entry, email notification, and customer account (if approved).

When a form includes a Tax ID field, submitted VAT numbers are verified automatically:

• EU VAT numbers are checked against the VIES database

Verification status appears as a badge on the application detail page: Verified, Invalid, or Pending.

You can re-verify a VAT number at any time from the application detail page. When an application with a verified VAT is approved, the customer can be automatically marked as tax-exempt in Shopify.

The full verification evidence — status, the verified company name and address, the verification source, and the VIES consultation number (a timestamped proof token issued by VIES) — is recorded on each application and included in the applications CSV export. This gives you the documentation needed to defend a reverse-charge claim under EU VAT rules.

On stores with native B2B enabled, approving an application creates or matches a B2B Company in Shopify depending on your matching configuration. The Company includes:

• A contact from the applicant's details
• A location from address fields
• The tax ID from the form submission

If you have configured a B2B catalog in Settings, it is automatically assigned to the new Company. If catalog assignment fails (for example, the catalog no longer exists, or your plan's catalog limit has been reached), the approval still completes and a "Catalog not assigned" warning appears in the success message — the Company is created and you can assign the catalog manually in Shopify.

Before approving: Company creation requires a valid phone number in international format (e.g. +1 555 123 4567) and a recognised country on the address field. If either is missing or malformed, approval is blocked and the offending fields are highlighted — edit the application and approve again.

This feature is detected automatically — no setup needed. If your store has native B2B access, Companies are created on approval.

B2B Company Matching

When company matching is enabled in Settings, the application detail page shows a B2B Company Matching card in the right sidebar for pending applications. The card evaluates three independent signals to determine whether the applicant may belong to an existing B2B Company:

• VAT / Tax ID — high-confidence signal. Matches the applicant's VAT number against existing company contacts' notes.
• Email domain — medium-confidence signal. Compares the applicant's email domain against contacts in existing companies. Freemail providers (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) are excluded automatically.
• Company name — low-confidence signal. Exact case-insensitive match against existing company names.

The matching card displays one of three states:

• Existing company found (amber) — a high-confidence match was detected. Shows the company name, contact count, and which signals matched. You can choose Add to company to assign the applicant as a contact on the existing company, or Create new to create a separate company as usual.
• Possible match — verify manually (red) — a low or medium-confidence match was found. The same options are available, but Create new is visually emphasised as the safer default.
• No matching company found (blue) — no signals matched. A new B2B Company will be created on approval.

If you click Approve Application without selecting an option on the matching card, a prompt appears asking you to choose before proceeding.

When VAT auto-match is enabled in Settings and a high-confidence VAT match exists, the applicant is automatically assigned to the existing company on approval without prompting. The matching card still appears on the review page for transparency.

Every action taken on an application is logged with a timestamp and the actor who performed it. The timeline on the application detail page shows the full history, including:

• Submission — when the customer originally submitted the form
• Status changes — approvals, rejections, and information requests with who made the decision
• Notes — any messages sent to the customer when requesting more information
• Customer responses — when the customer replied to an information request and what they provided

This audit trail gives you a complete record of every interaction, which is helpful for compliance and team handoffs.