Getting started with Wholora

Before you start

Wholora works with native Shopify B2B. Credit limits are set for company locations, and approving a wholesale application creates a Shopify company with a location and a contact. Shopify B2B is available on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans, not on Starter or Retail.

You don't need any companies yet. Credit limits work for any company location, including companies you create yourself or through Shopify's own company account request form.

Install Wholora

1. Open Wholora on the Shopify App Store at apps.shopify.com/wholora and click Install.
2. Follow Shopify's steps to finish the install. Wholora then opens in your Shopify admin.
3. Wholora starts on the Free plan. You can change plans at any time on its Plans page.
4. The “Get set up” section on Wholora's Home page lists your next steps, starting with a credit limit.

Add the application page to your store menu

Your store already has a wholesale application page at /apps/wholora/apply, for example https://your-store.com/apps/wholora/apply. Wholora serves it inside your theme, so there's nothing to set up in the theme editor. Buyers can find it once you link it from a menu.

In Wholora, Home and Application form show the page's full address, with “Copy link” and “View page” buttons and an “Open Menus” link.

1. In Shopify admin, go to Content → Menus and click the title of your main menu or footer menu.
2. Click “Add menu item” and enter a name, such as “Wholesale”.
3. In the “Search or paste a link” field, enter /apps/wholora/apply and select it in the list under the field. Use this path rather than the full address, so buyers stay on the domain they're browsing.
4. Click Add, then save the menu.

Change the application form

Open Application form in Wholora to edit the heading, the introduction, the submit button and the message buyers see after submitting. You can also choose which standard fields to show or require, and add your own questions. Click “Save form”: changes go live right away, and fonts and colors follow your theme.

Prefer the form on a page you design? On Application form, click “Add form to theme” to open the theme editor, then add the “Wholesale application” block to a page template. Theme app blocks need an Online Store 2.0 theme.

If buyers can't find the application page

Check that a menu links to /apps/wholora/apply: in Shopify admin, go to Content → Menus. The ready-made page needs no theme setup. The “Wholesale application” block is only for a page you design.

If the page shows “This form is not available right now.” instead of the form, open Wholora once from your Shopify admin and reload the page. If the message stays, email us.

Set your first credit limit

A credit limit caps what one company location can owe you on unpaid orders. When an order would take the location's unpaid balance over its limit, checkout shows your message and the order can't be placed.

Credit limits are on every plan: Free for up to 3 company locations, Growth for up to 25 company locations, and Pro for any number.

1. In Wholora, open Credit limits. It lists the company locations in your store, and you can search by company or location name. If your store has no company yet, click “Create a company in Shopify”, or approve a wholesale application to create one.
2. Click a company name to open that location.
3. Under “Set limit”, enter an amount in “Credit limit” and click Save.
4. When a location gets its limit, Wholora imports its unpaid orders from the last 60 days, the order history Shopify lets apps read. New orders, payments and cancellations then update the balance automatically. Unpaid orders older than 60 days aren't included.
5. To change the message buyers see, open Approval settings and edit “Message when the limit would be exceeded” under Credit limits. Use {available}, {limit} or {outstanding} to insert amounts, then click “Save settings”.
6. To remove a limit later, clear the amount on the location's page and click Save.

Make sure the checkout rule is on

Wholora checks credit limits with a Shopify checkout rule named “Wholora credit limits”. Wholora adds the rule and turns it on the first time you open Credit limits. Saving a credit limit also turns it back on if it was off.

The Credit limits page warns you when the rule isn't working:

• “Checkout rule not active yet”: click “Sync unpaid orders” to switch it on.
• “Checkout rule is turned off”, under “Checkout safety”: the rule was turned off in Shopify. Click “Turn the checkout rule back on”.
• “Checkout rule was deleted in Shopify”: click “Turn the checkout rule back on” to add it again.
• To check in Shopify admin, go to Settings → Checkout. “Wholora credit limits” is listed in the Checkout rules section; select it to turn it on or off.
• If the credit check itself can't run (rare), the buyer can complete checkout by default. To block checkout instead, choose “Block checkout” under “If the credit check can't run” in “Checkout safety” and click Save. In Shopify admin, this is the rule's “Allow all customers to complete checkout” option.

Test it as a buyer

Test as a buyer signed in as a company contact. A checkout without a signed-in company contact is a regular retail checkout, so no credit limit applies to it. Our credit limit guide has the full steps.

1. In Shopify admin, go to Customers → Companies and pick a company location, or create a test company. Its contact needs an email address you can open. Both Shopify permission levels, Ordering only and Location admin, can place orders.
2. In Wholora, give that location a small limit, for example 10.00 in your store currency. On the Free plan it counts toward the 3 credit-limit locations until you remove it.
3. Open your store in a private browser window, sign in with the contact's email address, and choose the company location if you're asked.
4. Add products worth more than the limit to the cart and go to checkout. Your message appears and the order can't be placed. Adding to the cart isn't blocked: the check runs at checkout.
5. Remove the test limit afterwards: clear the amount on the location's page and click Save.

If an order over the limit goes through

Check these in order:

1. The buyer signed in as a contact of the company location that has the limit, not as a customer without a company.
2. Your plan covers the location (Free for up to 3 company locations, Growth for up to 25 company locations, and Pro for any number). A location beyond your plan's count shows “Paused — plan limit” on Credit limits.
3. Credit limits shows no checkout rule warning. “Checkout rule was deleted in Shopify” shows at the top of the page, “Checkout rule is turned off” under “Checkout safety” at the bottom. If you see either, click “Turn the checkout rule back on”.
4. The balance is what you expect. The location's page lists the unpaid orders Wholora counts. Orders placed before the location got its limit count only if they're from the last 60 days.
5. The order is one Shopify runs checkout rules for. It doesn't run them for some orders, such as orders that apps create with Shopify's orderCreate API and edits to existing orders, so Wholora can't stop those. The location's balance still includes them.

Block orders while invoices are overdue

On Growth and Pro, Wholora's Credit limits page also has an “Overdue blocking” section. Click “Turn on overdue blocking”, and checkout blocks new orders from company locations with overdue invoices, with or without a credit limit. To change what buyers see, edit “Message when invoices are overdue” in Approval settings.

On Growth and Pro, Wholora tracks the balance of every company location, not only those with a limit. When Credit limits shows “Import unpaid orders”, click “Sync unpaid orders” to import every location's unpaid orders from the last 60 days, so balances and the Receivables page are complete.

Review and approve applications

New applications appear in Applications, which opens on the “Pending” filter, and on Home under “Waiting for review”. Each application shows the applicant's answers. EU VAT numbers are checked in VIES on every plan, and the application shows the result: VAT valid, VAT not valid or VIES unavailable.

On Free, the first 15 applications each month can be approved. Later ones are saved and marked “Over limit”, and you can approve them after you upgrade. There's no monthly limit on Growth and Pro.

1. Open an application and check the answers.
2. Click “Approve and create company”. Wholora creates the Shopify B2B company, its location and the contact. The “On approval” box on the page lists what else your plan sets up.
3. Let the buyer know they're approved. They sign in to your store with the email address they applied with. On Growth and Pro, Wholora can email them for you: turn on “Email applicants when they are approved or rejected” in Approval settings.
4. To turn an application down, click Reject, add a reason if you want to, and click “Reject application”. “Move back to pending” reopens a rejected application.

Choose what approved buyers get

Approved buyers see wholesale prices when their company location is in a B2B market with your wholesale catalog. On the Markets page of your Shopify admin, create a B2B market with “Company locations” selected under “Includes”, and give it your wholesale catalog. If you turn on the setting to include all existing and future locations, approved buyers get its prices with no extra steps when their shipping address is in the market's regions. The setting's label names those regions, such as “in all regions”. Shopify only lets you choose that when you create the market.

On Growth and Pro, open Approval settings and choose what approval sets up: the B2B market to add buyers to (or, on Shopify Plus, a catalog), payment terms, tax exemption when the EU VAT number is valid, and a default credit limit for newly approved buyers. Then click “Save settings”.

On Growth and Pro, “When an application arrives” can also approve every application automatically, or only when the EU VAT number is valid in VIES. It stays on “Hold for manual review” until you change it.

You can also set payment terms for any location yourself: in Shopify admin, go to Customers → Companies, open the company and its location, and edit “Payment terms”.

If approved buyers don't see wholesale prices

Buyers see wholesale prices after they sign in with the email address they applied with. Check that their company location is in a B2B market that has your wholesale catalog. If the market only covers some regions, check that the location's shipping address is in one of them. On Shopify Plus, a catalog can also be assigned directly to the location.

On Growth and Pro, Wholora adds approved buyers to the market or catalog you pick in Approval settings.

If approval shows an error

The message in the red “Shopify could not complete this action” banner comes from Shopify. It's usually about the format of an address or phone number. Click “Approve and create company” again: Wholora continues where it stopped and doesn't create duplicates. If the error stays, email us the message.

Plans and billing

Free is $0, Growth is $19 a month and Pro is $49 a month. Paid plans include a free trial of up to 14 days; Shopify subtracts any Wholora trial days your store used in the last 180 days. Billing is handled by Shopify and appears on your Shopify invoice.

To change plans, open Plans in Wholora and click the button under the plan you want, such as “Upgrade to Growth”. Shopify's plan page opens for you to confirm. You can change or cancel at any time.

If you move to a plan with fewer credit-limit locations, the limits set first stay checked at checkout. The others are kept but paused, shown as “Paused — plan limit”, until you remove a limit or upgrade.

What each plan includes:

• Credit limits enforced at checkout: Free for up to 3 company locations, Growth for up to 25 company locations, and Pro for any number.
• The application page, the form block and one-click approval, with up to 15 applications a month on Free, unlimited on Growth and Pro.
• EU VAT number checks in VIES on every plan, and approval rules on Growth and Pro.
• Approval defaults on Growth and Pro: the B2B market or catalog, payment terms, tax exemption for valid EU VAT numbers and a default credit limit.
• Blocking new orders while invoices are overdue, and the receivables aging report, on Growth and Pro.
• CSV export on Growth and Pro.
• Shopify Flow triggers and approval and rejection emails to applicants on Growth and Pro.

Get help

Email support@wholora.app with questions, or when something doesn't work as you expect. The Help box on Wholora's Home page has the same address, a link to the credit limit test steps and a link to our guides.

Tell us what you did, what you expected and any message Wholora or Shopify showed. Please leave out your buyers' personal details, such as names, email addresses and street addresses. Your store's myshopify.com address and what you saw are usually enough for us to look into it.