Yes — DealerConnect integrates with SAP in real time through standard SAP APIs (OData services for S/4HANA, Service Layer for Business One), without any intermediate data store or synchronisation schedule. When a dealer views product pricing, the portal calls the SAP pricing determination API with the dealer's customer number and material — the same pricing logic that generates the SAP sales order — and returns the result directly. When a dealer checks stock availability, the portal calls the SAP inventory management API for real-time stock data. When a dealer places an order, the portal creates a SAP sales order via API — the order appears in SAP within seconds and is available for the warehouse to pick immediately. This direct integration has two important implications: first, there is no data discrepancy between what the portal shows and what SAP holds, eliminating the commercial disputes that arise when portal pricing differs from invoice pricing. Second, there is no batch upload window during which the systems are out of sync — a dealer who places an order at 11pm sees their order confirmed and in SAP status immediately, not the next morning after an overnight sync job runs.

Yes — product visibility and pricing are both dealer-specific, controlled entirely by SAP configuration. Product visibility is managed through SAP sales area assignments and customer material information records — a dealer who is not authorised to sell a specific product category simply does not see those products in the portal catalogue. Pricing is determined by SAP's pricing procedure, which considers the dealer's customer pricing group, discount agreements, volume rebate conditions, special pricing agreements and any active promotional prices — exactly the same pricing logic that generates their invoices. When you update a dealer's pricing agreement in SAP, the portal reflects the change immediately on their next login or page refresh. A dealer in one region can see region-specific pricing while a dealer in another region sees their own pricing — all controlled from SAP, not from a separate portal configuration. Credit limits are also dealer-specific and enforced at order placement — a dealer who has reached their credit limit cannot place a new order until the limit is restored, either by payment or by the manufacturer increasing the limit in SAP.

For an existing SAP Business One or S/4HANA customer with a clean customer master and established pricing conditions, a standard DealerConnect deployment typically takes 6–10 weeks. The phases are: SAP connectivity setup and API configuration (1–2 weeks), portal configuration to match your product catalogue structure, dealer groups and business rules (2–3 weeks), branding and user interface customisation (1 week), user acceptance testing with a sample of dealer users (1–2 weeks) and go-live with dealer onboarding (1 week). The timeline extends if your SAP customer master data needs cleaning, if pricing conditions are inconsistently maintained in SAP, or if you need custom functionality beyond the standard DealerConnect feature set. The fastest path to go-live is an SAP customer with clean data, consistent pricing conditions and a clear set of dealer user roles — in that scenario, a 6-week deployment is achievable. Dealer onboarding — communicating the portal to your dealer network, providing login credentials and running training sessions — is typically handled in parallel with the final testing phase so dealers are ready to use the portal from day one.

By default, orders placed through DealerConnect create SAP sales orders in a confirmed status — they flow directly to the warehouse picking queue without manual intervention. This is the primary operational benefit: dealer orders do not need to be rekeyed or reviewed by an inside sales person before they reach the warehouse. However, DealerConnect supports configurable order hold scenarios for situations where manual review is appropriate. A configurable credit limit check holds orders that would exceed the dealer's SAP credit limit and routes a notification to the relevant accounts receivable manager. Orders above a configurable value threshold can be configured to require approval from a sales manager before confirmation. New dealer registrations in the portal can be configured to require manufacturer approval before the dealer account is activated. All these scenarios are configurable — the default is straight-through processing with SAP business rule enforcement (credit check, pricing validation, material availability check) replacing human review. For manufacturers who currently have an inside sales person who reviews every dealer order before processing it in SAP, transitioning to straight-through processing requires confidence that the SAP business rules — particularly pricing and credit limits — are correctly configured, which is part of the DealerConnect implementation assessment.

Yes — secondary sales visibility is one of the significant analytical benefits of a dealer portal. When dealers place orders through DealerConnect, the order data — what was ordered, in what quantity, from which dealer, for which territory — is in SAP in real time. For manufacturers who previously received dealer orders by phone, email or spreadsheet and manually entered them into SAP, this shift to portal ordering means the manufacturer's SAP system now has accurate, timely data on what every dealer is ordering, at what frequency and in what volumes. This data directly improves demand planning — MRP can plan production and purchasing based on actual observed dealer demand rather than manually compiled distributor reports. For manufacturers who operate a multi-tier distribution structure — manufacturer to distributor to dealer — DealerConnect can extend across tiers: distributors place orders on the manufacturer's portal, and distributors can provide their sub-dealers with a secondary portal that creates orders in the distributor's SAP system. Tertiary sales data — what end dealers are buying from distributors — becomes visible to the manufacturer through this chain. 2iSolutions' Distribution Management Solution (built on SAP BTP alongside DealerConnect) addresses this full multi-tier secondary and tertiary sales visibility use case for manufacturers with complex distribution networks.