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ERP guide

Business Central PIM: product information in Dynamics 365

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is a capable ERP for items, prices, stock and orders. Once you sell online in several channels or languages, teams start asking whether they need a Business Central PIM. This guide explains what Business Central itself offers for product information, where its limits are for e-commerce content, how a separate PIM connects to it, and how WISEPIM fits, without a native connector.

Diego Nijboer · WISEPIMLast updated:

Short answer

Business Central stores items with attributes, variants, categories, pictures and translated descriptions, which covers what an ERP needs. It is not built to manage long marketing content, SEO fields and channel-specific requirements across many sales channels. Most teams keep item numbers, prices and stock in Business Central and add a PIM for product content, connected through Excel or CSV files, the Business Central API or an integration platform. WISEPIM has no native Business Central connector; it works through file import and export and the WISEPIM API.

What Business Central stores about products

In Business Central a product is an item. The item card holds the item number, a description, a second description line, a GTIN, a category, prices, costs and inventory settings, plus a set of pictures. Around the item card, Microsoft provides several features that look like product information management:

  • Item attributes: defined on the Item Attributes page, with predefined values for option-type attributes. You assign them to items or to item categories, child categories inherit them, and users can filter the item list by attribute.
  • Item variants: variations such as color or size under one item record. A variant inherits the item's attributes, can override them and can have its own picture.
  • Item translations: a translated Description and Description 2 per language code, optionally per variant, used on documents for customers and vendors with that language.
  • Extended texts: extra description lines per language that are added to sales, purchase or service documents, with optional start and end dates.

Where it stops for e-commerce

These features are designed for ERP work: buying, stocking, selling and printing the right text on an invoice. They run out of room when the same item needs a full product page in several channels. A few documented examples make that concrete.

The Description field on the item is limited to 100 characters and Description 2 to 50, and item translations cover exactly those two fields. That is enough for an order line, not for a product description, bullet points and SEO fields in five languages. Extended texts are lines for documents rather than structured content fields.

Microsoft's own Shopify Connector shows the gap clearly. It builds the Shopify description from extended text, marketing text and attributes formatted as a table, it does not use variant translations, and it exports the SEO title and description empty. That is a sensible default for an ERP connector, and a sign that rich, per-channel content is expected to come from somewhere else.

What you will not find in the item card is a channel-by-channel view of readiness: which products have everything Amazon, bol or Google Shopping require, and which are blocked. That is the job a PIM does.

NeedIn Business CentralWhat a PIM adds
Product name and short textDescription (100) and Description 2 (50)Titles and long descriptions per channel and language
SpecificationsItem attributes, inherited through categoriesFamilies with required fields per product type and per channel
TranslationsDescription fields per language codeEvery localizable field, with terminology and review
ImagesItem and variant picturesLinked asset library with channel-specific sizes
Channel readinessNot part of the item cardRequired-field coverage and rules per channel
Stock, price, costYes, the source of truthRead from the ERP, not edited in the PIM

Product information management in Dynamics 365

Search for "product information management Dynamics 365" and you will find a module with exactly that name. It belongs to Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, not to Business Central. It covers the product definition for operations: product types, product masters and distinct products, product dimensions such as color, size, style and configuration, categories, attributes, units of measure, translations and released products per legal entity.

Dynamics 365 Commerce builds on it with typed attributes that can be inherited through categories and channels and overridden per product, channel, catalog or variant. Microsoft's own documentation adds that product definitions can be imported from PLM, PDM or PIM systems. In other words, Microsoft positions this module as the operational product master that a PIM can feed, which is the same split this guide recommends for Business Central.

When a separate PIM helps

A Business Central-only setup works well when you sell through one webshop in one language with short product texts. A separate PIM starts to pay off when one or more of these is true:

  • You sell on several webshops, marketplaces or comparison sites, each with its own required fields and category tree
  • You sell in more than one language and need translated descriptions, specs and SEO fields, not just an item description
  • Supplier data arrives in different spreadsheets and feeds and has to be cleaned and mapped before it is usable
  • Marketing and e-commerce teams need to work on content without access to finance and inventory in the ERP
  • You want rules that stop incomplete products from going live, per channel

Ways to connect a PIM

Whatever the tool, start by agreeing which system owns which field. A common split: Business Central owns the item number, GTIN, prices, costs and stock; the PIM owns titles, descriptions, specifications, media and translations. Then pick one of three patterns. Our PIM vs ERP guide goes deeper into that division.

PatternHow it worksGood forWatch out for
Excel or CSV filesExport items with Edit in Excel or a configuration package, import them into the PIM, and send changes back the same wayA start, small teams, periodic updatesManual steps; agree who owns each column so nothing is overwritten
APIRead and write items through the Business Central API v2.0 item resource, which supports GET, POST, PATCH and DELETEScheduled or near real-time syncNeeds a developer or partner; the itemVariant resource carries only a few fields
Integration platformAn iPaaS or a connector built by your Business Central partner moves data between both APIs on triggers or schedulesSeveral systems, error handling, monitoringExtra license and someone to maintain the flows

How WISEPIM fits with Business Central

To be clear up front: WISEPIM does not have a native Business Central connector. If a ready-made, two-way sync is a must have for you, ask any vendor to show it working, including us. What WISEPIM does offer are two documented paths that work with Business Central today.

Files: export your items from Business Central to Excel or CSV and import the products into WISEPIM. AI proposes the column mapping, you save it once, and the item number or GTIN serves as the match key so the next import updates products instead of duplicating them. When content is ready, export products to Excel or CSV with a saved template, in the column layout your Business Central import or your webshop expects.

API: the WISEPIM API lets you read, create and update products and categories, and webhooks report when a product is created, updated, enriched or translated. A developer or your Business Central partner can connect it to the Business Central API, directly or through an integration platform.

Many Business Central customers sell through a webshop that WISEPIM connects to natively, such as Shopify, WooCommerce or Magento 2. In that setup Business Central keeps stock and prices in the webshop, WISEPIM sends the product content, and you decide per field which system writes it. See all PIM connections for the platforms WISEPIM supports directly.

Sources

Vendor documentation we read for this guide, as of October 2026. Features and names change, so check the current documentation before you decide.

Frequently asked questions

Business Central has PIM-like features: item attributes, item variants, item categories, pictures, item translations for the description fields and extended texts. They serve ERP processes well. It does not offer channel-specific content, long descriptions and SEO fields per language, or readiness rules per sales channel, which is why companies selling in many channels add a separate PIM.

Product information management is a module of Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management that defines products for operations: product masters, variants and dimensions, categories, attributes, units and released products per legal entity. It is not part of Business Central. Microsoft documents that product definitions can be imported into it from PLM, PDM or PIM systems.

No. WISEPIM has no native Business Central connector. It works with Business Central through Excel and CSV import and export with saved mappings, and through the WISEPIM REST API and webhooks, which a developer or your Business Central partner can connect to the Business Central API.

Yes, in most setups. Business Central is the source of truth for item numbers, prices, costs and stock, and the PIM reads those values instead of editing them. The PIM owns the content: titles, descriptions, specifications, images and translations. Agreeing that split per field prevents two systems from overwriting each other.

Yes, as long as each Shopify field has one owner. A common split is that the Business Central connector keeps prices and availability in sync while the PIM sends titles, descriptions, images and SEO fields. Check which item fields the connector is set to update so the two do not overwrite each other.

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