Adobe Commerce gives a B2B sales rep two ways to place an order for a customer: build it in the Admin through Create New Order, or use Login as Customer to enter the live storefront as that buyer. Admin order creation needs no customer consent; storefront impersonation does. Both matter for inside sales teams.
For a wholesale operation running Adobe Commerce or Magento with a company-account structure, assisted selling is not an edge case. It is how large accounts actually place orders when a buyer calls, when a quote needs to become a cart, or when a rep is walking a distributor through a complex configuration. This guide covers both mechanisms, how they behave on a Hyva storefront, the permissions that keep them safe, and the storefront details that break if you migrate a Luma theme to Hyva without checking them.
The two ways to place an order for a customer
The distinction confuses even experienced merchants, because both routes end with an order attached to the customer’s account. They are different tools for different situations.
Admin order creation happens entirely in the backend. A rep goes to Sales, then Orders, then Create New Order, selects the customer and store, and adds products directly. Pricing, discounts, and shipping are all set by the rep inside the Admin. The customer never sees the process and does not need to grant permission, because the rep is acting as a store operator, not as the buyer.
Login as Customer puts the rep on the actual storefront, logged in as the buyer. The rep sees exactly what the customer sees, including their shared catalog pricing, requisition lists, and saved addresses. This is the right tool when you need to reproduce a problem, walk someone through checkout, or build a cart collaboratively over the phone. It requires the customer to allow remote shopping assistance first.
Choosing the wrong one wastes time. A rep who only knows Create New Order cannot troubleshoot a checkout error a buyer is hitting. A rep who only knows Login as Customer cannot place an order for a customer who has not enabled assistance.
Admin order creation: Create New Order
Create New Order is the workhorse for phone and email orders. It is theme independent, which means it works identically whether your frontend runs Luma or Hyva, because it lives inside the Admin.
The flow: go to Sales, then Orders, then Create New Order. Select an existing customer or create a new one, then choose the store view the order belongs to. When you pick a B2B customer who belongs to a company account, the order inherits that company’s context, so shared catalog pricing and tiered discounts apply automatically as you add products. You can search the catalog, add configurable and bundle products, apply a custom price at the line-item level, add a discount, set shipping, and choose a payment method including Purchase Order or Payment on Account where the company is entitled to it.
Two details matter for wholesale. First, the rep can override price when the account has negotiated terms that are not encoded in a shared catalog, which is common for one-off deals. Second, an admin-created order can be the endpoint of a quote: once a negotiable quote is agreed, converting it produces an order without re-keying the line items. Create New Order is where a lot of assisted B2B revenue actually lands.
Login as Customer: storefront impersonation with consent
Login as Customer was added in Magento 2.4.0, and from 2.4.1 onward it requires explicit customer consent, as Adobe’s shopper assistance documentation sets out. That consent gate is the single most important thing to understand, because reps will report the feature as broken when the real problem is a missing checkbox.
Enable the feature at Stores, then Settings, then Configuration, then Customers, then Login as Customer. Set Enable Login as Customer to Yes. For a multi-site or multi-store setup, set Store View to Log in to Manual Selection so the rep picks the correct storefront at login. Disable Page Cache for Admin User defaults to Yes, which keeps the impersonated session showing fresh data rather than a cached page.
Consent works differently by deployment model:
- On Adobe Commerce (self-hosted or PaaS) and Magento Open Source, the customer opens Account Information on the storefront and checks Allow remote shopping assistance. Until they do, the rep cannot log in.
- On Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service, the
login_as_customer_assistance_allowedextension attribute must be set to 2. You can set it from the Admin Edit Customer page or through theupdateCustomerV2andcreateCustomerV2GraphQL mutations withallow_remote_shopping_assistance: true.
Once consent exists and the rep clicks Login as Customer from the customer or order grid, Adobe Commerce opens a storefront session that runs independently from the customer’s own active session, so the buyer is not logged out or interrupted. A banner across the top of the storefront shows the customer name for the duration of the session, so the rep always knows whose account they are in. Every action the rep takes, including adding or removing products, applies to the real customer’s cart and account.
Admin order creation versus Login as Customer
| Factor | Create New Order (Admin) | Login as Customer (Storefront) |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Admin backend | Live storefront |
| Customer consent required | No | Yes (Allow remote shopping assistance) |
| Best for | Phone and email orders, quote conversion, custom pricing | Troubleshooting, guided checkout, cart building with the buyer |
| Sees exactly what the buyer sees | No | Yes |
| Theme dependent | No, works on any frontend | Yes, renders on the storefront theme |
| Custom line-item price override | Yes | Limited to storefront rules |
| Audit trail | Order history | Admin Actions Report (Adobe Commerce) |
The practical rule: use Create New Order when you are the one placing the order, and use Login as Customer when you are helping the buyer place it themselves.
How assisted selling behaves on a Hyva storefront
Because Create New Order is a backend function, migrating your frontend to Hyva changes nothing about it. The interesting part is Login as Customer, which puts the rep onto the actual storefront theme.
This is where Hyva helps. A rep managing several accounts in a shift is loading the storefront repeatedly, and on a slow Luma theme every impersonated session inherits the same sluggish page loads that frustrate real buyers. On a Hyva build, the assisted session loads on the same fast frontend the customer uses, so reps move through catalog, cart, and checkout without waiting on heavy JavaScript. Faster assisted sessions mean more calls handled and fewer abandoned carts during guided checkout.
Two Hyva specifics are worth checking during a migration, because they are the kind of thing that silently regresses:
-
The remote shopping assistance checkbox. The Allow remote shopping assistance control lives inside the customer’s Account Information form on the storefront. Hyva’s customer account module renders this natively, but if your build heavily customizes the account area or overrides the account information template, confirm the checkbox still appears. If buyers cannot find it, reps cannot log in.
-
The impersonation banner. The banner that names the customer during a session is injected by the Login as Customer frontend component, which was written for Luma. Hyva is generally compatible, but the banner is exactly the kind of frontend block that needs a quick verification pass after migration. Test one full Login as Customer session end to end before you assume it carried over.
Neither is hard to fix. Both are easy to miss, which is why a Luma to Hyva migration acceptance runbook should include assisted selling as an explicit test case rather than trusting that it survived.
The sales representative role in company accounts
Adobe Commerce B2B formalizes the rep relationship through the sales representative role on a company account. This is not the same as assisted selling permissions, and the two are often conflated.
A sales representative is an Admin user assigned as the point of contact for a specific company account. That rep receives the automated email messages tied to the company, such as new company registrations and account updates. Only one sales representative can be assigned per company, but one rep can own many companies. You assign the rep in the Admin under Customers, then Companies, by opening the company in edit mode, as covered in Adobe’s guide to managing company accounts.
The role matters for accountability. When a distributor with 300 dealer accounts wants a named human behind each large account, the sales representative field is how Adobe Commerce records it. Combined with Login as Customer permissions, it lets you build a team where each rep both owns their accounts and can act inside them, with a record of who did what.
Permissions, security, and audit
Assisted selling is powerful, which means it needs guardrails. Do not grant Login as Customer to every admin.
Set permissions at System, then Permissions, then User Roles. Open the role, set Role Resources to Custom, and under Customers, then Login as Customer, enable Allow Login as Customer for reps who need it and View Login as Customer Log for supervisors who audit it. Keep the feature off for roles that have no reason to enter customer accounts, such as content editors.
On the audit side, Adobe Commerce records Login as Customer activity in the Admin Actions Report, filterable by the Login As Customer action group, so you can see which admin entered which account and when. This report is an Adobe Commerce capability and is not present in Magento Open Source, which is a real consideration if compliance requires an impersonation audit trail. On Adobe Commerce as a Cloud Service, the one-time codes that authorize a session are single use and expire quickly, which limits the window for misuse.
Treat impersonation like any privileged access: restrict the role, review the log, and pair it with strong Admin login controls. A rep entering a buyer’s account can see addresses and order history, so the same care you apply to customer data generally applies here.
Common pitfalls
- Reps cannot log in and blame the feature. The cause is almost always missing customer consent. Confirm Allow remote shopping assistance is checked on the buyer’s account, or the extension attribute is set on Cloud Service.
- The wrong storefront loads on multi-store. Set Store View to Log in to Manual Selection so reps choose the correct site.
- Custom prices do not stick on storefront sessions. Line-item price overrides belong in Create New Order, not in an impersonated storefront cart, which follows storefront pricing rules.
- The account checkbox disappeared after a Hyva migration. A customized account template dropped it. Restore it in the Hyva customer account layout.
- No audit trail on Open Source. The impersonation log is Adobe Commerce only. If you need it, that is an argument for the paid edition.
Frequently asked questions
Can a sales rep place an order without the customer’s permission?
Yes, through Create New Order in the Admin. That path treats the rep as a store operator and needs no customer consent. Only Login as Customer, which enters the live storefront as the buyer, requires the customer to enable Allow remote shopping assistance first.
Does Login as Customer log the customer out of their own session?
No. The impersonated session runs independently from the customer’s active session, so a buyer browsing at the same time is not interrupted or signed out.
Is assisted selling available in Magento Open Source or only Adobe Commerce?
Login as Customer and Create New Order both exist in Magento Open Source. The company account sales representative role and the impersonation audit log in the Admin Actions Report are Adobe Commerce B2B features.
Will Login as Customer keep working after we migrate to Hyva?
The Admin order flow is unaffected. Login as Customer runs on the storefront theme, so verify two things on Hyva: that the Allow remote shopping assistance checkbox still renders in the account area, and that the impersonation banner appears during a session. Test one full session before going live.
Can one sales rep manage more than one company account?
Yes. A company can have only one assigned sales representative, but a single rep can be the sales representative for many companies.
How do we give a rep permission to impersonate customers?
Under System, Permissions, User Roles, set the role’s resources to Custom and enable Allow Login as Customer beneath Customers, Login as Customer. Add View Login as Customer Log for anyone who audits sessions.
Getting assisted selling right on your build
Assisted selling is one of the quieter reasons B2B teams standardize on Adobe Commerce, and it works best when the storefront underneath it is fast and the permissions above it are tight. Bemeir is the USA’s leading official Hyva partner and a full Magento and Adobe Commerce agency, and we build B2B storefronts where reps can place orders, convert quotes, and impersonate accounts without the friction a slow theme or a broken template adds. Our work spans the full Adobe Commerce and Hyva stack, backed by a deep ecosystem of technology partners across payments, ERP, and fraud, and we also deliver on Shopify, Shopware, and BigCommerce when a different platform is the honest answer. If your inside sales team is fighting the storefront instead of selling on it, that is a fixable problem.
