Update Guest Order Tool for BigCommerce
🔧 Quick Info: This tool will associate guest orders to the owner account once this is already registered.
What it does
When a shopper checks out as a guest, their order isn’t linked to any customer account, even if that same person later creates (or already had) an account using the same email address. Update Guest Orders finds those unlinked guest orders and connects them to the matching customer account in your store.
Here’s how the matching works:
- The tool looks only at guest orders (orders that have no customer account attached) within the date range you choose.
- For each guest order, it takes the billing email address and looks for a registered customer in your store with that same email. The match is not case-sensitive, so
Jane@example.comandjane@example.comare treated as the same person. - When it finds a match, it updates the order so it belongs to that customer account.
- When it can’t find a match, it leaves the order untouched and notes why.
When the run finishes, the tool produces a results file listing every order it looked at and what happened to it, so you have a clear record of which orders were linked and which weren’t — emailed to you if you turn email delivery on.
When to use it
- A customer created an account after checking out as a guest and wants their past orders to show in their account history.
- You imported or migrated customers and need older guest orders connected to the right accounts.
- You want order history and customer reporting to be complete rather than split between guest and registered orders.
- You’d like to run this regularly so newly registered customers automatically pick up their earlier guest orders.
Before you start
- The customer account must already exist in your store. This tool links orders to accounts that are already registered; it does not create new accounts. A guest order whose email isn’t found as a customer is left as-is.
- Matching is done by billing email address. If a shopper used a different email when they registered than the one on their guest order, those orders won’t match.
- This updates existing (often older) orders. If you have services, apps, or integrations that react to order changes or send order notifications, check whether re-linking old orders could trigger anything you don’t want. The tool shows this reminder on the first step.
- This is a paid add-on. If your subscription isn’t active yet, you’ll be prompted to subscribe before you can run it.
Step-by-step
1 Open the Update Guest Orders tool from your BigCommerce dashboard.
2 On the Select Orders step, choose the date range to process using Process Orders Starting From and and Ending On. (If your store has multiple storefronts/channels, you can also narrow to a specific one here.) Leaving the dates open processes a wider range, so use the dates to keep each run focused.
3 Review the on-screen note reminding you that this updates older orders, then continue.
4 On the Export Options step, set the Filename for your results file and choose the File Format — CSV or Excel.
5 Continue to the Email Delivery step. Choose whether you’d like an email when the run finishes — delivery is off by default, and your email address is prefilled if you turn it on.
6 Start the run. The work happens in the background, so you don’t need to keep the page open.
7 When it’s done, you’ll get an email with your results file showing the linking status of every order in the date range (if you turned email delivery on).
File / field reference
You don’t upload a file for this tool — you choose a date range and the tool produces a results file. That file contains one row per guest order it examined:
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Order number | The BigCommerce order ID. |
| Order date | When the order was placed. |
| Customer name | The billing name on the order. |
| The billing email used to look for a matching account. | |
| Order status | The order’s status. |
| Error / process message | Order Linked to Customer when a match was found and the order was updated, or Unable to link order, email address not found in store when no matching account exists. |
Troubleshooting / FAQ
Some orders say “email address not found in store.”
There’s no registered customer account with that order’s billing email, so there was nothing to link it to. This is expected for shoppers who never created an account, or who registered with a different email than they used at guest checkout.
Will this create accounts for my guest shoppers?
No. It only links orders to accounts that already exist. To bring in new customers, register or import them first, then run this tool.
A customer registered but their old orders still aren’t linked.
Check that the email on the older guest orders exactly matches the email on their account (capitalization doesn’t matter, but the address itself must be the same). Also confirm those orders fall inside the date range you ran.
Nothing happened after I started the run.
It runs in the background, and emails you when it’s complete only if Email Delivery was set to “Yes.” Give it a few minutes, then check the inbox for the address shown on the Email Delivery step.