🔧 Quick Info: This tool finds guest orders that match existing customer accounts and links them together. Choose a date range, and we’ll connect unlinked guest orders to the right customer accounts by matching billing email addresses, then email you a report of what was linked.
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. 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.com and jane@example.com are 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 emails you 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.
When Should You Use This?
Use this tool whenever you have guest orders that should belong to registered customer accounts. Common scenarios include a customer creating an account after checking out as a guest and wanting their past orders to show in their account history, having imported or migrated customers and needing older guest orders connected to the right accounts, wanting order history and customer reporting to be complete rather than split between guest and registered orders, or wanting to run this regularly so newly registered customers automatically pick up their earlier guest orders.
Before You Get Started
- 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.
- This is a paid add-on. If your subscription isn’t active yet, you’ll be prompted to subscribe before you can run it.
How to Use It
1 Open the Tool
Navigate to the Update Guest Orders tool in your Your Store Wizards dashboard for your BigCommerce store.
2 Select Your Date Range
On the Select Orders step, choose the date range to process using:
- Process Orders Starting From – The beginning date
- and Ending On – The ending date
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 Reminder
Review the on-screen note reminding you that this updates older orders. If you’re comfortable proceeding, continue to the next step.
4 Configure Export Options
On the Export Options step:
- Filename – Set the name for your results file
- File Format – Choose between CSV or Excel (.xlsx)
5 Confirm Email Address
On the Email Delivery step, your email address is filled in by default so you’ll be notified when the run finishes. Change it if you’d like.
6 Start the Run
Start the run. The work happens in the background, so you don’t need to keep the page open. When it’s done, you’ll get an email with your results file showing the linking status of every order in the date range.
File and 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 Name | What It Tells You |
|---|---|
| Customer name | The billing name on the order. |
| The billing email used to look for a matching account. | |
| 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. |
| Order date | When the order was placed. |
| Order number | The BigCommerce order ID. |
| Order status | The order’s status. |
Troubleshooting
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. Give it a few minutes, then check the inbox for the address shown on the Email Delivery step.
I got an API permission error
This usually means the tool needs to be reconnected or re-authorized with your store. Check out our guide on resolving API permission errors.