Multi Client account and LFP account setup

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A multi-client account (MCA) is an accounts container that simplifies the API authentication process, new merchants account creation, day-to-day management and reporting. Since an MCA has a top-level-account to sub-accounts structure, an MCA administrator can have access to all sub-account nested under the MCA. API calls are also authenticated through the MCA account for all the relative sub-accounts and for all API methods available.

1. Create a Merchant Center account at the Merchant Center sign up page or use an existing one if it was already created.
2. When creating a Merchant Center account we recommend making a Google account that's unique to your business instead of using your personal account. Because this account is for your business, you may want to consider its name carefully.
3. Next, file a request with the support team to convert the account to a "Multi Client Account" (MCA), also known as an advanced account, in the Merchant Center advanced settings.
4. Once the MCA is created, create a new sub-account in the partner's name. This account is exclusively used to submit inventory, sales or store data for merchants. This account will be referred to as an "Lfp provider account" throughout this guide.

Important: In order to start sending data as a Provider, your LFP provider sub-account needs to be enabled for accessing LFP specific endpoints. contact support or your Google business Partner representative to complete this step.

Quota Management

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For Merchant Center sub-accounts created under your MCA, these merchants are subject to your MCA's quota. These are quotas such as sub accounts, offers, and feeds. For offer quotas increases, it is imperative to ensure you keep your MCA's total product disapproval to a range 10-20% to avoid any issues with future increases. Once your MCA hits the max quota of your account, you are not able to add more offers or sub-accounts to your account.

For quota increase requests, file a request in the Quota Request form. We recommend keeping an eye on your quota as it takes time to process.

Important: A multi-client account (MCA) is limited to 50 client accounts initially. If you need more than 50 accounts or ever need increases in the future, you can request more using the quota form.

Link a Merchant Center account to the LFP provider account

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In order to send data as a Local Feed Partnership Provider, your retailers' Merchant Center accounts need to be linked to the LFP provider account. To achieve full deployment Google recommends using the API as it offers many advantages in scalability and automating common tasks.

Alternatively, the Merchant Center UI can be used in the earlier version of Merchant Center

UX Guidance in Merchant Center

Enable Free Local Listings or Local Inventory Ads first. They can be enabled in the Target Merchant Center by Navigating to:

• "Wheel" settings on the top right corner
• Add ons
• Discover > activate Free Local Listings and or Local inventory Ads
• Select the country

Linking a Merchant Center account to an LFP Provider can be achieved through an earlier version of Merchant Center. The current version of Merchant Center might not have it displayed yet.

Revert to the previous version of Merchant Center by following these steps

Click settings wheel:

• Free Local Listings Setup
• Expand the Free Local Listings Country enabled drop down menu
• Select the "Local Feed Provider Partnership Integration"
• Add POS data Provider
• Select the LFP Provider
• Enter a reference number for the Merchant (usually their MC ID)
• Accept the terms and conditions
• Click "Save" in the right corner

Tech guidance

In order to use the API refer to the API authentication section first

Enable Free Local Listings or Local Inventory Ads for the Merchant first: Call liasettings.update to specify the countries where you plan to serve local.

More information on the Country Settings Target page.

Linking the merchant account to the Local Feed Provider can be achieved using liasettings.setposdataprovider.

This method can be called for any MCA sub-account by default. If the target Merchant is outside of the MCA structure, the LFP provider needs to have access to the account.

• Path Parameters
  • merchantId: the MCA Aggregator Identity
  • accountId: the sub-account or external merchant account
• Query Parameters
  • country: the country code for the feed provider
  • posDataProviderId: the LFP sub-account ID
  • posExternalAccountId: the account ID by which this merchant is known to the LFP provider.

Set the Inventory checks person contact details which will be used to communicate when and how inventory checks are going to be carried out

• call liasettings.setinventoryverificationcontact,
• Path Parameters
  • merchantId: the MCA Aggregator ID
  • accountId: the account ID of the sub account
• Query Parameters
  • country: the country where the inventory contact is located
  • language: the spoken language of the inventory contact
  • contactName: the first and last name of the inventory contact
  • contactEmail: the email address of the inventory contact

Tip: liasettings.setinventoryverificationcontact is not needed once Trusted Status for in-store inventory checks is achieved.