Integrations
The data gets typed once.
Most companies don't need more tools. They need the ones they already pay for to talk to each other. It is the least glamorous work we do and the one that returns the most hours per euro spent.
From €600
5-7 days
The symptom
People working as cables.
There's a tell that shows up in almost every company: somebody opens two windows, reads one and types into the other. That work produces nothing new. It moves a piece of data that already existed from one place to another, with a chance of getting it wrong at every hop.
And when the same data lives in three systems, none of the three can be trusted. The question “which one is right?” gets answered by asking the person who maintains it, and at that point it isn't a system: it's a habit.
The same data, typed twice
An order that arrives by email and gets copied into the ERP. A lead that comes through the site and gets copied into the CRM. A delivery note transferred by hand into a tracking sheet.
Reports assembled by hand
Download three exports, paste them into a spreadsheet, format it. Every Monday, or every first of the month.
Nobody knows which version is right
The price is in the ERP and also in a shared sheet. When it changes, somebody has to remember both places.
Alerts that depend on someone looking
A status changes in one system and only gets communicated if a person checks it and writes a message.
What we connect
What you already have, to what you already use.
There's no fixed list. If a system has an API, a database, a mailbox or even a file it drops in a folder, it can be connected. The ones below are the ones we meet almost every time.
CRM and ERP
The two ends of the commercial cycle. An accepted quote should become an order without anyone retyping the lines.
Email and WhatsApp
The channels real work actually arrives through in a small company, whatever the process manual says.
Google Workspace and Microsoft
Sheets, folders, calendars and mailboxes. What the company already uses daily, and where half the data already sits.
Databases and internal systems
Including the ones that have been running for fifteen years with no documentation. We read them, write to them and leave them alone.
SaaS tools and APIs
Invoicing, signatures, shipping, support, accounting. Nearly all of them expose an API; the work is deciding who wins when two disagree.
CRMERPEmailWhatsAppAPIsDatabasesGoogle WorkspaceMicrosoftInternal systemsSaaS tools
Doing it properly
The decisions that decide whether it holds.
Connecting two systems is easy on day one. The hard part is that it still works in March, when a supplier changes a format and nobody mentions it. Almost all of the judgement lives in four questions.
Which system is the source of truth
For every piece of data, one system decides and the rest follow. Without that written down, an integration creates conflicts instead of resolving them.
What happens when something fails
A system down, an empty field, a duplicate. The behaviour gets defined up front: retry, stop and alert, or park it in a tray for a person to look at.
Whether it can run twice safely
An integration that fires twice by accident shouldn't create two orders. Every operation is identified so that repeating it is harmless.
How you can see it's alive
A log of what happened and an alert when it stops happening. An integration that fails silently is worse than not having one, because nobody finds out until the problem is large.
Changing tools is rarely necessary. When we do recommend it, it's because the cost of keeping the current one running exceeds the cost of moving, and we say it with the numbers in front of us.
Afterwards
What changes once it's done.
- Data goes in once and shows up wherever it needs to.
- Reports exist without anyone assembling them.
- Discrepancies between systems stop being a monthly meeting.
- The gap between something happening and someone knowing drops to minutes.
- The tools you were already paying for start delivering what they promised.
How many windows are open to do one thing?
If the answer is two or more, there is usually an integration that pays for itself. Tell us about the process.