Connecting systems that were not built for each other
Between two packages that both work perfectly well there is often a person retyping data. We build the link between them — and we say so when a ready-made connector costing a few tens a month does the same thing.
First, whether you should be here at all
For the most common combinations, ready-made connectors already exist. A webshop onto an accounting package, a time-tracking app onto payroll, a bank account onto the ledger: there are subscriptions for those costing a few tens a month, and the package vendors keep their own directories of them.
If your process fits inside what such a connector does, that is the better answer. It is cheaper than we can ever be, someone else maintains it, and you are done in an afternoon.
We start where those connectors stop: at rules that only apply at your company, and at data that does not come out of a package but out of a mailbox.
- The integration directory of your own package
- Subscription connectors for standard combinations
- What your package already does for import and export
- Whether your current supplier simply supplies the integration
If you find what you need there, you do not have to call us. That saves you a project and us the wrong job.
Six reasons a standard connector will not make it
Almost every integration we build falls into one or more of these categories. If you recognise none of them, chances are an existing connector will get you further.
- The data does not come out of a system. It sits in an email, a PDF, an Excel file or a customer's portal, and has to be got out of there first.
- There is a translation in between. Your customer's part numbers to your own, cost centres, ledger accounts, units. A table that has to be maintained and that grows.
- The rules differ per customer or contract. An annual agreement that departs from the price list, a customer who never accepts partial delivery, a branch with its own approval limit.
- More than two systems are involved and the order matters. Only once the order is in the ERP may the confirmation go out.
- Something has to happen when it does not add up. Hold, alert, route to a person, retry. That is the part that takes the most work and is weakest in standard connectors.
- You have to be able to show afterwards what happened. Which file, which line, which decision, at what moment.
Integrations with AFAS and Exact Online
Two packages that dominate the Dutch and Belgian mid-market and both have a documented interface. If you are reading this from outside the Benelux, these are probably not your packages — but the questions below are the same ones we would ask about Sage, Xero, DATEV or SAP Business One.
Custom AFAS integration
Data out of Profit through GetConnectors, data in through UpdateConnectors. The app connector lets you decide exactly what an external party may see and write.
Read how this works → Exact OnlineExact Online integration
The REST API per administration, with OAuth authorisation and call limits that have to be respected rather than discovered.
Read how this works →The questions we hear most
Honest answers, including the ones that argue against hiring us.
What does having an integration built cost?
A single integration without unusual rules usually falls in the standard band: from €1,750, with a lead time of two to four weeks. With translation tables, several systems or real exception handling it moves up a band.
That is a range, not a quote. What decides it is not the number of systems but the number of rules that only apply at your company.
How long before an integration is running?
A small integration is typically live in one to two weeks and a standard process in two to four, counted from the moment we have access to the systems and test data.
In practice that access is more often the limiting factor than the building. Getting an API key issued at a software supplier can take longer than the integration itself.
Our package has no API. Can it still be done?
Often yes, but differently. If there is no API there is usually an import or export route: a scheduled file, a database view, or a report that can be generated automatically.
That is less elegant and more fragile, and we will say so. Sometimes the honest answer is that the integration is not worth it until the package itself offers one.
Why not just use Zapier or Make?
For simple links between two cloud services they are excellent, and cheaper than we will ever be. If that covers your process, use them.
Where they run out is exception handling: what happens when a field is empty, when the same record arrives twice, when a rule applies only to one customer. That is the part that decides whether an automation survives its first month.
What happens if the integration stops working?
Monitoring usually notices before you do: if throughput drops or errors come in, we get an alert. Under a maintenance contract the repair is covered.
If you maintain it yourself, that is down to your own people — which is why we hand over integrations documented, with the assumptions written down.
Do you build integrations with other packages too?
Yes. The two written out here are the ones that dominate the Dutch and Belgian market, but the approach is not package-specific: read what comes in, check it against the rules that apply, write it where it belongs, and stop when something is not certain.
Whether that works with your package depends on whether it offers an API, an export or an import. That is the first thing we check.
Start with one process
Tell us which work gets retyped most often at your company. If automating it turns out to be a bad idea, you will hear that in the first conversation — before there is an invoice.
The first conversation is free and without obligation. Want it substantiated? The Automation Check is €295 — deducted if you have us build within 30 days.