PROBLEM
Updated on
THE SAME DATAIN FOUR PLACES,NONE OF IT AGREEING
The trouble isn’t missing data. It’s four versions, and no rule for which wins.
THE ANSWER
I connect your CRM, back-office system, spreadsheets and forms. We decide together which system owns each field. I align the records, and updates travel on their own instead of copy and paste. CRM and back-office integration is the commonest case. Range €1,500–€10,000, VAT excluded.
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IN SHORT
Integration: €1,500–€10,000, VAT excluded.
Above €8,000 it starts with a sprint.
Timeline: 2–6 weeks, depending on the sources.
I don’t promise real-time sync.
THE COST
WHAT LEAVING IT SCATTERED COSTS
Nobody budgets for this, because it never arrives as an invoice. It arrives as half an hour here, a phone call there, and a decision pushed to Monday.
The same record typed twice
Every new client goes into the CRM and is then retyped into the accounts system. Little time each go, a great deal of it over a month. The second entry is the one that carries the mistake, because nobody reads it back.
Two versions, one true
The current phone number sits in the CRM. The correct billing address sits in the back-office system. The real contact is buried in somebody’s inbox. The first person to spot the mismatch is usually the client.
Decisions arrive late
A plain question doesn’t get a quick answer. Someone opens three tools and reassembles it by hand.
Enquiries fall through the join
A request comes in through a form. It lands in a shared mailbox and never reaches the CRM. It isn’t lost through carelessness: it’s lost because no system claims it.
It depends on one person
Whoever holds the pieces together knows the exceptions by heart. When they take leave the work slows down, and when they move on the exceptions leave with them.
HOW IT GETS FIXED
FIVE STEPS TO CONNECT THE SOURCES
The order matters. Connect two tools before deciding which one is right about a field and you have automated the disagreement rather than removed it.
The sources, and who writes
CRM, back-office system, spreadsheets, website forms, shared mailboxes. For each one: who updates it, how often, and which part of the process runs through it.
The source of truth
For client records, statuses, amounts and contacts, one system leads and the others follow. That decision makes everything else possible, and it is yours to make: I bring the question and the consequences.
Fields, formats, duplicates
Company names written three different ways. VAT numbers with and without the prefix. The same client, sitting in the system twice. Before any data moves, I set the rule for recognising and merging it.
The link and error handling
APIs where they exist, scheduled exports where they don’t. I add retries and a log of what moved. An alert reaches a named person the moment a record fails. A quiet failure is worse than copy and paste.
I switch it on
I run it on real data. I fix the cases that surface in the first weeks. I leave a written account of what it does and doesn’t do. And what to check when something doesn’t add up.
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THE HANDOVER
WHAT YOU END UP HOLDING
A map of the sources
Which system holds what, and who updates it. Which way the data moves once the work is done.
The link, live
The link carries data from one system to the next. It follows the rules we wrote together. With its checks and its schedule.
The matching rules
How the same client is recognised in two systems. What happens to duplicates. Which field wins when two values contradict each other.
Log and alerts
A record of what moved. An alert when something stops, sent to someone who can act on it.
Instructions and access
A page the people in the process can read without me. Every account, in your name.
THE CONDITIONS
WHAT IT COSTS AND HOW LONG
- Range
- Process automation: €1,500–€2,500 essential, €2,500–€5,500 standard, €5,500–€10,000 advanced. VAT excluded.
- Timeline
- 2–6 weeks, depending on the number of sources and the state the data is in.
- When a sprint comes first
- With several integrations, sensitive data, or an undocumented scope, above €8,000. Range €800–€2,000, deductible from the project when we agree that in the proposal.
- What I need from you
- Access to the systems, and one person who can decide which record is right. Without that decision there is no integration: there is one more copy.
- Outside the price
- Your CRM plan and back-office licences stay yours. They stay in your name and on your invoice, along with the platforms in between.
- After handover
- Monthly support runs €250–€900. It is optional, and it is priced on the system I hand over.
The same figure in four places is three copies waiting to disagree.
QUESTIONS
- Do I need to replace my CRM?
- Rarely. I start from the tools you already run and connect them. Replacing one is a much bigger project, decided on its own merits. It isn’t because two systems won’t talk. If one is a dead end, I say so before quoting.
- What if the back-office system has no API?
- I work with whatever the system exposes. Scheduled exports, a shared folder, read access to the database. When there’s no workable route, I say so before we start.
- Is the sync real time?
- It depends on the field and on what the other end can take. Plenty of connections work better on an interval: every fifteen minutes, hourly, overnight. Real time is paid for in complexity, and I propose it only where it changes a decision.
- What happens to the duplicates we already have?
- They’re handled in the clean-up phase, on a written rule. How the same party is recognised, which record survives, what’s kept. I don’t merge anything without showing you a sample first.
- If we swap a tool, does it break?
- It can. That’s why the link carries a log and alerts: you find out the same day. Adapting to a new tool is its own piece of work, with its own estimate.
- How many sources can be connected?
- Technically, many. In practice, start with the two or three sources that hurt most. Add the rest once those hold. Every extra source multiplies the cases to test, not the value.
Tell me which tools you run and which record you have to type twice. I’ll come back with the link that removes it and the range it fits inside.