Connecting software lets systems exchange information so your team doesn’t have to keep entering the same data. You can use an existing connector, an automation platform or a custom integration. The right approach depends on the action, available access and what should happen when something fails. This guide sits alongside our guide to AI and automation, although fixed business rules often don’t need AI.
What happens when you connect software?
An integration reads information from one system, transforms it where necessary and processes it in another. An accepted quote might create a project. For that to work, you need to define what counts as accepted, which project type applies and how to prevent the same quote creating several projects.
Not everything needs to happen immediately. Stock information during checkout may need to be fresher than an overnight summary for accounts. Agree an acceptable delay. Calling something ‘real time’ tells your team little about what they can expect to see without that agreement.
One-way exchange can be sufficient, too. If the CRM owns address details, the accounting package doesn’t necessarily need to write them back. Allowing both systems to change the same field creates another decision: which change wins when they conflict?
Which approach suits your process?
Start with the smallest solution that handles the complete action, including corrections. A product logo on an integrations page isn’t enough evidence. The connector might create contacts but lack support for changing existing order lines.
| Approach | When should you investigate it? | What needs demonstrating? |
|---|---|---|
| Existing connector | The supplier supports your exact data and actions | Field coverage, direction, failure handling and access under your subscription |
| Automation platform | You want to combine several steps and decisions | Permissions, operation, error handling and costs at expected usage |
| Custom integration | Existing options lack required logic or operational control | Maintenance, testing, monitoring and recovery, alongside the transfer itself |
A central integration layer is an architectural choice rather than a fourth product category. You can manage several flows centrally using a platform or your own software. That may improve visibility, but also creates a dependency on the central service.
Our comparison of Zapier, Make and n8n helps with platform selection. Don’t assume custom development is required whenever money or personal data passes through a process. Identify the controls you need and check whether the proposed solution demonstrably supports them. Custom code doesn’t acquire those controls automatically either.
What should you check before starting?
Describe the transfer using actual field names and anonymised sample data. ‘CRM to accounts’ is too broad. ‘After approval, create a customer and draft invoice with this customer reference and these tax codes’ gives you something testable.
Then ask the suppliers whether the required read and write operations are available. Check the product edition, permissions, request limits and conditions. Being able to export data doesn’t mean you can write it back. Accounting integrations may also depend on organisations, accounting periods and document states; our guide to connecting Exact Online explains the questions to ask.
Assign an authoritative source to each field. Have the team demonstrate a cancelled order and a customer with incomplete details as well. Those examples help establish whether a problem occurs during transfer or starts with the original entry.
How do you prevent duplicate and missing data?
Design for messages arriving late, arriving twice or failing to arrive. This isn’t just a theoretical concern: Stripe’s webhook documentation explains that notifications can be delivered more than once and aren’t guaranteed to arrive in order. Its guidance includes recognising events already processed. Other systems have their own delivery behaviour, so check each source.
Consider a hypothetical order that should create a draft invoice. The accounting package receives the request, but a lost connection prevents the integration receiving a response. You don’t yet know whether the invoice exists. Creating it again without checking could produce a duplicate.
Agree how this flow will look up an existing result and which unique reference it will use. If the receiving API recognises repeated requests with the same key, test how that feature behaves. Otherwise, you need another check before repeating the write safely.
Comparing expected orders with received orders each day could provide a second check. Choose the frequency according to the consequences of a missing order. A green connection indicator alone doesn’t show that all business actions have completed.
What does your team see when something fails?
Separate waiting, rejected and processed states. A queue might still be working while the accounting service has a temporary outage. An invalid tax code needs a correction to the content. If both situations only display ‘error’, a member of staff won’t know what to do next.
Provide a view showing the order, its last known state and a readable reason. Make it clear who can correct or reprocess it. Keep enough technical information for investigation without unnecessarily copying whole customer records into logs.
In a client portal, the customer sees this distinction too. ‘Request received’ means something different from ‘order processed’. Only promise the second state once the underlying process confirms it.
Give a person or team responsibility for outstanding notifications. An alert nobody checks isn’t a functioning recovery procedure. Agree what happens outside office hours if the process remains active then.
What does connecting software cost over time?
The price follows from the transfer and the conditions under which it must work. Configuring an existing connector is a different assignment from cleaning data, handling several accounting organisations and building a recovery view. Request an estimate that separates those tasks.
Alongside setup or development, include subscriptions, hosting, support and changes to the connected packages. Ask the supplier to calculate costs using your expected volumes and peaks. Charging per task, execution or user can have different consequences when a workflow gains intermediate steps.
Measure the benefit using your own operation. How much time does the team spend re-entering information and fixing errors? How much of that work will actually disappear, and what checking remains? Deduct recurring costs before calculating a payback period. A general savings promise tells you nothing about your input quality.
Consider who can maintain the connection when its original creator is unavailable. A handover should identify the accounts, configuration and decisions behind the flow. A diagram showing two connected logos doesn’t explain how to recover an order that stopped halfway through.
How do you test whether the integration is ready?
Ask the supplier to demonstrate a complete action with an outcome you can verify. Then test the exceptions that matter to your process:
- The same request arrives again. It doesn’t produce an unintended extra result.
- A required field is missing. The request remains visible with an actionable explanation.
- Access to the receiving package expires. Outstanding processing is still identifiable.
- An order changes after transfer. The agreed correction process works.
These are acceptance questions, not evidence that every integration already has those properties. Record the results and nominate someone who can assess their business meaning. A developer can confirm that a request succeeds; the accounts team must also be able to verify that the entry is correct.
How do you actually get started?
Choose one transfer with a clear start and finish. Gather sample data, the expected result and the exceptions your team currently fixes by hand. That gives you a basis for assessing an existing connector or requesting a focused technical trial.
For system connections and integrations, TopDevs considers the full data flow, including operation and recovery. Want to discuss where to start? Book a call.
