Every project is different, and integration requirements will vary, depending on the scope and needs of a project. However, there are some common areas where most businesses have processes that require integration. The following table shows the common integration points and possible scenarios:
Integrations |
Possible scenarios |
Customers |
Customers need to be maintained in the CRM system, which needs to be synced with the ERP system. |
Sales orders |
Integrating web orders with the ERP system, which includes delivery notification, invoicing, and payments or with customer systems directly (for example, EDI integration). |
Product and inventory (on hand) |
Receiving product data from a PLM system. Sending the product-and-inventory-on-hand data to external systems or customers, for example, e-commerce, Amazon, Marketplace, and so on. |
Price list |
Sending a product price list to external systems or customers, for example, e-commerce, marketplace, and so on. |
Sales tax |
Sales tax integration with sales tax solutions (to calculate the sales tax based on the product, customer, ship to, price, and other relevant parameters). |
Purchase orders |
Purchase order, including ASN and AP invoice, integration with the vendor systems. |
Employee and positions |
Receiving employee and reporting relationship information from the HR system or sending employee information to the payroll or expense systems. |
Chart of accounts and financial dimensions |
Sending the chart of account and financial dimension data to other internal systems, such as the payroll system, expense system, and others. |
Exchange rates |
Downloading daily exchange rates from exchange rate providers, such as OANDA. |
Payment integration with banks |
Sending AP payments such as check, ACH, and wire to the banking systems or automating bank reconciliations. |
GL integration |
Importing GL journal entries that occur outside of the Finance and Operations system, such as expense, payroll, loan accounting systems, or other divisions using a different accounting system (acquisitions). |
In the next section, we'll look at the common integration requirements you should collect during the analysis phase.