SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
Make the systems you already own talk to each other.
Most businesses do not need new software. They need the four systems they already pay for to stop needing a person in the middle retyping things.
Free 20-minute call. We will tell you whether it can be done before you pay for anything.
WHO IT IS FOR
Who this is for.
Integration is the cheapest software you will buy, because the systems are already paid for.
The same data is typed twice
An order in the website, then again in the accounting package, then again in the stock sheet. Every retype is a chance to be wrong.
Reconciliation is a person
Somebody spends Monday matching EcoCash statements to invoices. That is not a role, it is a missing integration.
Reports come from three places
Finance has one revenue number, sales has another, and the meeting is spent deciding which one to believe.
WHAT YOU GET
What you get.
An integration is not a script somebody wrote once and left. It is a thing that has to keep working on a bad connection.
- A written map of what moves where, in which direction, and how often
- Error handling that tells a person when something did not go through
- Retries and idempotency, so a duplicate delivery does not double-post
- A log you can read, kept long enough to answer an auditor
- Monitoring with an alert to a phone, not a dashboard nobody opens
- A runbook for the person who has to fix it at 6 a.m.
- Testing against live data volumes before anything is switched on
- Nothing switched off until the new route has run in parallel for a week
THE LOCAL LIST
What we connect.
This is the local list, and it is the section that decides most integration projects. If something you run is not here, ask — the answer is usually yes.
Compliance and revenue
- ZIMRA fiscalisation and returns
- VAT and PAYE submissions
- Statutory reporting formats
Payments and money
- Paynow
- EcoCash
- OneMoney
- InnBucks
- ZIPIT
- Local card acquirers
Banks and ledgers
- Local bank statement formats
- Multi-currency USD and ZWG
- Bulk payment files
Accounting and ERP
- CheckERP
- ASOFT ERP
- Sage
- Palladium
- QuickBooks
- Pastel
Messaging and sales
- WhatsApp Business
- Bulk SMS gateways
- Email and calendars
- Website enquiry forms
Everything else
- Any documented REST or SOAP API
- Scheduled file exchange
- Database-level replication
HOW IT RUNS
How an integration runs.
Short, because most integrations are short. The risk is not in the building, it is in the switching over.
01
Map
We sit with the person who currently does the retyping. They know where the exceptions are; the manual does not.
02
Prove
One record, end to end, on a copy of your real data. If the API cannot do what the documentation claims, we find out here.
03
Build
The route, the error handling, the retries and the log. Priced fixed, because by now we know what is actually there.
04
Run in parallel
A week with both routes running and a daily comparison. Nothing is switched off until the numbers match.
05
Hand over
Monitoring, the runbook, and the person to call. Then it should be boring, which is the point.
WORK SAMPLES
Recent integrations.
Anonymised by sector until written permission is in place. The numbers are real.
Retail
A supermarket group, 6 branches
- Built
- EcoCash and ZIPIT settlement matched to invoices in the accounting package overnight.
One full day a week of reconciliation removed.
Distribution
A pharmaceutical distributor
- Built
- Website orders written straight into CheckERP, with stock held back on order.
Order-to-invoice time from 4 hours to 90 seconds.
Education
A group of three schools
- Built
- ASOFT ERP fee balances pushed to a bulk SMS gateway on a schedule.
Arrears notices went from termly to weekly, at no extra staff cost.
PRICING DETAIL
How an integration is priced.
We will not quote a route before we have opened the API, because the documentation and the API frequently disagree. What we will do is fix the price of finding out.
- Proving stage
- Two days. We move one real record end to end and write down what is actually there. Fixed price, agreed before we start.
- Fixed, quoted up front
- Build
- Priced from the proving stage, as a fixed number with a delivery date. If the proving stage says it cannot be done safely, you owe nothing further.
- Fixed after proving
- Monitoring and support
- Monthly, per route, including the alerting and the runbook updates. Or take it in-house with our documentation.
- Monthly, per route
A single documented one-way route between two systems is usually days of work. Four systems, two-way, with reconciliation, is a project. The proving stage is what tells us which one you have.
QUESTIONS
What gets asked on the first call.
How much does an integration cost?
A single documented one-way route between two systems is usually a few days of work. Four systems, two-way, with reconciliation and an undocumented desktop application in the middle, is a project. We price it after the two-day proving stage, not before.
What if our system has no API?
Then we look at scheduled file exchange, database-level access, or in the worst case a supervised export. We will tell you at the proving stage if the honest answer is that it cannot be automated safely.
Will this break when the other vendor updates their software?
It can, which is why monitoring and alerting are part of the work rather than an extra. You find out from an alert, not from a customer.
Can you integrate with software you did not build?
That is most of the work. CheckERP and ASOFT ERP are ours; Sage, Palladium, QuickBooks, Pastel, ZIMRA and the mobile money gateways are not.
Who holds the credentials?
You do. We ask for a service account with the narrowest permissions the job needs, and we document exactly which permissions and why. You can revoke it at any time.
What if we replace one of the systems later?
The map and the runbook mean the replacement is a rebuild of one leg, not the whole route. That is the reason the map exists.
NEXT STEP
Name the two systems that do not talk.
Tell us what they are and what has to move between them. We will tell you on the call whether it is an afternoon, a fortnight, or not possible.
Free 20-minute call. No obligation.