System integration: website, online store, CRM, inventory and accounting.

02 / 08

Integration examples from different industries

Most integrations come down to one of these data flows:

• Wholesale and warehousing: a B2B order from the website lands in Pohoda as a received order, the warehouse ships it, and stock levels return to the website every few minutes so nobody orders goods you've run out of.
• Manufacturing: an inquiry from the website form becomes a deal in the CRM, and once the quote is accepted, it turns into a job that both production and accounting can see.
• Service businesses: a customer books a slot on the website, the technician logs materials and hours on a phone after the visit, and that becomes an invoice in Money or KROS.
• Online stores: orders and invoices go to the accounting software, payments are matched to orders and stock levels go back to the store. I don't build online stores; I connect the one you already have, for example on Shoptet, WooCommerce or Shopify.
• Warehouse and shipping: an order from the online store shows up in the warehouse, once it's packed a shipment is created with the carrier, and the customer gets an email with the tracking number.
• Companies on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace: a customer's email is linked to the client in the CRM, meetings go into the calendar and documents into the right SharePoint or Google Drive folder.
• Incoming PDF invoices: document data extraction reads them and sends the data to your accounting software, with the same safeguards.

03 / 08

Source of truth: which system has the final say on which data

First, I decide the source of truth for each piece of data: the one system where it may be changed, while the others only receive a copy. Without this rule, within a few weeks the website shows a different price from the invoice and nobody knows which is right.

I set it separately for each type of data. In a small trading company, that typically looks like this:

• Contacts, deals and call notes: the CRM
• Products, prices and stock levels: the inventory or accounting software, such as Pohoda or Money
• Orders: the website or online store where they were placed
• Invoices and payments: the accounting software
• Appointments and meetings: Google Calendar or Outlook

04 / 08

One-way and two-way integration

A one-way integration sends data in one direction only, for example orders from the website to Pohoda. It's simpler and cheaper, covers what matters in most companies, and fits wherever data changes in only one place.

Two-way sync is needed when people edit the same record in two systems. Say a salesperson fixes a customer's address in the CRM while the accountant changes it in Money. For each field, we agree upfront which system wins, or whether a person resolves the conflict. The sync also remembers which changes it wrote itself, so the systems don't keep bouncing them back and forth.

I match records across systems by something that doesn't change: companies by company ID, products by SKU or EAN, orders by order number. Where no such value exists, the integration keeps its own mapping table, so it knows customer 1534 in the CRM is ODB-0087 in Pohoda.

Timing depends on the system. If it can send a change notification (a webhook), the transfer happens right away. Money S4 and S5 don't push changes, so the integration asks them every few minutes what's new. For accounting, a batch once an hour or overnight is often enough.

05 / 08

How I connect to Pohoda, Money, KROS and ABRA Flexi

I choose the route based on your software, its version and your license: the vendor's API where there is one, otherwise an import file in exactly the format the software expects. Software running on a computer or server in your office is reached through your network or a VPN. The vendors document these routes:

• Pohoda: XML import handles invoices, orders, goods receipts and issues, jobs, contacts, stock items and even online store categories, among others. Imports can run automatically or through POHODA mServer, which transfers XML over HTTP. Pohoda returns the result for each imported document, so the integration knows exactly what went through.
• Money S3: a GraphQL API sold as a paid add-on module. Writes go through an import queue, so a document only appears in Money once the queue is processed, which the integration has to verify.
• Money S4 and S5: the API module runs on your machine and doesn't push changes, so the integration polls for them.
• KROS, common in Slovakia: OMEGA imports documents from XML, Excel or a text file, and KROS documents how to connect your own online store to it. KROS Fakturácia has a public API as a paid feature.
• ABRA Flexi: a REST API with separately purchased access and daily request limits the integration must respect.
• Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace: Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Gmail, Google Calendar, Drive and Sheets through their official APIs.
• Websites and online stores: the platform's API, webhooks or order exports, or the database of a custom website.

06 / 08

Monitoring, retries and logs: what happens when something fails

Every integration hits an error sooner or later: Pohoda is closed for an update, the online store stops responding, ABRA Flexi uses up its daily limit or someone creates a product without a code. What matters is whether you hear about it right away or only when a customer calls, so I build in these safeguards:

• Transfer queue: every order or change waits in a queue until the target system confirms it. Nothing gets lost during an outage.
• Retrying failed transfers: a technical error is retried after a minute, then after several minutes, then after an hour. A data error, such as a non-existent product code, waits for a person instead.
• Duplicate protection: the same order is never written twice, even if the online store sends it again. Pohoda also has its own duplicate check for XML imports, which I turn on as a second safeguard.
• Logs: each transfer records the time, source and target, the content and the target system's reply. When someone asks a month later why an invoice has an old address, I find the answer in minutes.
• Error alerts: an email or a Slack or Teams message, one per problem rather than a hundred identical ones. A short morning summary shows what went through yesterday and what's waiting.
• Checking it's running at all: if no orders arrive during a working day when they normally do, the system raises an alert, and once a day it compares counts, such as orders in the store against orders in Pohoda.

07 / 08

When n8n, Make or a ready-made plugin is enough

If you only need to send a website form to the CRM and email a colleague, n8n, Make or Zapier will do: you can set it up yourself in a few hours for less than development would cost. If there's a ready-made plugin for your online store and accounting software, try that first. If you'd rather have inventory, CRM, invoicing and an online store in one program and adapt your processes to it, look at Odoo, and there's nothing to connect.

If you already use n8n, I can build the integration in it and run it on a server. Custom code pays off when at least one of these applies:

• You need two-way sync with rules for individual fields.
• Your accounting software runs on an office server and has to be reached through mServer, an API module or a VPN.
• You move so many records that scenarios billed per operation get expensive or hit their limits.
• You need logs, retries and alerts you can trace even months later.
• One of the systems is your own and no ready-made connector exists for it.

08 / 08

What system integration costs and how we start

A single integration, for example orders from the website into Pohoda, takes a few days and usually starts at €500. Two-way sync, more systems and old data migration add to the price. If they grow into a system your company runs on every day, such as a CRM with inventory, I price it by scope and in parts. Running costs, meaning the server, backups and monitoring, range from tens of euros to the low hundreds a month.

We start with a free call where you show me your systems and where people retype data today. Then you get a specific price and delivery date, with the quote split into parts so you can start with the one that slows you down the most. Once you approve the quote or any part of it, I build a free prototype so you can check the integration will work before you make a final decision.

You pay 20% when you order and the rest after handover. By default, I run the integration on my own accounts for a monthly fee that covers hosting, backups and updates, and I always fix its bugs for free. When personal data passes through it, such as CRM contacts, we sign a data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR. If you're not sure which process to connect first, see business process automation.