What this integration solves
It's the bridge between the promise of a sale and the money that came in:
- A single customer record, with no duplicates across systems
- Orders created from the deal, with no re-keying
- Actual revenue sent back to the CRM, so you can measure your real CAC
- Inventory and availability visible to whoever is selling
What usually goes wrong
The trickiest part is deciding which system owns each piece of information. Without that decision, both systems start writing to the same field and the data becomes inconsistent on both ends — worse than keeping them separate.
The rule of thumb that works: the CRM is the source of truth until the deal closes; from then on, the ERP takes over.
Legacy ERPs
Many of the ERPs in use in Brazil don't have a modern API, and that doesn't rule out integration — it changes the path. There are alternatives through the database, files or middleware, each with its own cost and limitations, defined in the technical assessment.