You may start with an ecommerce platform such as Shopify or WooCommerce because it gets you trading quickly, but once your order volume begins to climb you soon see that the ease you experienced at the beginning does not carry through to the rest of your operation. The more transactions you process, the more your systems reveal the limits of the connections between them, and what once felt workable becomes a daily effort to keep information aligned.
It is common to assume the integration is built in. The platforms promote themselves as simple to connect, yet your stock levels drift, online sales take time to reach your accounting system, and your staff find themselves re-entering data simply to keep pace. Much of this comes down to the way different systems describe the same information. You may have one system talking in SKUs, another in item codes, another in variants, and these mismatches make it difficult for data to move cleanly across your workflow.
As you run into problems, you may add a plug-in or app to resolve a particular issue, and for a period it provides a workable fix. Over time, though, each patch introduces another layer for you to maintain. A single failure in one connector can disrupt your reporting, your stock position, and your customer communication, leaving you with a tangle of small issues that collectively erode confidence in the system.
Centralise before you connect
To break this pattern, you need a single point through which all of your information moves. A middleware hub sits between your finance, inventory, CRM, and ecommerce platform, translating and routing data so it stays aligned. When a product sells in-store, the hub updates your inventory, your accounts, and your online listings without requiring manual input. Orders, pricing, and customer details update in one place and flow across the rest of your systems in a consistent way.
This shift allows you to create a stable foundation rather than relying on isolated connections that do not scale with your business
Match your tools to your stage
There will come a point where your setup no longer supports what you are trying to achieve. You may want to continue using systems such as Infusion, MYOB, or Xero because they suit your internal processes, but you still need a way to coordinate them. A middleware platform like CODI allows you to connect each system once rather than building and maintaining multiple one-to-one links, reducing the number of dependencies you carry and making it easier to manage change.
Focus on fundamentals before you scale
Before you add new features or replace existing software, it helps to understand where your data currently travels and where it stalls. A simple mapping exercise can reveal sources of duplication, delays, and manual workarounds. From there you can:
- Audit the data paths so you understand how stock, orders, and customer records move through your stack.
- Review the strength and reliability of available APIs so you know whether a new system can integrate properly.
- Build time for testing, refinement, and gradual improvement rather than treating integration as a one-off task.
When your systems begin to align, the volume of routine fixes reduces and your team can shift away from reconciling information and back to serving customers and managing the work that drives revenue.
The purpose of integration
Integration is not a statement about the value of any particular platform. It is about ensuring your systems support the way you operate. When the data is accurate and consistent, you remove friction from your daily workflow and reduce the number of issues that interrupt your customers. The outcome is steadier, more predictable operations built on information that moves cleanly across your business.
If you want a clear view of where your integration is breaking down, begin by tracing how your data flows now. That single step often makes the next decisions easier.