Moving data between programs – even without an API

Almost every company knows the picture: customer data lives in the CRM, invoices are created in the ERP, accounting lives in DATEV. Between these systems, data often travels by hand – as an Excel file, a printout or an e-mail attachment.

The most comfortable path for an automatic exchange is an API – an interface through which programs talk to each other in a structured way. Not every software offers an API, and not every API can be used without development effort.

But there are workable paths even without an API: structured exports. Many systems can output data as CSV, XML or in a defined format – and other systems can import exactly those files. What matters is that the format is clearly defined on both sides.

An everyday example: incoming invoices are captured digitally, reviewed and prepared as structured booking data for the DATEV import. Between capture and export, manual transfer disappears – yet the result is still checked by people.

Before an exchange is built, an honest inventory pays off: Which systems are involved? Which data flows in which direction? Which fields must be filled, which rules apply to processing? These are exactly the questions we clarify in the process analysis.

Error handling matters too: what happens when a file does not match the format, a row is incomplete or an import fails? A good data exchange reports such cases visibly instead of silently skipping them.

In the end it is not the technology that decides, but the process: an automatic exchange pays off where data flows regularly and according to clear rules. Automating irregular one-off cases by hand is rarely economical – and we will tell you so honestly.