HubSpot Meets ERP: The Power of Data Integration

As businesses grow and expand, managing different aspects of their operations becomes increasingly challenging.

From managing customer relationships to tracking inventory, businesses need to have reliable systems in place to ensure that all their data is accurate and up-to-date.

One such area that can be particularly challenging is managing sales and accounting data. While sales teams often use CRM tools like HubSpot to manage customer data and track deals, accounting teams use ERP systems to manage financial data and processes.

Although both these systems work efficiently in isolation yet create a bigger challenge for the businesses in the long run. The challenge to have a holistic view of the siloed data stored in these two separate systems.

To understand in detail, let’s look at different scenarios which arise when these two systems are not used in conjunction.

Different Scenarios Where HubSpot CRM and Accounting ERP Are Used As Separate Systems

Invoice and Payment Processing

Your sales team generates invoices for the deals they close. However, managing the invoicing and payment process can be time-consuming and prone to errors.

If you use separate systems like HubSpot CRM and Accounting ERP, you may need to manually transfer invoice data from one system to another. This can lead to delays, missed payments, and other issues that can impact your cash flow.

Customer Data Management

HubSpot is a powerful tool for managing customer contacts, but it may not be enough to manage all of your customer data.

For example, you may need to track contact information like billing and shipping addresses, which may not be available in HubSpot. Or you may be using a Customer Support Platform like Zendesk for providing support to your customers

Using separate systems, HubSpot and Accounting ERP or Zendesk, will require to manually transfer contact data from one system to another or update in both the systems, individually. This can lead to duplicate records, incorrect information due to typing mistakes and other issues that can impact your customer relationships.

Inventory Management

If you sell physical products, you need to manage your inventory effectively. However, managing inventory can be challenging with separate systems for customer data and inventory records as the inventory levels change with each sale and purchase.

And tracking stock levels, managing purchase orders, and track shipments, can become extremely difficult to manage in HubSpot.

Additionally with this high volatility in inventory levels, uploading and managing data in two separate systems (HubSpot and Accounting ERP) is a cumbersome task. It can lead to stockouts, overstocking, and other issues that can impact your profitability.

Sales Order Management

Once a deal is closed, your sales team generates a sales order that outlines the products or services purchased by the customer.

But managing sales orders can be challenging with two different systems. You may need to track order status, manage fulfillment, and track shipment.

And manually transferring and uploading data is yet another challenge because you have to upload sales order data twice.

This can lead to delays, missed shipments, and other issues that can impact your customer relationships.

Accounting Data Management

HubSpot may not have the capability to manage all of your accounting data, such as general ledger entries, accounts receivable, and accounts payable.

So you use two systems to manage customer and accounting data – HubSpot and Accounting ERP. But this can lead to errors and inaccuracies that can impact your financial reporting as you will not have the view of the organization as a whole when creating reports.

Project Management

If you offer project-based services, you need to manage your projects effectively. But managing projects can be challenging with two different systems as you may need to manually transfer project data from one system to another.  .

You may need to track project expenses, manage budgets, and track project progress, which can be difficult to manage in HubSpot.

This can lead to delays, missed deadlines, and other issues that can impact your project profitability.

Product Management

Managing products can be challenging, especially if you offer a large and varied product catalog.

Once a deal is closed, your sales team creates a deal and needs to update the products in it. However, products do not exist in HubSpot.

If you have a business wherein you are adding new products every day, managing your product data can be inefficient. If you use separate systems for HubSpot and accounting ERP, you may need to manually transfer product data from one system to another.

This can lead to errors and inconsistencies in product data that can impact your sales and profitability.

Imagine adding 40-80 new products and then multiplying it by 2, because they have to be entered into both systems. This can be a bottleneck that slows down your sales process and impacts your revenue.

Pricing Management

Pricing can be complex, especially if you offer different pricing tiers or discounts to your customers. 

HubSpot may not have the capability to manage all of your pricing data, including discount codes, promotions, and pricing tiers. 

If you use separate systems – HubSpot and accounting ERP, you may need to manually transfer pricing data from one system to another. This can lead to errors and inconsistencies in pricing data that can impact your revenue and profitability.

Selling to both B2B and B2C

Managing customer data can be challenging if you sell to both B2B and B2C customers. You may need to track different pricing, product information, and shipping information for each customer segment.

HubSpot may not have the capability to manage all of your customer data for both B2B and B2C customers.

If you use isolated systems, like HubSpot and accounting ERP, you may need to manually transfer customer data from one system to another.

This can lead to errors and inconsistencies in customer data that can impact your customer relationships and revenue.

Moreover, if you have a brick-and-mortar location and an online presence, managing your customer data across different channels can be challenging.

For instance, you may have a POS system to accept new orders from customers in your store. In these situations, it can be a great advantage to get this new data into HubSpot to direct marketing efforts that target this new buyer persona.

E-commerce Management

If you sell products online, managing your e-commerce operations can become quite a task with data requiring regular updates across different systems.

You may need to track orders, manage shipments, and handle returns and refunds, which can be difficult to manage in HubSpot.

This can lead to errors and delays in e-commerce operations that can impact your customer relationships and revenue.

Two things to consider when deciding the right solution

Source of Truth (SoT)

It serves as the primary reference point for data and information, ensuring that all users or systems accessing that information can trust its accuracy and consistency.

This means that any changes or updates to the data should be made in the source of truth and then propagated or updated to other systems.

For instance, in the case of invoices, HubSpot will use the SoT which will then update your Accounting ERP and in the case of quotes it will be your Accounting ERP.

There could be situations where two systems could be the SoT. This is most common when dealing with companies and contact records.

So, when there is one SoT for a dataset, that information needs to move only one way. But when both systems are considered the SoTs, this may require bidirectional communication to keep both the systems aligned.

Record Quantity

Next you need to understand the quantity of records that this communication would affect. Maybe the record count is less than 10 records a month that need to communicate or maybe it’s a 1000.

Answering the above two questions and understanding your requirements, then allows you to find the best solution for your business.

Let’s move onto the most awaited part: The Solution.

How to Solve the Problem of Using HubSpot and Accounting ERP as Separate Systems

Integrating HubSpot and Accounting ERP

Integrating systems like HubSpot and Accounting ERP through iPAAS companies like Commercient SYNC effectively solves the aforementioned problems by streamlining data flow, automating tasks, and reducing the need for manual intervention.

Seamless integration enables you to synchronize data across platforms, ensuring that the information is consistent, accurate, and up-to-date. This enhances operational efficiency by eliminating the need to manually input or update data in multiple systems, reducing the risk of human error, and minimizing the time spent on repetitive tasks.

By automating critical business processes, you can focus on more strategic, value-adding activities and improving operational efficiency: resulting in improvement in overall productivity, and growth.

Integration through platforms like Commercient SYNC also promotes better decision-making, as your teams will have access to reliable, real-time data from a single source of truth.

Moreover, integration facilitates improved collaboration and communication among departments, fostering a more cohesive and agile organization.

In conclusion, integrating systems like HubSpot and accounting ERP through Commercient SYNC can significantly enhance business performance by streamlining data flow, automating processes, and minimizing manual intervention, ultimately leading to increased efficiency, better decision-making, and accelerated growth.