Tag Archive for: ERP Integration

2020 Top ERP and CRM Integrations

Technology has advanced and has made day-to-day operations for businesses more efficient and seamless. CRM and ERP data integration can be done without changing any coding in your existing software. Commercient’s integrations are quick and easy to implement and do not require ETL, mapping, or coding, which reduces implementation costs by up to 80%. Your businesses can integrate and make use of their data within 24 hours without interrupting any of your daily operations.

More industries have started harnessing the great benefits of Commercient SYNC ERP and CRM data integration solution, after implementing the Commercient SYNC solution some of the greatest benefits quoted from our customers are:

  • With Commercient SYNC, SealRyt has a 360-degree view of customers. “Just allowing salespeople to be able to see the ERP data that they call or email us for every day, right in Salesforce, is going to be a game-changer,” Chilton said
  • “Our team has access to ERP data at their fingertips,” explained Gary Paul, Regional Sales Manager, at Protectowire. “Prior to SYNC and Salesforce, we didn’t have any visibility on what was happening with the company.”
  • “Commercient’s pricing and support were the main keys, and the support has been pretty amazing so far,” said Kaushik Loke of Abelian “The entire setup of the SYNC was handled by Commercient, who was able to coordinate with the client to ensure al; the requirements were in place for their ERP and CRM integration.”

Take a look at how Commercient SYNC works

Here’s Commercient’s 2020 top ERP and CRM integrations:

Hubspot CRM & Sage Integration: Sage CRM and HubSpot each serve important functions for teams within an organization. The two systems are impressive by themselves, but combine their compatible attributes and you have an unstoppable sales, marketing, and services powerhouse. Pull lists directly into HubSpot from Sage CRM and never worry about the upkeep. Updates happen automatically as you make changes in Sage CRM, so your HubSpot list is always accurate. Want to know if a prospect signed up for a webinar? Have they visited a webpage? View your HubSpot customer activity within your Sage CRM platform for deeper marketing insights and more relevant sales calls.

Sugar CRM & Quickbooks Integration: Integrating Sugar CRM & Quickbooks helps businesses eliminate the timely and sometimes costly procedure of hopping between systems to gather all the data you require. Commercient SYNC closes the gap between your QuickBooks and Sugar CRM. SYNC data integration is simple, quick, and efficient. Your data is synced to both systems in real-time without the need for manual data entry, or the risk of human errors. SYNC harnesses the power of the cloud to provide more security, productivity, efficiency, and revenue. Having all of the information that’s important to your accounting team and sales department in one easy-to-access place will help your business become more efficient by simplifying everyone’s jobs, speed up the sales process, and provide you with – one truly powerful collaborative system.

Zoho CRM & Xero Integration: Integrating your Xero data with Zoho enables you to keep your business running on track while offering essential visibility to your sales and customer service teams. Through SYNC, your front-office teams can see everything happening behind the scenes including accounting data, contracts, business financial performance, and customer records. They can also feedback vital intelligence via Zoho to your back-office teams. Additionally, when you win a new business, SYNC automatically converts it to Xero in the form of a Sales Order, a Job, or a new product with a BOM. Use Commercient SYNC automation to align departments, maximize sales and marketing collaboration, and nurture better customer relationships.

Salesforce & Epicor 10 Integration: Epicor 10 is an ERP software that can be integrated into your CRM known as Salesforce. These systems are used to ensure that data integration runs smoothly. However, data within your Epicor 10 and Salesforce CRM systems can remain separated, which means your teams may miss crucial information needed to make important decisions. Therefore, SYNC can provide a cost-effective and practical way in order to make sure your operations run smoothly while enhancing visibility between your customer services, sales, front and back-office teams.

When your sales team is in the middle of a very crucial touchpoint throughout the customer’s journey, having mobile access to customer inventory, invoices, orders, products, and pricing information will assist in closing deals quicker. Your sales team must have up-to-date data during the interaction, not afterward. With effective integration, employees from various departments within your company will also find it easier to collaborate, because streamlined information keeps everyone in your business on the same page.

Talk to us and get started with seamless integration with SYNC!

eCommerce – Magento ERP integration Explained

What is eCommerce?

Before we get into eCommerce – Magento ERP integration, let us define and tackle what is eCommerce. An eCommerce site is a site that enables users to do their shopping online, which means that physical products can also be bought online through the purchasing and selling of products online. It is also known as “internet commerce” or “electronic commerce”. A commercial transaction takes place once a user buys a service or product, the money is then paid through a secured online platform. An example of an eCommerce site is Magento.

When it comes to eCommerce, there are different types such as:

  1. Business-to-Business (B2B) – When a service or product is sold to an alternative business.
  2. Business-to-Consumer (B2C) – When a service or product is sold to another consumer.
  3. Consumer-to-Business (C2B) – This happens when a consumer sells a service or product they offer to another business.
  4. Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) –  This takes place when a consumer sells a service or a product to another consumer

What is eCommerce – Magento ERP integration?

Magento ERP integration is a link between the business eCommerce site and back-end (ERP) that involves accounting and inventory. The data between these two systems flow automatically and bi-directionally which results in data only needing to be captured once. For example, when data flows, inventory levels will drop once a purchase is made.  A type of eCommerce integration is Magento, which contains the customer’s details, orders, and payments.

Why should a business use eCommerce – Magento ERP integration?

A Magento ERP integration is beneficial if you are continuously adding in data manually and moving it across the two systems, regardless of whether it is orders or product information.  This will result in a higher chance of making mistakes (human error) and leading to incorrect information that may affect the buyer’s experience, for example, the wrong shipping address. The more the eCommerce business grows, the amount of data being handled will increase and if you integrate your eCommerce data, you will need less staff to handle the influx. The user entering an eCommerce site will always expect a seamless experience.

What are the benefits of  eCommerce – Magento ERP integration

eCommerce – Magento ERP integration has the following benefits:

  • Customers will automatically be notified when their orders have been shipped and they can trace their delivery 
  • Data will automatically be updated, for example, if prices change
  • There will be better customer service since the integration will allow updates on the platform when a user makes a purchase
  • Entering data manually will no longer be needed which will reduce time and human mistakes
  • Orders can be increased without the need to provide more resources
  • Users will be able to see accurate information of what is in stock
  • Data will be synced bi-directionally, which will keep consistency and will speed up the data processor when it updates
  • When an integration takes place between the ERP and eCommerce platform, this will allow data to be fetched from other departments 

How to integrate Magento with your ERP?

Commercient has the integration solution for your Magento ERP integration requirements, SYNC can integrate the data you need which is simplified and user-friendly, as they no longer use traditional integration tools like ETL, mapping, or coding. By choosing Commercient SYNC, you will be able to view all the data in one place and the data will flow automatically as well as bi-directionally. Contact us today and alleviate the risk of having human errors from manually entering data. and increase your employees’ productivity with one source of centralized data. Not only that, but SYNC can integrate the data in real-time and provide you with an enhanced experience.

Wondering how SYNC works? Click the link to find out more.

Revolutionizing Email Marketing Campaigns With CRM And ERP Data

The technology behind creating content based on your target market has drastically evolved, making the process efficient and easier. According to research conducted by Evergage, many marketers agree that personalization is the most effective strategy for retaining the customer.

Happy Customer

To successfully implement personalization strategies, you’ll need sufficient data and insights. Bringing data from different systems remains a challenge for about 55% of marketers – you can create unique content on websites or social media, but personalized content is most effective in email marketing campaigns.

Sending individualized emails is not rocket science; however, using personalized emails to enhance conversion rates requires more than adding “First_Name” to your introduction.

So, how can companies gather the needed data? For starters:

  • Doing business with them
  • Tracking visitors on your website
  • Sign-up forms on your website
  • Sales networks
  • Third-party apps

All this data is usually gathered inside your CRM system. Collecting basic information such as name and address can make your email marketing communication simple, but not as effective. Make a list of data fields you want to acquire from your customers – name, address, and contact numbers are a given, but you also want to be able to track their purchase history, product interest, contact history, etc.

How integrating your CRM and ERP system enhances your campaign.

The 55% of marketers that struggle to bring all the data from their ERP system into their CRM system can utilize third-party integration apps to gather all the data collected from marketing automation systems or accounting tools into their CRM system. The integration between the two systems allows you to create custom fields where necessary and capture all the information.

It is crucial to make sure this information is up to date and accurate. Addressing a contact with the wrong name won’t do your marketing and sales efforts any good. Make sure you provide a personalized link in each email where the recipient can alter their own contact information; this will help to keep your database error-free.

Finally, always remember to send yourself and your team members a test email to see if everything works before you set wheels on your email marketing campaign. With a test mail, you can confirm whether all conditional content or personalization tags are in proper working order. Good luck!

How to Automate Workflows With a CRM And ERP Integration

In order to get the most out of your ERP and CRM’s, automating workflows would work best through the seamless integration of data between your ERP and CRM. To be able to elaborate on this, we need to discuss and gain a better understanding of what ERP and CRM’s have to offer your business, by providing examples of ERP and CRM data integration, and how to automate workflows.

Let’s define what is an ERP and CRM Software:

ERP stands for enterprise resource planning, ERP systems deal with financial data, supply chain management, and payroll. Businesses need an ERP system to assist in lowering costs and increasing revenue by having their communications and business functions consolidated. ERP systems are there to prevent repetition, arrange pricings, and assist teams in speaking to each other. To summarise, the ERP system looks at all aspects of a company. 

Examples of ERP systems in action:

  • It updates accounts and processes orders;
  • Manages employees on payrolls that deal with benefits, income, and stores personal information about employees;
  • You can track any manufacturing processes and create alerts for every phase of the process;
  • Supply chain management that consists of manufacturing, distribution and purchasing; and
  • You are able to track processes in and across departments.

There are about 85+ ERP’s and some examples are, Sage, Quickbooks, Acumatica and Netsuite to name a few.

On the other hand, you have CRM systems – customer relationship management systems deal with the interaction between potential and current customers, ensuring they enjoy their experience. It’s all about delivering a service that is timely, reliable, and consistent because if that can be delivered, the business will have more of a chance of having customers that are loyal, and that will increase sales. Therefore, CRM systems are mainly used for customer service, sales, and marketing departments. 

To illustrate CRM systems in action:

  • Assist in high-quality customer support;
  • Streamlining the process for sales;
  • The response time will be more efficient;
  • Leads and opportunities can be pursued more effectively; and
  • You can draw up reports to analyze how the customer interacts with the business and their purchasing pattern. 

Some examples of leading CRM systems Salesforce, Hubspot, Sugar CRM, Zoho, and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Data Integration and workflow automation

Every business would like to streamline their data, in order for day-to-day processes to be more efficient so they can deliver expedited service to customers. If you have a separate ERP and CRM system without them being integrated into one system, it becomes tedious and hard to manage, and not only that, you will have to keep track of when to synchronize all the data. The workflow of data will become slower and there are more risks of running into numerous errors.

Data integration between your ERP and CRM has numerous advantages, as your business will be able to share one database between all employees, which means the following: 

  • 360-degree view of customers and products;
  • Employees can access information at a faster rate;
  • Avoid manual data entry and the risk of duplications;
  • There will be better inventory, order, and quote management;
  • Better quality control; and
  • Better mobility meaning employees can collaborate easier and faster.

But, now how does ERP and CRM integration play a role in automating workflows?

Well, workflow automation is a logical method of automating any manual task or work for an employee or worker and consists of knowing what tasks employees or workers do and automating them through technology. By integrating your ERP and CRM data, you have already created a ground for workflow automation. It is ideal for any business because it helps with;

  • Data accuracy;
  • Avoidance of manual data entry by employees;
  • Productivity; and
  • Efficiency. 

But how can one integrate their data to automate workflows?

Commercient SYNC makes data integration simple and user-friendly. Information is made available on a platform accessible to all employees. Through SYNC, data is transferred from your ERP to your CRM and from your CRM to your ERP and stored according to the business needs. Through this, Commercient assists in automating workflow because once the two platforms have been SYNC’ed, there will be a streamlined workflow that eliminates unnecessary work and your employee’s productivity will increase. Unlike traditional data integration tools such as an ETL, there is no coding, mapping, or server required through Commercient. Here is a video to prove it.

Contact us today and get your department’s workflows automated with SYNC!

Trends That Will Transform The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Industry

ERP software is essential for a modern-day business. There are professional ERP software solutions providers to help with your requirements. With the breakneck pace at which technology is evolving, ERP is undergoing a host of changes.

The business environment today has become more complex. The level of competition is increasing daily, so are customer expectations. It is essential for businesses to utilize their resources efficiently, this is only possible through the integration of technology with business operations.

Let us take a look at technology trends that will revolutionize the ERP industry as we know it: 

Direct machine integration: This technology refers to the connectivity of computers with machines and other things. Sometimes called “IoT” or “the internet of things”. For example, sensors placed on manufacturing machines can tell the manufacturer’s ERP software everything about the machine’s performance in real-time. The foreman or manager views and interprets the information. He then schedules any needed maintenance during off-hours when employees are not there.

There are much fewer surprise malfunctions and shut-downs when IoT and ERP are combined. That means that fewer human technicians are needed and employees are rarely paid for doing nothing while waiting on machines to get fixed. IoT devices connected to the ERP system can create this kind of communication and efficiency in many different applications within the entire supply chain. This level of visibility all up and down the chain will make companies much more competitive.

Artificial intelligence: To understand AI in an ERP context, think in terms of its practical applications—things like machine learning and natural language processing. AI isn’t any one thing; it’s all the parts and processes toiling away behind the scenes to make something whole, rather than the physical or theoretical manifestation of that whole. AI ERP systems can recognize patterns and automate routine tasks, and they do all of it in the blink of an eye, giving businesses an unprecedented level of efficiency, functionality, and insight into their data. 

If the technology is used optimally, AI will use intelligent software applications to improve the internal management structure and create a smarter technology infrastructure, and thus optimize the business processes in each individual company. To accommodate the new technology, it is important that you are flexible and as a company prepared to review your current IT strategies.

ERP and CRM Data integration: Data has become more complex over the years and it still remains the fuel keeping most organizations in business today. Getting a consistent view of your business performance across a large enterprise could be challenging. Often, global corporations lack a single definitive source of data related to customers or products. And that makes it difficult to answer even the simplest questions.

Not all information needs to be available within five minutes, but certain decisions can only be made on the basis of data that is fully up-to-date. And that is a big advantage of ERP and CRM data integration. With ERP and CRM data integration, you see a unified view of your data, because ERP and CRM data integration software brings your information together, it can include data quality and the process of defining master reference data, such as corporatewide definitions of customers, products, suppliers and other key information that gives context to business transactions.

Cloud ERP: Cloud ERP refers to ERP software and tools that are offered and managed in the cloud, as opposed to the business hosting their system on-premises. While every organization operating today is different, they all face a common challenge—in order to effectively compete in today’s business environment, they need access to technology that helps them innovate, scale, and grow quickly. They need advanced, globally-connected, and continuously updated software tools and systems that allow them to focus more of their time and energy on implementing growth initiatives and less on day-to-day IT management. That’s where cloud ERP comes into play. As technology continues to advance and evolve, more businesses of all sizes are considering cloud ERP software solutions than ever before. This popularity is largely a result of factors such as cost, reliability, speed, and access.

Mobile ERP: Everyone is staring at their cell phones these days. Many people take laptops and other mobile devices with them to restaurants, coffee shops, home, and back to the office.

We live in an era of instant access to information, and today’s mobile workforce expects large-company software to have a mobile app. Apps give executives and employees access to real-time company information and customer communications. ERP is indeed going mobile to meet this need. ERP mobile apps let the workforce send push notifications, create an event, review and approve time, sales orders, and expenses from the local coffee shop.

Apps that are dedicated to just one activity, such as dealing with sales orders or performing customer relationship management, are common. Employees, from the warehouse to the customer’s door, have some sort of real-time information. Companies who implement this technology will have an edge over those who don’t because more work is getting done during the day. That means it gets done faster and customers are happier.

Conclusion

Combining ERP and Smart Tech solutions is a beneficial practice for organizations that want to standardize repeatable processes and increase the visibility of operations across the organization. The ERP system is used as a backbone platform to execute the main transactions and to store the essential data. Smart Tech solutions automate, control, and visualize business processes. As Smart Tech solutions are becoming more extensive and sophisticated,  the number of activities they can replace is increasing. However, to ensure successful use of the ERP and Smart Tech solutions the following considerations must be taken into account:

  • structure of the data
  • alignment of end-users
  • maturity of Smart Tech solutions
  • set-up of the ERP system

The continuous monitoring tool on the ERP platform makes it possible for the employees to gain insights into their critical processes and to turn these insights into actions by managing exceptions. This caused a shift from resolving issues to improving business process activities. Because of the standardized back-office processes.

Contact us today for a free Commercient SYNC demo, and embark on a journey of revolutionizing your ERP system.

Ultimate Guide To Managing a Sales Team Remotely

Remote work is on the rise. As a manager, how can you track the performance of your sales team, in order to establish trends and predict business growth as more companies embrace working with remote teams? 

Besides sales metrics, managers and business owners need to keep in mind aspects such as sales processes, efficiency, communication, and especially the creation of a remote work culture that employees have embraced and are committed to do everything they can to make it work for everyone: bosses, coworkers, stakeholders and customers.

This is the time to leverage the capabilities and advantages of cloud-based technology. Data doesn’t have to be siloed, or resting in desktop computers that only a few employees have access to. Data is here to be used, to optimize everyone’s work and, most importantly, to make decisions that help your company grow. 

Commercient SYNC has helped inside and outside sales teams to have access to key customer data in different devices, manage leads and opportunities, optimize their time in the field, be more productive, close deals, and provide an enhanced customer service. 

The technology is there, and in order to get the most out of those investments and truly make a difference in the company, a new culture needs to emerge. This is a process, it’s true, but just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, no change can come unless managers and employees take the first step towards a culture that embraces innovation and seizes new opportunities and trends.

As a company, Commercient walked the talk using Zoom for its global team communication, and to provide embedded live support in its unique training environment. Besides the security of the system and the frictionless video conferencing for staff and client meetings, Commercient chose Zoom to connect clients to a support technician via video in real time, in its VR environment to provide customers with an interactive guidance to implement its integration technology.

“Everything in this [virtual training environment] runs within a web browser, so one of the requirements was that the solution had to be able to run in a web browser,” said Richard Jenkins, co-founder of Commercient.

This change has made a positive impact not only in client onboarding and interaction, but in how the whole organization, sales, customer service and support interact with each other as well.

As a manager, you may have some concerns about how to successfully manage your sales staff and projects remotely. Here are some of the most common concerns and tips to tackle each of them to ensure goals are met and your team is as engaged as in the office (if not more):

Tracking People’s Time

This is especially important if your employees are hired per hour. How can you make sure that they’re working the corresponding hours each day/week? There are time tracking softwares such as Screenshot Monitor, that will allow you to see how many hours your employees are working on projects, and compare it with the invoices they send or the contract terms. 

If your company doesn’t work on hourly contracts, but project based or according to specific results, project management software such as Trello, Monday or Asana can work to track how many of those goals are met: how many calls were made, how many new leads, customers served, and more.

These are some tools Kelly Michael Skelton, System Architect at Fiber Optic Center, recommends in a recent article with tips to work remotely. He also recommends setting up a clear schedule. “Blocking off certain hours of the day for different tasks / meetings can help. I also make checklists every day of what I need to accomplish and what I hope to accomplish,” he explains. According to Skelton, these tasks may spillover into the following day, but it is still helpful to visualize responsibilities.

Choose The Right People

Can you “trust” your staff to work as efficiently at home as in the office (if not more)? Research shows people tend to be and feel more productive at home, but as a manager, it can be a challenge to correctly “assess” your own employees could make it work from home.  

There are some attributes to consider, such as discipline, proactiveness, being a self starter, and efficient time and stress management. Since they’re “on their own”, it’s important they feel personally responsible for getting things done, and communicate constantly with managers and coworkers as necessary.

Creating this remote work culture requires reinforcing these attributes in your team, and making sure any new hires have experience or the potential to develop them as well. Although is not possible to accurately predict a potential new employee’s performance in the job interview, there are questions you can ask: 

-Have you ever worked alone/remotely?

-Have they worked or managed a team that is not at the same location/country?

-Do you consider yourself a self starter? Can you give an example?

-Do you have specific, consistent habits in your routine (exercising, getting up at the same time, yoga, reading, etc.)

-Have you used project management software or CRM systems? How comfortable are you with this technology?

Project Timelines, Deadlines And Communication

In order to make everything work efficiently and meet goals, setting up firm project deadlines is a must. Especially with your team working from home, leaving projects hanging or to complete “when there’s some time”, is not going to do you, your employees or your company any good.

Time is money, and projects without clear deadlines is money lost in the long -and maybe not so long- run. Time is not something people “have”, it is something people “create” according to their priorities. So make sure your team has those priorities clear, especially during stressful times.

Deadlines need to be defined according to detailed and realistic project timelines, so your team knows what needs to happen now, and next, until the whole project is successfully completed. This doesn’t only help with the logistics, but reduces uncertainty and the stress that comes with it, since everyone is clear on their role at each step.

This cannot happen without clear and constant communication. To ensure everyone is on the same page and there are no duplicate efforts, technology has made it a lot easier: email, chat apps, video conference software for meetings such as Zoom, and remote team collaboration tools such as Google Suite and Quip (Salesforce).

As they say it themselves, with Quip employees can be on the same page without being at the same place. It combines documents, spreadsheets, and chat, to help distributed teams to work together effectively. For now, until September 2020, Salesforce has made this technology available for free.

Underperforming Team Members

Is there any team member struggling to meet deadlines or achieve sales quotas? Opening communication channels is crucial to find out what’s going on, in order to make decisions that correct any mistakes or deficiencies in the systems the team is currently using.

What can an open, thoughtful conversation do in these cases? First of all, you can detect problems the team is facing that you maybe weren’t aware of: communication problems among team members, a tool not working correctly, and even non-cloud based solutions that cause double data entry, duplicate efforts, errors, and data not synced between systems. 

That’s one of the main benefits the manufacturing company Gecko Alliance, a Commercient’s customer, perceives by using Salesforce and connecting it with their ERP, Infor Visual, through SYNC. At first, the Sales team showed some resistance towards the use of a CRM and other systems, since they felt like a struggle having to dedicate time to enter data into Salesforce. 

That has changed now. “In the last sales meeting, they all said ‘we can’t live without it anymore. This is our true source of data, this is where everything we do is happening.’ It pushed Salesforce into the front end for them. They know that without SYNC they couldn’t be doing what they’re doing right now,” said Elodie Martinez, Salesforce Administrator at Gecko Alliance.

Other useful tools are help desks and online FAQs pages, that can provide answers and resolve issues for employees and customers.

Reward Your Thriving Team Members

How about your top performers, those that consistently meet deadlines and reach -or exceed- sales quotas? If they’re working remotely, an “employee of the month” card in the office might not be the best way to show recognition, but there are other ways to show them how valuable they are to the team and the company. 

Mentions in the company chat can go a long way to show someone he/she is appreciated, and there are other perks such as rewards to meeting specific goals, bonuses, training/certifications at no cost to the employee… To keep a remote sales team motivated and thriving every time, having good communication is key to help them not feel isolated. Whether they work at the office or remotely, they all need to feel they’re part of a company that is up to do something great.

With a remote sales team, watching salespeople’s interactions with leads and customers is not always a possibility. That’s why it’s important to have processes in place that provide direction and clarify what’s expected from them every step of the way.

Having systems talking to each other and data that, instead of siloed, is easily accessible from any device goes a long way in helping a team to thrive. Remote workers need tools to help them optimize their time and resources, and Commercient SYNC can be a great ally in creating an innovative culture in your company. Let’s talk about connecting your CRM to your ERP today.

How CRM and ERP integration can benefit your company in 2020

Customer Relationship Management solutions help businesses in streamlining day-to-day operations and increasing profitability in your organization’s sales, marketing, and customer service departments. Enterprise Resource Planning software on the other hand integrates business processes across finance, HR, distribution, manufacturing, and all other business departments.

Integrating your CRM and ERP systems with Comercient SYNC gives your company improved sales processes, more accuracy in product forecasting, and the most relevant data stored in one centralized location. Your company might already be weighing the benefits of integrating the ERP and CRM system, let us take a look at how the CRM and ERP integration would be beneficial to your company.

  • Whether sales are a fundamental part of your business operations or not, remember that a CRM tool is not only for customer management. By integrating your CRM software with your ERP system, your company will gain advanced tools for streamlining relationships between sales representatives, the back office, and operations.
  • Automated updates will keep both your systems in sync that is crucial for when changes to operations are applied or different requirements are added. For example, any changes made in the ERP will immediately (in real-time) be reflected in the CRM system, and vice versa. Since the data in the ERP and CRM system is defined in the same integration solution, you will always have consolidated and consistent reliable data. 
  • The data integration between your ERP and CRM system with Commercient SYNC will add a new layer of efficiency to your company’s business operations. Integrated platforms have the ability to support multi-level assimilations, they are optimized to deal with different technology innovations in a flexible environment.
  • The latest information about product availability, which an ERP system provides, can result in more accurate shipment dates, which can then provide the opportunity for rush orders if the customer needs to receive orders faster. This can improve the company/customer relationship immensely. A happy customer is a returning customer.

From a sales representative point, a CRM tool gives you a clear picture of which campaigns are performing well, while the ERP system reveals the best selling products. With this data combined, operations are able to forecast product demand with more accuracy. This is vital because having less or too much inventory impacts your business bottom line. Excess inventory ties up revenue that could be better spent elsewhere.

When salespeople in an organization have access to the order history from an ERP system, in congruence with customer data from a CRM tool, they stand a better chance for closing a deal. ERP and CRM integration provides salespeople with all the necessary information even before reaching out to a customer. Not only does this speed up the collection process, but it also ensures sales proposals include the most relevant information.

Order processing is also sped up. When a salesperson captures an order in the CRM system, the data is automatically transferred in real-time to the ERP, which eliminates manual data entry from printed reports, emails or forms, making the lives of both manufacturers and salespeople easier.

Overall, when you have an ERP and CRM data integration, you get to create a seamless and streamlined workflow that eliminates the tedious work of entering the same data in various systems. This can save your company time and money in labor costs and reduces data redundancy errors (human error) that can ultimately result in unreliable data.

With an integrated ERP and CRM system, both sales and manufacturers can enter transactions (product orders or sales orders) or change customer records and have the updated information accessible to them at the touch of a finger.

Looking for more? Check out our ERP and CRM integration products here. Sign up and partner with us here or get our free Demo and start your integration journey with SYNC Today!

How Filter Sales & Service benefits from key customer data by integrating Salesforce and Epicor Prophet 21 with Commercient SYNC

Digital transformation has made companies more aware of the importance of real-time data and integration for business success. Founded in 1953 and based in Burlington, MA and West Haven, CT, Filter Sales & Services is one of those companies that fully understands what needs to be done to provide a revamped customer service.

Filter Sales & Service, Inc. is the largest regional air and liquid filtration product distributor in the Northeast U.S. This company provides air filtration, installation, commercial filtration services to its customers since 1953. Filter Sales & Service use Epicor Prophet 21 as their ERP to manage finances, before Salesforce they used to rely on Insightly as their CRM system.

Challenge 

Filter Sales & Service soon realized that using Epicor P21 and Insightly together didn’t meet their sales needs because of one main problem: lack of integration. They knew that a new and powerful CRM was the next step to remain competitive and avoid making business decisions based on unstructured data.

“It was functional, but the systems wouldn’t ‘talk’ to each other,” said Jackie Clarkson, Operations Manager. As a result, the sales team had to keep information in two different databases, which resulted in double data entry, duplicates, sending invoices to incorrect mailing addresses or emails and lack of accountability, among other issues. It was clearly a setback. 

Filter Sales & Service then relied on Salesforce, the #1 Customer Relationship Management software, and they quickly began to benefit from integration. 

However, the teams at Filter Sales & Service kept struggling with siloed data between the two systems and they needed easier access to the information between their current ERP and Salesforce. Managing and understanding customer data was an issue. The team was “sending invoices to incorrect mailing addresses or wrong emails”, explained Leo Lake, Sales Manager.

Working with separate databases was a risk in the business and the relationship with the customers. Having no easy access to key data would also affect their KPIs evaluation.

Solution

In a search for a definitive solution, Filter Sales & Service trusted Commercient SYNC, the #1 data integration platform for sales, with the task of integrating Epicor P21 and Salesforce.

The sales team was aware of the main benefits of working with Commercient SYNC, especially because it would provide them a 360° view of sales and the workforce could get more tasks done. Commercient allowed valuable data from Epicor P21 such as sales history, invoicing and inventory to be visible in Salesforce. With Commercient SYNC there’s no coding, no mapping, and no servers. 

By choosing Commercient SYNC as their integration tool, Filter Sales & Service were aiming to increase productivity and sales.

Information within Epicor P21 such as open orders, receivables, payables, etc, became available in Salesforce once Commercient SYNC got the two systems to “talk” to each other.

Results

Filter Sales & Service sales team now has easy access to customer information without having to jump from one system to another. Commercient SYNC made it possible to find all the valuable data in one place so the team can focus on boosting sales and become more efficient.

Having all this sales information properly synced in real-time allows the company to assess KPI’s and keep better track of their strategies, deadlines, understanding customer needs and not missing anything. Updating contact information and manual data entry are no longer a problem. With a two-way SYNC, any change made in their ERP is visible in Salesforce, which saves them a lot of time and results in more productivity.

Filter Sales & Service is one example of Commercient SYNC’s ability to integrate ERP and CRM systems. Having a legacy system is not an obstacle either to SYNC integration. There are over 85 systems integrated by Commercient, including Sage, Acumatica, Epicor, SAP and even the old one AS/400.

The integration of ERP and CRM with Commercient is the key to stellar customer service. With SYNC integration, Filter Sales & Service will surely remain a leader in their industry. The sales team can focus on what really matters: keeping their customers happy and adding loyal ones.  With this powerful sale benefits, they’ll keep committed to quality products and services over the years to come.

Let Commercient be the solution for your company too. Contact us know and let’s discuss your data integration needs.

Let’s Go Fly A Kite

Last week our team in India celebrated the Kite Festival with dragons, sharks and resplendent whirly kites taking to the skies in a display of color and motion. 

Master kite flyers showed their prowess, children tugged on strings attached to lovingly made diamond shapes, and the rhythmic pulse of music could be heard throughout streets and parks. It was a celebration to mark the passage from winter to spring, the new harvest season, and with it came joy.

While (Kite Festival) Makar Sankranti is most popular in West India, in the South, the festival is known as Pongal and in the North, it is celebrated as Lohri. Through India’s history, it is said that India created the tradition of kite flying, as it began as a sport for kings. Over time, as the sport became popular, it reached the masses. Kite flying has been a regional event in Gujarat for several years.

As our team members launched their kites into the encouraging winds, I was involved in talking with a new marketing team member about why a company would want to integrate their ERP and CRM software. I found myself talking about what it would be like to be the sales manager at a kite making company. Imagine, here you are trying to sell kites, beautiful kites. 

How do you sell more kites? How do you sell kites faster? How do you sell kite kits as well as premade kites? How do you make selling kites easy so that your salespeople are informed, ready and able to close sales in one conversation? How do you create a beautiful customer experience so that your customers enjoy the buying journey from quote to payment and use?

Product knowledge is key. By having ERP data in your CRM system your company can answer questions and have a meaningful discussion with the customer. Within the CRM you can actually see what types of kites you sell (fish kites, shark kites, whirly kites). You can tell the customer that when they receive their kite kit it will have a string, a handle, a frame, fabric, and a tail included. You can also see the pictures of those kites and the maker instructions in the CRM, and you can share them with your customers. Product information is just the beginning of the conversation. 

Pricing is one of the most important conversations to get right in order to win the sale, maximize revenue and communicate effectively with the customer. By having the ERP and CRM systems integrated, price changes can be real-time in both places. You can quote your customers on that new giant octopus kite, the one with the waving tentacles that children will ooh and ahh over. You can tell the customer that if they purchase more than 20 octopus kites then they will receive the 10% quantity discount break and you can identify that they are on the wholesale price list. Whether you set your pricing in the ERP or the CRM, you will be able to quote quickly and accurately straight from your CRM.

Inventory availability is essential for salespeople to know when they are trying to win that big kite order. Ultimately, the customer will ask, “when can I receive my order of butterfly and sailing ship kites?” Your sales team should be empowered to answer these questions and should not have to log into an on-premise ERP system or have to make a phone call. The kite salesperson should be able to say, “I can see that we have 50 butterfly kites and only 10 sailing ship kites in stock and available. If you place your order today then I can get them shipped from our Atlanta warehouse today and they will arrive by Friday.” If your salespeople cannot answer in that detail, from your CRM system, then you need integration.

Accounting data rounds out the sales person’s conversation with your customers. By integrating invoices and payments from the ERP to the CRM, you can discuss your customer’s previous orders and their account status. You can take their order but explain that it will not ship until that old, outstanding invoice is paid.

Getting orders to the ERP fast is essential. By integrating orders from the CRM to the ERP you can get kite orders assembled, packed and shipped fast. Your production and warehouse managers will be able to plan their kite assembly department resources and they will be able to purchase efficiently. Orders will flow seamlessly through the warehouse to result in happy, kite-flying customers who will gaze upon those kites dancing in the wind, and they will marvel at the joy you brought them. 

Integrating your ERP and CRM systems can be a beautiful experience. Commercient offers Sync apps for many ERP and CRM solutions. The Commercient Sync involves no coding, no mapping, and no complicated ETL toolsets. Let’s talk today to see how we can make connecting your system as easy as flying a kite with Commercient Sync.  

How To Improve Your Year-End Reports – The Easy Way

It’s that time of year again when you must generate those valuable reports your manager and company rely so heavily upon. We hope this reporting season went smoothly for you, but we all know that none of us are perfect and there are always ways in which we can improve.  

Finance and sales departments face the same challenges at the end of every reporting period, whether it’s month-end, quarter-end, or year-end. The departments must prepare financial reports and statements such as balance sheets, cash flow statements, income statements, management reports, and provide analysis of key performance indicators. 

During the reporting period, most managers want specific information about their product line, region, division, or stacks of data points throughout the organization. The more data required, the longer these tasks take. Fortunately, the revolution of analyzing data has come upon us, thanks to the availability of powerful tools in today’s digital market. Analysis can now fall in the hands of each user instead of relying on a technical genius or a financial guru to come up with fancy integration and complex formula management. 

For instance, Commercient offers a two-way SYNC app designed to integrate both your ERP and CRM data together, creating one master system for easy data access. Most organizations spend too much gathering the data to prepare reports. In today’s competitive business landscape, companies need to move beyond simply reporting; they need to analyze the data in the reports and adjust strategies based on results. Using Commercient SYNC can help businesses move beyond reporting and spend more time on the analysis of your key performance indicators.

Preparing your financial and management reporting for analysis – A data consolidation process is required. This can often be a complicated process—especially if there are multiple entities, currencies, or legacy systems. There are many software systems in most organizations— different ones for Personnel, Operations, Sales and Marketing, Services, and even Finance. Utilizing tools like Commercient SYNC makes the data avaliable for all departments with a simple click.

Distribution of reports to key stakeholders – Challenges may arise in the process of delivering reports and statements. Often there are different report requirements from different entities. Or maybe there are security issues that do not permit everyone to see the same reports. Multiple reports are required to deliver the same information to different levels of the organization. With a “reporting system” as opposed to a report, the Commercient SYNC integration solution handles this automatically. The application allows you to create a security hierarchy that automatically determines the required information on reports for specific users.

Perform variance analysis against plans and scenarios – During the planning phase, the finance and sales department can create multiple forecasts or plans based on different assumptions. As the results are reported, one can easily create a variance report to see which hypothesis was correct. Which in fact reinforces the methodology used to create the scenario associated with the presumption. Taking it a step further, the application supports re-planning capability at any phase in the reporting and analysis cycle.

Distribute re-forecasted plan and finalize approval – Once a new plan has been established, the system will distribute the new procedure the same way reports are distributed. The specific components of the plan should be distributed to the appropriate person, with security intact. Commercient SYNC will store the procedure centrally, allowing report consumers to compare actuals, a version that is secured and stored in one place. Others may distribute the new plan to all users allowing them to compare their data locally. This makes it easy for all users to access the same data at any time and from anywhere. It also means you don’t have to pay for any additional hardware such as on-premise servers or worry about data management and storage.

Track ongoing results – KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, are performance metrics that measure specific goals for businesses across all sectors. Essentially, all organizations regardless of size generate data in their day to day operations. This data is then used to fuel KPI’s that have been created to measure performance against strategic goals for the business. The data is also used for the day to day management of the business, such as manufacturing-focused performance data or individual performance metrics. 

With Commercient SYNC, the finance and sales teams have much more data visibility making it easier to track KPI’s and stay up to date with changes made in the CRM and ERP system simultaneously.

Would you like to improve your reporting system and eliminate manual processes? Contact us today and ask us how we will be delighted to take you on an integration journey.