Most businesses don’t realize how much emotional strain comes from disconnected systems.
- The stress of owning up to customer mistakes that weren’t yours.
- The tension when sales and operations compare numbers that refuse to match.
- The pressure of constantly catching up instead of moving ahead.
When these challenges show up often enough, they clearly point towards your systems not working together. And that’s where the idea of bringing your ERP and CRM, Salesforce (in this case) into one unified flow begins to feel more like a way to reclaim control of your everyday operations.
How To Integrate Salesforce With ERP
There are three methods of setting up ERP integration with Salesforce:
Point-to-point Integration
Point-to-point integration involves using custom code to build your own ERP integration with Salesforce. This is the best option for your business if you want complete autonomy over your systems and processes. With point-to-point integration, you get to customize every function and tailor it to your business needs.
Benefits of point-to-point integration with Salesforce
- Reduced time on employee training: When you build your ERP integration with Salesforce from scratch (via custom code), creating an onboarding process tailored to your business needs is easier. This way, your employees never have to go through a difficult learning curve to understand or adapt to your system.
- Seamless integration with other applications: You can customize your system to integrate Salesforce with any application without disrupting existing processes.
- Customizable user experiences: With the data from the Salesforce CRM fed into your ERP, it’s easier to personalize responses to each user’s queries, responses, and demands at scale.
However, the downside is that it’s time-consuming, costly, and requires a lot of maintenance. You need a standby dev team to update each part of the system manually.
| 💡Pro Tip → It’s advisable to evaluate the benefits of a custom integration based on the time and money it’ll require to implement. |
Native integration
One of the main advantages of the Salesforce ecosystem is the connector — which allows you to connect ERP applications directly to your Salesforce account. Due to this, you get plug-n’-play ERP integration templates built to cover most of your ERP needs. Plus, you get to save time, money, and resources you’d have spent building from scratch.
Benefits of native integration
- Great customer support: Due to the limited ERPs available on Salesforce, it’s easier to get adequate support to fix any bugs or issues during integration.
- Better compatibility: Pre-existing ERP integration templates are more stable and compatible with the Salesforce platform. This mitigates the risk of errors during data migration or system updates.
On the other hand, there are some drawbacks to native integration.
- Limited ERP solution: Currently, Salesforce only allows you to use the connector for selected ERP platforms like ORACLE, SAP, and Microsoft Dynamics ERP systems. So, for example, if your business uses dozens or hundreds of applications, there’s a high chance of inconsistent data across several platforms. Chances are, this will slow down your employee productivity because most will have to manually go through each platform to update, cross-check, or delete the duplicate data.
- Poor scalability: Pre-existing templates can only take you so far. As your company grows, adding more applications to your tech stack is required to handle your entire process adequately. The result? More data from several applications. However, native integration might not be able to unify each data point sufficiently, hence, you risk data silos.
| 💡Pro Tip → Only use native integration if your business model isn’t complicated or you don’t plan to scale. Otherwise, you’ll risk losing your data when you migrate from native integration to iPaaS or custom integration. |
Third-Party Integration Platform
Third-party integration platforms act as a central hub that connects Salesforce with your ERP without requiring custom code or direct system-to-system mapping. Instead of building and maintaining integrations yourself, these platforms provide pre-built connectors, configurable workflows, and a managed environment where data flows between systems reliably and consistently.
They sit between Salesforce and the ERP, handling everything from field mapping to error monitoring, making the entire integration process faster, more scalable, and easier to maintain over time.
Benefits of Using a Third-Party Integration Platform
- Faster Implementation: Pre-built connectors and templates reduce months of work to weeks or even days.
- Lower Maintenance Effort: The platform manages updates, error handling, and monitoring, reducing IT workload.
- Scalability for Future Needs: Easily add new integrations, systems, or workflows without rebuilding from scratch.
- Better Reliability and Visibility: Real-time dashboards and alerts help teams identify and resolve issues quickly.
- No Heavy Coding Required: Business users can configure workflows without deep technical knowledge.
- Vendor Support and Continuous Improvements: You benefit from ongoing enhancements, security upgrades, and new features.
One drawback of using a third-party integration platform is that you become dependent on an external service provider. So, it is important to choose the integration vendor wisely.
| 💡Pro Tip → DCKAP Integrator offers enterprise ERP integration with Salesforce by automating the flow and synchronization of data between different API endpoints in real-time. |
Related read: The Complete Guide to ERP Integration
HWhat to Consider Before Integrating Your ERP With Salesforce
1. Scalability
Scalability should be one of your first considerations. Your integration needs to keep up as your business grows with more data, more customers, more orders, more complexity. A scalable solution prevents you from hitting a technical ceiling or having to rebuild your integration every time you expand operations.
2. Compatibility
Compatibility is equally important. Every Salesforce instance and ERP setup has its own custom objects, fields, business rules, and workflows. Your integration must align with the way your systems already work, not force you to redesign processes just to make two tools communicate.
3. Cost
Cost goes beyond the initial investment. You need to consider implementation, licensing or subscription fees, long-term maintenance, and the ongoing effort required to manage and adjust the integration. The real question is not “What does it cost today?” but “What will it cost over the next few years as we evolve?”
Beyond these three fundamentals, there are other concepts worth paying attention to.
- Data Quality and Data Structure: Poor or inconsistent data will create problems no matter how good the integration is. Ensuring clean, standardized data upfront can save huge headaches later.
- Workflow Complexity: If your business relies on multi-step approval chains, custom pricing rules, or unique order flows, you’ll need an integration approach that can handle these nuances instead of oversimplifying them.
- Real-Time vs. Batch Needs: Not every business needs real-time syncing, but if your sales or operations teams depend on up-to-the-minute inventory or pricing, this becomes a deciding factor.
- Internal Skillset and Ownership: Consider whether your team has the technical capability to manage, monitor, and support the integration after it goes live or whether you’ll rely heavily on a vendor.
- Future System Changes: If you’re planning to upgrade your ERP, expand into new sales channels, or add new tools, your integration method should be flexible enough to adapt without starting over.
- Support and reliability: And finally, support and vendor reliability matter more than most teams expect. No integration runs perfectly forever and when something breaks, the quality of support determines how quickly you recover. This is one of the reasons many businesses lean toward third-party integration platforms at this stage. They not only provide the technology but also the dedicated support, monitoring, and continuous improvements that internal teams would otherwise have to manage alone.
What are the possible use cases of an ERP Integration with Salesforce?
Sync quotes and orders for easier processing
Businesses that rely on complex integrations for successful billing of clients might find it challenging to keep accurate records of their finances. With the Salesforce ERP integration, your sales reps can automatically sync quotes and orders of clients once their details enter your CRM. Additionally, they can use this data to upsell existing customers on better offers. Win-win.
Sync inventory changes in real-time
Misinforming clients on product pricing can make your sales team lose out on potential deals and even worse, give you a bad reputation. Also, manually updating your inventory is not feasible, especially if you’re a large business processing hundreds or thousands of orders daily. Integrating your ERP with Salesforce changes your product inventory and auto-updates your CRM and vice-versa.
Centralize your internal and external data
It’s not uncommon to find inaccurate customer information on the ERP and CRM. This often happens when both systems work independently; therefore, there’s a lot of cross-platform data migration that is not in sync. Also, some changes on the CRM might not reflect on the ERP, even after migration.
An ERP integration solves this issue by syncing and centralizing data from both systems internally and externally. This way, you get a 360-degree view of your customer interaction with every part of your business. For marketing, this can mean insight into the customer journey in the conversion funnel, And for sales, it can mean having enough to qualify leads before jumping on a call with them.
What are the benefits of an ERP Integration with Salesforce?
Enhanced customer experience
When your CRM and ERP integration are in the same ecosystem, your data becomes accurate. With this, your company can gain valuable insights into customer interaction to understand their needs.
Improved workflow automation
Managing an entire business process is usually hectic especially when it’s on a large scale. However, integrating these core systems (CRM +ERP) can help speed up the process by automating the workflow. This way, you and your team can spend less time on rudimentary tasks and focus on creating better products.
Efficient data-based decision-making system (lesser errors, better results)
Since the data from the integrating systems are unified, team members across other departments can easily collaborate on projects. And when they need to make crucial decisions, they can rely on the data from these systems to guide them.
Unified access from a single platform
The learning curve of business apps are not always employee-friendly. In most cases, some apps can take weeks — or even months to master fully. And according to reports from Productiv, most departments in a company use between 40 and 60 different applications. So imagine the learning curve of 60 various applications for each employee.
Meanwhile, using an ERP integration allows each department member to get all the information they need from an application without going through the extensive learning curve.
Recommended: Salesforce Data Integration Explained
Streamline Your ERP Integration with Salesforce Using DCKAP Integrator
For businesses that rely heavily on their ERP, connecting Salesforce shouldn’t require reworking the heart of their operations. That’s why DCKAP Integrator follows an ERP-first philosophy, your ERP stays in control, and every other system aligns around it. This approach keeps your data consistent, your workflows intact, and your tech stack easier to manage as you grow.
What this ERP-first approach delivers:
- Your ERP remains the source of truth. No restructuring, no forced workflow changes, no disruption to the processes your teams rely on.
- Whether it’s Salesforce, EDI, a PIM, accounting tools, or custom applications, DCKAP Integrator brings them together through a single, organized layer.
- Proven experience across all ERPs. From Epicor Prophet 21 and Epicor Kinetic to Infor ERP, Oracle NetSuite, DDI Inform, Acumatica, Sage, HubSpot, and even older legacy systems, DCKAP Integrator has worked with them all.
- Highly customized systems, outdated platforms or unique business rules, DCKAP Integrator adapts without forcing you to rebuild your core.
If you want to see how this approach can simplify your operations and create a cleaner connection between Salesforce and your ERP, book a demo with our experts. They’ll walk you through how DCKAP Integrator can bring clarity, order, and reliability to your integration landscape.
FAQs
What is ERP Integration with Salesforce?
Synchronizing all the data points from the Salesforce CRM with other applications can be challenging. For instance, poor application compatibility can result in duplicate records, costing time and money to clean up. Meanwhile, with an ERP integration, there’s a smooth flow of communication between both systems that reduces the risks of data silos within the company.
How does ERP Integration with Salesforce work?
A Salesforce integration with ERP works by merging businesses’ financial and operational systems into a centralized database. Take for instance; your ecommerce store acquires a new lead. Salesforce CRM will auto-populate your entire database with the latest customer data.
But the problem is that other applications used in running your business (e.g., Shopify) can’t access this information in real-time unless it’s manually updated into their database. To fix this problem, you use integration to automate all data entry across all applications. This way, once you get a new customer in the CRM, the same data shows up on invoices, quotes, inventory management, supply chain, financial reports, etc., in the ERP, making the whole process automated.
Beside CRMs, ERP integration works effectively with other modules such as; Business Intelligence (BI), Material Requirements Planning (MRP), Human Resource Planning (HRP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES).
How much does ERP cost?
According to the 2022 ERP Report by Software Path, the average ERP project can cost about $9,000 per user. However, when you factor in multiple users and applications needed in the ERP systems of large organizations, the price increases.
