How do ERP and CRM work together?

What each system holds

A CRM, or customer relationship management system, holds the customer relationship, mostly the run-up to a sale: leads, contacts, conversations and deals, with each deal at a stage. HubSpot and Salesforce are CRMs.

An ERP, or enterprise resource planning system, holds the running of the business: orders, stock, purchasing, invoices, payments and the accounts they post to. Odoo, Business Central, NetSuite and SAP Business One are ERPs; a smaller company may cover the finance side with an accounting system such as Sage.

Where they meet

They overlap on four kinds of record, and each needs one owner: the system where it is created and corrected, which the other receives but does not edit.

Customers. The CRM meets a company as a prospect; once it buys, finance needs it in the ERP with billing details and payment terms. Created twice, it soon exists in two versions.
Products and prices. Sales quotes from the ERP's price list and needs to know what is in stock.
Orders. A won deal should become a sales order without being typed again.
Invoices and payments. Raised and matched in the ERP, sometimes in parts and weeks after the deal closed. Sales needs to see them before selling more to a customer who has not paid.

Why the numbers disagree when they don't talk

Left apart, each system keeps its own version of the business, and each is right by its own rules.

A sale is counted at different moments. The CRM counts a deal when someone marks it won, at the value they typed; the ERP records it when it is invoiced, net of discounts and any later credit note, perhaps in instalments.
The same customer goes unrecognised. One company sits under two names and two codes, so its deals and invoices cannot be lined up until someone matches them.
Prices and details drift. A price or an address changed in one system stays as it was in the other.

The usual result is a monthly spreadsheet that reconciles the two.

ERP and CRM integration: three ways to make them work together

A native integration

The connection the vendors provide. Some ERPs include a CRM: Odoo lists a CRM app, for leads, opportunities and forecasts, beside its Sales and its Accounting and Invoicing apps. Some vendors connect their own pair: Microsoft documents how Business Central works with Dynamics 365 Sales, with sales orders passed between the two and posted invoices shown in Sales. Others list connectors in an app marketplace, some from third parties, so check who supports them.

Fits when the vendor supports your pair and the connector covers the records you need. Watch for what it does not cover, such as custom fields, a second company or a third system like a web shop, and for sync errors: someone still has to read them, and a reconnect or an upgrade can reset its settings.

Middleware

A separate tool sits between the systems and passes records across when something happens: a won deal creates a sales order, a posted invoice updates the CRM. It ranges from tools a company sets up itself, such as Microsoft's Power Automate, to integration platforms an integrator builds and runs.

Fits when there is no ready-made connector, more than two systems must stay in step, or the hand-over needs rules, such as a credit check before an order is created. Watch for the upkeep: someone must hear when a transfer fails, since a failure can mean an order that never reaches the ERP, and an upgrade on either side can break the link between fields.

A data layer or warehouse

Instead of wiring the systems together, both are copied on a schedule, often overnight, into one warehouse. There the same customer is matched across both, terms such as revenue are defined once, and dashboards, reports and AI read from it. Nothing changes in how either system works, and payroll or the tills can join too.

Fits when the main need is to see rather than to move: the pipeline beside invoices and cash, profit by customer, one set of figures for the board, with history kept. Watch for its limits: it does not pass orders between the systems or correct a duplicate in either, its figures are only as fresh as the last load, and its loads and matching rules need an owner.

The three can sit side by side: a native integration or middleware for the orders that must flow, a data layer for the numbers people decide on. Data integration for reporting explains the difference.

What to check before you start

Which system owns each record: customers, products and prices, orders, invoices and payments.
Whether the customer lists match. A connection copies duplicates too, so clean them first.
What won, revenue and active customer mean, agreed by sales and finance together.
Direction and timing: one way or both, as it happens or on a schedule.
What your plan allows. Reading a system from outside can depend on its plan or an add-on, as our Odoo and NetSuite pages show; connecting the systems you already run covers each kind of system.
What it costs to run: extra licences, a middleware subscription or an integrator's time, or a warehouse's cloud bill.
Personal data. Contacts copied into another system are still personal data, so check who can see them and the supplier's data processing terms.
Who looks after it, and who hears when it fails.

Where 110 comes in

We build the AI tech your business runs on, and for an ERP and a CRM that is the third route. Both systems, and the others you run, are read into one warehouse in your own account, customers are matched across them, and AI checks what goes in and flags what's missing, so everyone works from the same numbers. The 110 Command Centre then puts the whole company on one screen: where you're growing, what to cut, who's late paying, and what needs you today.

Your systems stay where they are. We read your ERP and CRM and write into neither; passing orders between them stays with your supplier or integrator.

Common questions

Does an ERP include a CRM?

Some do: Odoo, for example, has a CRM app beside its sales and accounting apps. A company may still keep a separate CRM, perhaps one sales chose first. Either way, keep one record of each customer, owned in one place.

What does ERP and CRM integration involve?

Mapping the records both systems share, such as customers, products, orders and invoices, field by field; deciding which way each flows and how often; and setting up the connector or middleware that moves them, with someone watching for failures. For shared figures alone, a data layer does it without moving anything.

How do you integrate ERP and CRM?

Decide which system owns each record, match the customer lists and agree what won and revenue mean. Then choose: a native integration if one covers your records, middleware for rules or more systems, a data layer for one set of figures.

What is an integrated ERP system?

An ERP whose parts, such as sales, stock, purchasing and accounting, share one database, so a delivery updates stock and its invoice posts to the ledger without being keyed in twice. It still meets other systems at its edges: a separate CRM, the tills, payroll.