Automation integration
The tools you already pay for, finally speaking to each other.
Most businesses do not need new software. They need the six things they already bought to stop needing a person in the middle copying between them.
Werehouse Media builds integrations between business systems for UK companies, as an independent studio based in Sussex. Automation integration is the work of joining tools that already exist so data moves between them without anyone retyping it: a website enquiry becoming a CRM record, a paid invoice closing a job, a booking writing itself into the calendar and the accounts. It is distinct from business process automation, which changes how a process runs; integration changes where the data goes. A connected system that joins two or three tools starts from £1,950. Larger integration surfaces, or work against systems with awkward or absent APIs, are quoted after a £495 process audit which is credited in full against any build over £2,000. Every price is fixed in writing before work starts, the integrations run on accounts you own and can cancel, and the work is documented and handed over.
What it is
Integration moves the data. Automation changes the process.
The two get sold as one thing and they are not. Automation is about the work itself: a quote that chases itself, a review request that goes out three days after the job. Integration is plumbing: making sure the CRM knows what the website was told, and the accounts know what the CRM agreed. Most projects want some of each, and knowing which half is which is what stops you paying build money for a plumbing job.
The website into the CRM
An enquiry arrives as a record with its source, not as an email somebody has to read and retype. Routed to the right person, deduplicated against anyone already in the system, and acknowledged automatically.
The CRM into the accounts
A won job becomes an invoice without a second entry, and a paid invoice closes the job. Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and the rest all have an API worth using and almost nobody is using theirs.
Bookings, calendars and the phone
A booking that writes itself into the real calendar, sends its own reminder, and leaves a record behind. The same route an AI receptionist uses when the calls arrive faster than anyone can pick up.
Stock, shop and despatch
One movement updating everything that depends on it, so the shop cannot sell what the shelf does not have. Where this grows past plumbing it becomes an ERP-shaped build, and we will say so.
How it is built
On your accounts, with the failures visible.
Your accounts, not ours
Every connector is created under accounts you own and can cancel. There is no middleman subscription in your name that we hold the login to, and no month where the integration stops because a bill we never told you about went unpaid.
Off the shelf where it fits, code where it does not
Plenty of joins are well served by Make or Zapier and we will use them and hand you the account. Where the volume, the cost per task or the shape of the data makes that a bad idea, it gets written properly instead. That decision is made on your numbers, not on which one we prefer.
It tells you when it breaks
Integrations fail: an API changes, a token expires, somebody renames a field. The difference between a nuisance and a disaster is whether you find out from a notification or from a customer. Every join we build reports its own failures and retries the ones worth retrying.
Documented and handed over
What is connected to what, which account owns it, what happens when it fails, and how to change it. Written for the person who has to look after it after we have gone, which might be another developer and might be you.
Prices
Published, and fixed before anything is built.
| Single join | From £650. One route, built and documented: the website into the CRM, or the CRM into the accounts. The right size when there is one obvious piece of retyping to remove. |
|---|---|
| Connected system | From £1,950. Two or three tools joined so the data moves on its own, with failure alerts, retries and a handover document. |
| Larger integration surface | From £3,500. Four or more systems, or one where the data has to be reconciled rather than simply copied. Quoted after the audit. |
| Process audit | £495, credited in full against any build over £2,000. Worth doing first when it is not yet obvious which joins are the ones that matter. |
| Aftercare | From £49 a month, no contract. Monitoring, token renewals and changes when a connected tool changes underneath you. See care plans. |
What moves the number is how many systems are involved, whether they all have a usable API, and whether the data needs reconciling as well as copying. None of that is guessable from a phone call, which is what the audit is for.
Where we stop
What we will not join up.
Anything that scrapes a login
If a system has no API, the answer is not a robot typing into it with your password. That breaks silently, it usually breaks the terms you agreed to, and it puts your credentials somewhere they should not be.
The judgement calls
Deciding whether a job is worth quoting for, or whether a complaint needs a phone call, is not integration work. We automate the retyping and leave the deciding with the people who are good at it.
A join nobody will maintain
If a route depends on a tool you are about to replace, building it now is money spent twice. We would rather wait a quarter and build it once.
Questions
The ones people actually ask.
Integration moves data between systems that already exist. Automation changes how a process runs. Joining your website to your CRM is integration. Chasing a quote three times over ten days and stopping when someone replies is automation. Most projects want some of both, and separating them is what stops you paying build money for plumbing.
Both, decided on your numbers. Off-the-shelf connectors are quick and perfectly good for low volumes, and we will use them and hand you the account. Once the task count makes the monthly bill silly, or the data needs shaping in a way those tools handle badly, it gets written properly. We will show you the crossover rather than assert it.
You hear about it from a notification rather than from a customer. Every join reports its own failures and retries the ones worth retrying, and the handover document says what to do about each one. On a care plan we deal with it for you.
Then we say so before you spend anything. Sometimes there is a supported export, a webhook or a partner route that is not advertised. Sometimes the honest answer is that the tool has to change before the join is possible, and occasionally that the join is not worth it. What we will not do is drive a robot through a login screen with your password.
No, and it is often the cheaper alternative to one. Joining what you already have from £1,950 is a smaller commitment than a system of record from £4,500, and it removes the same retyping. If it turns out the tools themselves are the problem rather than the gaps between them, that is a CRM or ERP build and we will tell you.
Stop being the integration.
If somebody in your business is the reason two systems agree with each other, that is the job worth removing first.