System Integration Consultant, Ireland

What an Irish ERP usually has to talk to

The integration inventory for an Irish company tends to contain the same families of systems, even though the products differ. Listing them early shows where effort will go:

• Banks. SEPA credit transfer and direct debit files going out, statements coming back for euro accounts and, for many firms, sterling accounts held for trade with Britain and Northern Ireland.
• Payments. Card and online payment providers attached to a webshop or subscription tool, settling in batches with fees deducted.
• Payroll. A dedicated payroll product that handles employee reporting to Revenue, sending journals to the ERP.
• Sales channels. An online store, marketplaces, a distributor portal and the CRM.
• Logistics. Third-party warehouses in Ireland or Britain, carriers and customs brokers for goods crossing to Britain.
• The group. Consolidation packs or a direct feed to the parent's reporting system.

For each I record what moves, how often, who relies on it and what happens today when it fails. That last column usually decides the priorities. A broken payment file on a supplier run day hurts more than a late dashboard. The Ireland overview describes the wider ERP work this fits into.

SEPA files, statements and receipts in two currencies

Banking is where Irish finance teams feel integration gaps first. Supplier payment runs are built in the ERP and uploaded to the bank as SEPA XML files; collections from customers may run as direct debits; statements need to come back in a structured format the ERP can match. Each bank has its own conventions on file details, approval in the online banking portal and how rejections are reported, so I design the flow with the bank's own documentation and your treasury contact in the room.

The mapping covers creditor and debtor details, the remittance information that lets customers and suppliers recognize a payment, batch versus single booking, and how returned or rejected items flow back. Sterling accounts are handled separately, since payments to British suppliers often run outside SEPA and statements may arrive in a different format.

Online payment providers add another layer. They usually pay out net of fees and refunds, sometimes in a different currency from the sale. I specify how each payout is split into sales receipts, fees, refunds and chargebacks so the bank line matches the ledger without a monthly spreadsheet. Whether the ERP pulls statements through a bank connection, a connector or a scheduled file import depends on what your bank and platform support, which is checked rather than assumed.

Payroll, the group and the shape of the ledger

Most Irish companies run payroll in a dedicated product or through an outsourced bureau, which deals with employee reporting to Revenue as part of each pay run. Whether that suits you is a matter for your payroll provider and accountant. The ERP should not duplicate it. What it needs is a clean journal: gross pay, employer costs, deductions and net pay posted to the right accounts and cost centers, with a control total that ties back to the payroll report.

I write the mapping from pay elements to accounts with your accountant, settle the transport the payroll product supports, and name the person who approves the posting. Personal pay data stays in the payroll system; the ERP receives only the summarized lines it needs.

For subsidiaries of foreign groups, a second feed matters just as much: the monthly consolidation pack or trial balance sent to the parent. The integration has to map the Irish chart of accounts to the group chart, carry intercompany balances that agree on both sides, and run on the group's close calendar. I specify that mapping table, the validation rules that stop an unbalanced upload, and who in Ireland signs it off each month.

Webshops, warehouses and goods crossing the Irish Sea

Irish firms selling physical goods often connect an online store, one or more marketplaces and a third-party warehouse to the ERP. The design starts with item codes: if the shop, the warehouse and the ERP each hold a different identifier for the same product, every other flow inherits the mismatch. I agree one master and a mapping table before any connector is switched on.

Orders then move from the sales channel to the ERP, picking instructions go to the warehouse, shipment confirmations and tracking numbers come back, and stock levels are published to the channels at a frequency that matches the speed of sale. Returns are specified as carefully as sales, because refunds touch payments, stock and tax in one go.

Goods moving between Ireland and Britain add customs data. The broker or forwarder typically files the declarations, but the ERP has to hold commodity codes, origin, values and the destination split between Northern Ireland and Great Britain so the broker receives complete information. I treat those fields as part of the integration specification and leave classification and customs treatment to your broker or advisor. Where a new ERP is being implemented at the same time, these flows sit inside the plan described on my ERP implementation consultant page for Ireland.

Choosing the method, testing it and owning it after go-live

For each flow I compare the realistic methods. A native connector is quick when it exists and covers the real cases. An integration platform such as Make, Zoho Flow or n8n helps when several systems share data, with mapping and logs in one place. Custom API work suits high volumes or logic no connector handles, but someone has to maintain the code. File exchange remains valid for banks and payroll when it is automated and monitored.

Testing runs as business scenarios, not as single-record checks: an order placed online, shipped by the warehouse, paid through the gateway and matched on the bank statement; a supplier run with one rejected payment; a payroll journal with a correction. Finance reconciles totals across systems before sign-off, and the test log becomes part of the go-live decision.

After go-live every flow needs an owner in Ireland, an alert that reaches that person, and a runbook for the common failures. I also record the credentials each integration uses and who can change them. I can stay on to review error trends and changes during the first period of live running. CRM-side design is on the CRM consultant page for Ireland, and the general approach under system integration and ERP integration. Work is remote, with visits by arrangement.