Keeping Your Business Data in Sync
Your customer's address is different in your invoicing system than your CRM. Your project hours don't match your billing. Your reports take hours to compile because you're pulling from six different spreadsheets. This is fixable.
Why Data Gets Out of Sync
Every business ends up with data scattered across multiple tools - that's normal. The problem is when those tools don't talk to each other, so the same information has to be entered multiple times and inevitably gets inconsistent.
Approaches to Data Sync
Single source of truth. Pick one system to be authoritative for each type of data. Customer info lives in your CRM. Invoicing data lives in your accounting software. Then sync changes outward, not in every direction.
Real-time sync vs. scheduled sync. Some things need to sync instantly (new customer → create in all systems). Others can sync overnight (yesterday's sales data → weekly report). Real-time costs more in terms of automation complexity.
Two-way vs. one-way. Two-way sync (changes in either system update the other) is complex and can create conflicts. One-way sync (source → destination) is simpler and usually sufficient.
Reporting That Updates Itself
Instead of manually compiling reports, set up dashboards that pull live data:
- Google Sheets can pull data from many sources via integrations
- Notion databases can be automatically populated from other tools
- Dedicated BI tools like Metabase or Looker for more complex needs
The goal: when someone asks "how did we do last month?", you have an answer in seconds, not hours.
Part of the Bigger Picture
Data sync is the foundation that makes other automation possible. Once your data flows correctly, you can build workflows that actually work, email sequences that have accurate info, and documents that generate themselves.
When to Get Help
If you're not sure what should sync where, or if you've tried connecting things and ended up with a mess, we can help design a data architecture that makes sense for your business.
Tired of data chaos? We can help you get everything in sync and set up reporting that actually stays current. Let's sort it out.