Bridging ERP and CRM for a Distribution Company

The Problem

Eric, an independent Pipedrive consultant, was onboarding a new client — a mid-sized Dutch distribution company with field sales reps and a product catalog of roughly 10,000 SKUs. The company ran Exact Online as their ERP and accounting backbone. Eric was rolling out Pipedrive as their new CRM.

The problem: these two systems did not talk to each other. Customer data lived in Exact, deal information lived in Pipedrive, and sales reps had no visibility into payment statuses or product availability from within their CRM. Everything required manual re-entry, and critical context was getting lost between systems.

Eric reached out looking for someone who could bridge the gap — without the enterprise price tag.

What We Built

Seven automated workflows running on a dedicated self-hosted server, connecting Exact Online and Pipedrive into a single, seamless data ecosystem.

The Workflows

1. Bidirectional contact sync — Customer and company data flows between Exact and Pipedrive in both directions, staying consistent across systems.

2. Reverse contact creation — New contacts created by sales reps in Pipedrive automatically propagate back to Exact.

3. Product catalog sync — The full product catalog (10,000+ SKUs) mirrors from Exact into Pipedrive every 15 minutes, so sales reps always see current products when building deals.

4. Deal-to-order status sync — When a deal is marked "won" in Pipedrive, that status flows back into Exact, closing the feedback loop.

5. Opportunity pipeline sync — Opportunities from Exact surface as leads in Pipedrive, giving the sales team full pipeline visibility.

6. Invoice and payment status sync — Payment data from Exact invoices flows into Pipedrive, so reps can instantly see whether a customer has paid — no more calling the office.

7. Initial data migration — A one-time bulk import of all existing customers and products into Pipedrive, so the system launched with the full dataset from day one.

Infrastructure and Compliance

The entire stack runs on a server in Germany — chosen specifically for GDPR compliance. The setup includes SSL/TLS encryption, daily automated database backups, SSH-key-only access, and encrypted credential storage.

We also prepared a full compliance package alongside the technical work: a mutual NDA, a GDPR-compliant sub-processor agreement, and a formal proposal — delivered together, not as an afterthought.

Challenges We Solved

OAuth token management. Exact Online's authentication tokens expire every 10 minutes, and refresh tokens last only 14 days. If a refresh cycle fails silently, the entire integration goes dark. We built robust token lifecycle management with proactive monitoring and alerting.

API rate limits. Syncing 10,000+ products every 15 minutes required careful API call budgeting. Exact Online allows 5,000 calls per day. We optimized with bulk endpoints and delta-sync logic — only syncing what changed — keeping daily usage well under 20% of the limit.

No vendor lock-in. All workflows and configurations are fully exportable. If the client ever wants to move away, they take everything with them.

The Result

Zero manual data entry between Exact Online and Pipedrive. Sales reps see real-time payment status directly in their CRM. The full product catalog stays current, synced every 15 minutes. The system launched with the complete customer base already loaded — not an empty shell.

From discovery call to signed deal in a single day. From kickoff to live integration in under two weeks.

"This is exactly what I was looking for. The approach, the pricing, the way it's set up — it fits."

Technology

N8N (self-hosted) for workflow automation
Exact Online API for ERP data
Pipedrive API v2 for CRM data
PostgreSQL for data storage
Docker + Traefik for containerized deployment
Hetzner VPS (Germany) for GDPR-compliant hosting