iPaaS

What it means

iPaaS, integration platform as a service, is a cloud service for connecting applications. Instead of coding its own interface, a company builds a flow in the browser: when an order arrives in the online shop, an invoice is created in the accounting software and a contact in the CRM, with no manual retyping.

The platform offers ready-made connectors to hundreds of well-known services and talks to them through their API or via webhooks. The user defines a trigger, conditions and steps, often without programming skills, much as in no-code tools.

It follows the SaaS model: you pay monthly by the number of flows, runs or records transferred, while the provider handles operation, connector updates and security. For small and medium-sized firms it is a cheaper and faster route to integration than a custom project.

How it works in practice

A typical use in a smaller company is linking the online store, payment gateway, warehouse and accounting. Orders, payments and credit notes are transferred automatically, the accountant receives documents in a consistent structure, and slow matching and retyping of sales disappears.

Before rollout, decide which system is the source of truth for customers, products and prices, that is, for master data. If a record can be changed in two places at once, the integration will start creating duplicates and conflicting data that are hard to clean up later.

Flows should be documented and monitored. Most platforms send an alert when something fails, but someone has to read and act on it. For important flows, such as passing invoices into the ERP, a monthly check of record counts in both systems is worthwhile.

What to watch out for

Customer personal data passes through the iPaaS, often to data centres outside the EU. The provider is a processor under GDPR, so a data processing agreement is needed, and you should check where data is stored and how long run logs are kept.

As the number of flows grows, so do the cost and the dependence on a single supplier, known as vendor lock-in. If business logic is hidden in dozens of tangled flows, moving them elsewhere is expensive. For critical processes, consider whether a direct integration would be better.