Stop re-keying data between systems

Direct answer

Re-keying is a design gap, not a staffing task. When a person copies the same details from one system into another, the process is missing a defined flow between them. Adding people or hours makes the copying faster without making it safer. The repair is to decide which system owns each piece of data, move it one way automatically, and keep a small, named manual step only where a person must decide. This page covers finding the gaps and designing the flow. It is about the design, not about a connector for any particular product; what is possible depends on what your systems allow.

Where re-keying hides

It rarely looks like a project. Look for it in these places:

• An order taken in one tool and typed into accounting or fulfilment
• A signed deal copied from the CRM into a project or delivery sheet
• Customer details pasted from a form response into several systems
• A spreadsheet updated by hand so a report matches another system
• Status updates repeated in email so another team can see them

Which system holds the truth

Before moving anything, name the system that owns each field. If two systems can both be edited, they will disagree sooner or later. Pick one owner per field, make the other read-only for it, and record the decision. This is the same decision described in system of record for integrations, and skipping it is the usual reason automated copying makes things worse.

The one-way flow

Start with data moving in one direction, from the owner to the receiver, triggered by a clear event such as a deal being marked won. One-way is easier to reason about, test and fix than two-way. Decide what triggers it, what fields travel, and what the receiver should do if the record already exists. Two-way exchange is a separate, harder design and should be chosen only when a real need justifies it.

Error handling

A flow that fails silently is worse than copying by hand, because people stop checking. Decide in advance what happens when a record is rejected: it goes to a visible exception list with the reason, an owner is named, and it can be retried once fixed. A person should be able to see which records did not arrive without comparing systems by eye. Ongoing checking of connected systems is a separate routine, covered in reconciling connected systems.

The leftover manual step

Some steps should stay manual: a decision, an approval, a judgement about an unusual customer. The point is not to remove every human touch but to remove the retyping. Name each remaining manual step, its owner, and what triggers it, so it does not drift back into old habits.

Validation

Check data as it moves. Required fields present, formats sensible, no obvious duplicates. Rejecting a bad record at the point of transfer is cheaper than finding it later in a report. Agree the rules with the owner of the data, not only with the person building the flow.

The cost of doing it by hand

We do not put a number on it, because it depends on your volume and who does the work. Consider the pattern instead: time spent retyping, mistakes found late, and knowledge held by one person who knows the routine. Weigh that against building and maintaining a flow, including someone to watch it. If the volume is small and stable, keeping it manual with a checklist can be reasonable.

Scope

A single flow between a small number of systems can fit the fixed-scope Automation Sprint (€1,690); larger designs are quoted after the process is mapped. It sits within workflow automation and systems integration, and where the copying exists only to feed reports, see manual reporting automation.