Why Your Apps Aren't Talking (And Why It’s Costing You Money)
I was sitting down with a landscaper in Chermside a few weeks ago. He was doing well—plenty of work coming in—but he looked absolutely buggered.
I asked him what was up. He pulled out his phone and showed me three different apps. He had his website enquiries coming into his Gmail, his quotes sitting in an Excel sheet, and his actual job scheduling happening in a separate calendar app.
Every single night, he was spending two hours manually copying names, addresses, and phone numbers from one screen to another.
"I’m paying for all this software," he told me, "but I’m still doing all the grunt work myself."
This is the reality for most Brisbane business owners. You’re told that buying the latest software will solve your problems, but unless those tools actually talk to each other, you’ve just bought yourself a digital filing cabinet that you have to organise by hand.
In the tech world, they call this "API integration." In the real world, it just means making your software talk to each other so you don't have to. When it’s done right, a lead comes in from your website, automatically pops up in your job system, and sends a text to the customer. When it’s done wrong, it’s a mess of broken links and lost data.
Here is the honest truth about connecting your business tools, what to avoid, and how to actually get it to make you money.
The "All-In-One" Trap
One of the biggest mistakes I see is business owners trying to find one single piece of software that does everything. They want it to handle their website, their emails, their accounting, their staff scheduling, and their cat’s birthday reminders.
Here’s the problem: software that tries to do everything usually does all of it poorly.
I’ve seen builders try to use their accounting software to manage their onsite projects. It’s a nightmare. The accounting side is great, but the project management side is clunky, slow, and the guys on site hate using it.
Instead of looking for one giant tool, you should look for the best tool for each job—as long as they can talk to each other. You want your accounting software to talk to your job system, and your website to talk to your customer list.
If you try to force everything into one mediocre tool, you’re just wasting money on tech that doesn't actually help you grow.
Mistake #1: Building Custom Connections When You Don't Need To
I’ve seen businesses spend $10,000+ hiring a developer to build a "custom bridge" between two pieces of software. Six months later, one of those apps updates its system, the bridge breaks, and the developer is nowhere to be found.
Unless you are running a massive operation with very specific needs, you should almost never pay for custom-coded integrations.
Most modern tools—like Xero, ServiceM8, or Mailchimp—already have "plugs" ready to go. You just need someone who knows how to connect them. Tools like Zapier or Make act like a universal power board. They allow you to plug one app into another without writing a single line of code.
If a salesperson tells you that you need a "custom-built API solution," run the other way. It’s expensive, it’s hard to fix, and it’ll break eventually. Stick to what works out of the box.
Mistake #2: Connecting Systems Before You Have a Process
This is the biggest one. People think that connecting their software will magically fix a messy business. It won't. It will just make the mess happen faster.
If you don't have a clear way of handling a lead when it comes in, automating that lead will just result in a bunch of confused customers getting automated emails at the wrong time.
Before you spend a cent on connecting your tools, grab a piece of paper and a pen. Draw out exactly what happens from the moment a customer finds you to the moment they pay their invoice.
1. Where does the lead come from? 2. Who answers it? 3. Where does their info go? 4. How do we quote them? 5. How do we get paid?
Once you have that mapped out, then—and only then—should you look at how to automate your business. Automation is the engine, but your process is the steering wheel. Without the steering wheel, you’re just heading for a ditch at 100km/h.
Mistake #3: Ignoring the "Human" Element
I worked with a professional services firm in Milton that automated their entire onboarding process. The moment a client signed up, the system sent out five different emails, a digital contract, and an invoice.
They thought it was brilliant. Their customers hated it.
It felt cold. It felt like they were dealing with a robot, not the person they’d just spent an hour talking to on the phone.
When you’re connecting your software, don't automate the "human" parts of your business. Use the tech to handle the boring stuff—like moving an address from a form into your CRM—so that you have more time to actually talk to your customers.
Automation should buy you time to be more human, not replace the human touch entirely.
How Much Does This Actually Cost?
Let’s talk brass tacks. You’re a business owner, you want to know the price tag.
If you’re using standard tools (Xero, Google Workspace, a decent CRM), you can usually get your main systems talking for a few hundred dollars a month in software subscriptions and a one-time setup fee from an expert.
- Software Subscriptions: Expect to pay $30–$100 a month for a tool like Zapier that acts as the "bridge." - Setup Fees: A professional might charge anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 to set up your workflows properly, depending on how complex your business is.
Compare that to the cost of an admin person spending 10 hours a week doing data entry. If you’re paying someone $35 an hour, that’s $18,200 a year just to move data around. Suddenly, a $3,000 setup fee looks like a bargain.
How Long Until You See Results?
You should see the benefits of connecting your tools almost immediately.
Within the first week of setting up a proper connection between your website and your sales system, you’ll notice: 1. You aren't missing phone calls or emails. 2. You aren't typing the same info twice. 3. You know exactly where every lead is in your pipeline.
If you pick the right job system and connect it to your marketing, you’ll stop losing customers in the gaps between your apps.
What Should You Do First?
Don't try to automate your whole business in one weekend. You'll give yourself a headache and break things. Start with the biggest pain point.
For most Brisbane businesses, that’s the Lead to Quote process.
1. Fix your website form so it sends data directly into a simple database or CRM. 2. Set up an automatic "Thanks, we’ll call you soon" text or email to the customer. 3. Make sure that lead pops up as a task for you or your sales person.
Once that’s working and making you money, then look at connecting your invoicing or your review requests.
The Bottom Line
Most of what you read online about "API integrations" is technical rubbish written for people who like to play with computers. You don't need to understand how it works; you just need it to work for you.
Stop doing the manual grunt work. Your time is worth more than $30 an hour. Connect your tools, get your life back, and focus on the parts of your business that actually grow your bank account.
If you're tired of your software feeling like a second job, we can help. At Local Marketing Group, we specialise in helping Brisbane businesses get their systems in order so they can stop chasing their tails and start closing more sales.
Ready to stop the manual data entry? Contact Local Marketing Group today.