Resources · 3 min read
Wiring your ERP to a sales assistant: start read-only
The system already knows the price, the stock and the size. What's missing is answers in seconds where the sale happens — writing nothing back, and never guessing when it's down.
The ERP already knows the answer — it just can't talk
The customer asks if the green one comes in size M. The answer exists: it's in the ERP, exact, current to the minute. The path to it is another story — switch screens, item code, inventory submenu — and the customer is standing there, waiting. Wiring in an assistant isn't adding technology: it's giving a mouth to the system you already paid for, in the channel where the sale happens.
Read-only: rule number one
The assistant queries the ERP; it doesn't write to it. It answers prices, stock and features; it doesn't invoice, doesn't reserve, doesn't touch a record. That line separates a project of weeks from one of months, and a conversation error from an accounting error. Writing comes later — once the system has proven months of reading well — and always with a person approving.
The question nobody asks: stock from which warehouse?
“There are twelve units” can be a useful lie: four sit in the distribution center, six in another store, two in the warehouse that actually ships. If the assistant answers the total, it promises what it can't deliver. Deciding which warehouse the truth comes from — before wiring anything — is the cheapest decision in the project and the one that prevents the most complaints.
The ERP wasn't built for conversation
An ERP answers reports in seconds or minutes; a conversation demands two or three. And sometimes the ERP simply isn't there — maintenance, network, an outage. The assistant needs a plan for both: what it answers fast, and what it says when it can't confirm. The honest answer is “I can't verify stock right now” — never a number from memory.
Where to start
One entity: product — price, stock, variants. The real questions your team asks every day, not the ones a committee imagines. Read-only, one warehouse defined, and two numbers a week: how many queries it answered with data and how many it escalated. When that holds for three months, we can talk about writing. The order isn't caution: it's what gets the project to production alive.
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