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As part of weighing up the pros and cons of a custom software integration it is important to consider both the initial and ongoing costs. The upfront costs will depend on the type of development required, it could be something simple using Zoho Deluge or a complex integration between Zoho CRM and Xero. Your ongoing costs include any subscriptions or licensing and technical support for updates/upgrades and troubleshooting.
Time Investment
If the integration requirements are complex, or you wish to connect to a third party system with known limitations, the time required can be considerable. You should budget for a significant time investment for your internal stakeholders to be available during the project duration. Internal time spent on planning, development, testing, and deployment should be considered as part of the overall upfront costs.
Development Costs
Custom software development costs will include developers, consultants and or project managers, testing and Quality Assurance. Development costs will either be quoted as fixed price (when the scope, outcomes and system understanding is high) or time and materials (when the development process is iterative or there are many unknowns). Additionally, there are costs associated with acquiring necessary software tools, licences, and infrastructure for development e.g. a server.
Once your integration is live and any bugs have been ironed out, you’re hopefully now benefiting from some savings. The most common saving is a reduction in the number of hours spent duplicating data to a secondary system or fixing errors. It’s a great idea prior to implementation to have a think about how long these activities take and then track improvements once the integration is complete.
There are a few ongoing costs that it is important to budget for. Some of these are obvious such as subscription or server (hosting) costs but there are a few other things to consider.
Subscription or Licensing Costs
The systems that have been integrated will usually come with a monthly subscription fee. Often this fee can be reduced by paying annually. In addition to the 3rd party software, there may be a licensing fee for the integration software or the hosting of the scripts in a secure environment (e.g. Amazon Web Services). Costs for hosting can vary depending on the usage of the integration.
Help Desk Support
Post ‘go-live’ and training, have you considered how much technical support your team will need? Most subscription-based applications (such as Zoho) provide a level of support as part of your fee. When you have a custom connection, this is not covered by the third-party application help desk. You will need an in-house expert or external support to address user inquiries, troubleshoot issues, and ensure smooth operation.
If your team is not super technical, you are a high-volume transaction business or you have many pieces of custom development, we suggest you should allow for a minimum of 2 – 4 hours of support per month. This provision covers investigating missing records, outages, system bugs or ‘how do I do this? Questions that are not covered post your implementation ‘bug-fix’ period.
Code Health Check
Regular code health checks are crucial for identifying and addressing potential vulnerabilities, performance issues, and technical debt in custom integrations. This will be carried out by a Developer as part of your Squirrel Managed Hosting plan. The Developer will carry out any updates to ensure compatibility with our incremental Server updates. Major server upgrades or 3rd party API changes will happen irregularly (think every 2 – 3 years) and any incompatibility issues will incur a cost to you for resolution.
As part of weighing up the pros and cons of a custom software integration, it is important to consider both the initial and ongoing costs. Upfront costs include the time investment required for development and associated development costs. Ongoing costs encompass subscription fees, help desk support, and regular code health checks to maintain the integration’s functionality and performance. By carefully evaluating these costs alongside the benefits of customisation and flexibility, you can make informed decisions about whether a custom software integration aligns with your budgetary constraints and long-term objectives.