Integration Discovery and Scoping

Why is scoping a paid step?

An integration is a promise that two systems will agree about the same data, every time, including at two in the morning when a token has expired and a webhook is being retried. Nobody can price that promise from a phone call. The API of the accounting package decides what is possible, the plan you are on decides what it costs, and the shape of your existing data decides how much cleaning happens before the first record moves. Scoping is where those three things are established in writing, so the build quote that follows is fixed rather than a guess with a contingency on top.

That is why scoping is a paid gate, in the same way the Standard SEO & AI Readiness Audit is the gate to SEO work. The difference is what happens to the fee. Scoping is partial work toward the build, so its $1,800 + GST is credited against the build price if the build proceeds within 30 days. The audit is a complete deliverable, so it is not.

What happens during integration scoping?

Scoping runs against the systems you already use. The common targets are accounting (Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks), field service and job management (ServiceM8, Tradify, simPRO, AroFlo), CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive), booking (Calendly, Cliniko, Halaxy, Square Appointments), payments (Stripe, Square), messaging (Twilio, SendGrid, WhatsApp Business) and automation platforms (Zapier, Make, n8n). Each one behaves differently, and the engagement is structured to find out how before anything is priced.

Systems audit

We record every platform in scope: which plan you are on, who administers the account, what API access the plan includes, and whether a sandbox exists to test against. Plans matter more than they used to. Xero now charges for API access on usage-based tiers, so the tier you sit on is part of the running cost we name in the quote.

API capability review

For each system we read the API documentation against the workflow you have described and note what it actually supports: which objects can be read and written, how authentication works and how often tokens expire, what rate limits apply, whether the vendor sends webhooks or has to be polled, and how errors and retries behave. Where a vendor's API cannot do what the workflow needs, we say so now, before a build has been priced around it.

Data mapping

The data map lists each field that will move, its source of truth, the direction it travels, and the rule that transforms it on the way. Customer names, addresses, tax codes and invoice line items rarely line up one to one between systems, and the map is where those mismatches are resolved with you rather than discovered by the developer mid-build.

Risk register

Every risk we find gets a likelihood, an impact and a mitigation that the build will carry. Typical entries are token expiry during long-running jobs, webhook delivery being retried and creating duplicates, rate limits being hit during a bulk import, and a vendor changing its API without notice. Where the design needs to avoid polling, as it does with Xero, the register records that the build uses webhooks and delta sync instead.

Fees and the quote

Every third-party platform and API fee the integration will incur is named in the quote, and who pays each one, you or us, is settled in writing before any build work starts. For Xero, that means the API access fee for your tier is named as a line in the quote rather than absorbed into it. The quote itself is fixed-price, names the build tier, states the test coverage the build includes, and is honoured for 30 days.

Which build tier comes out of scoping?

Scoping ends by placing the work in one of three tiers. A connector-level integration uses Zapier, Make or n8n with no custom code, and suits simple one-way triggers such as a new enquiry creating a CRM contact. A standard integration build connects one system in one direction with custom code and a full test suite. A two-way sync or multi-system integration handles data flowing in both directions with conflict handling and reconciliation. Where the scope turns out to need logged-in areas, dashboards or bespoke workflow, it is a custom application rather than an integration, and we tell you that rather than stretching a tier to fit.

What do you own at the end?

Everything scoping produces is yours: the systems audit, the API review, the data map, the risk register and the quote. If you take the build to another developer, the documents are written so they can work from them. When we do build, the code, the vendor accounts, the credentials and the test suites are all yours too. There is no lock-in on any part of this.

If you have inherited an integration someone else built and want it assessed rather than rebuilt, the integration audit covers that separately.