When you connect Salesforce with your ERP or accounting system, you’re not just ticking an IT box, you’re giving your teams the financial intelligence they need to act faster, sell smarter, and serve customers better. But how your integration works can make the difference between a Salesforce environment that feels like a real-time command center and one that’s always a step behind.
The two most common approaches to bringing ERP and financial data into Salesforce are real-time replication and on-demand (API-triggered) syncs. On paper, they might sound similar and both deliver data from your ERP or accounting platform into Salesforce, but the way they handle your data, and the impact that has on speed, reliability, and usability, are worlds apart.
In this article, we’ll break down the differences, the pitfalls of on-demand syncs, and why Breadwinner’s real-time replication model gives you a measurable edge.
1. Understanding the Two Models
On-Demand (API-Triggered) Sync
This approach retrieves data from your ERP or accounting system only when a user or process requests it — or at scheduled intervals (e.g., every 15 minutes, hourly, or overnight). It’s common in traditional middleware or generic integration platforms.
Example:
- A sales rep opens an account record in Salesforce.
- The integration sends an API call to your ERP, asking for the latest invoices.
- The ERP responds, and the data is displayed.
- Once the user closes the record, the data isn’t stored in Salesforce, the next time it’s needed, another API call is required.
Real-Time Replication
Breadwinner’s model is different. It replicates your ERP or accounting data directly into Salesforce and keeps it updated in near real-time. That means:
- Your data is stored natively in Salesforce, just like your leads, opportunities, or cases.
- Updates from your ERP arrive automatically and are available to everyone in Salesforce instantly.
- There’s no “call out and wait” and the data is already there.
2. Why Replication Wins: The Business Impact
A. Instant Decision-Making
With on-demand syncs, decision-making can stall. If your sales or service teams have to wait for an API call to complete — or worse, find out the data they’re seeing is from last night’s sync — they can’t act with confidence.
With Breadwinner’s replication:
- A salesperson quoting a customer sees up-to-the-minute balances and payment statuses.
- Service rep knows immediately if an invoice is overdue before scheduling additional work.
- The finance team can generate accurate reports without reconciling multiple systems.
B. Resilience & Reliability
On-demand syncs are only as good as the API call that triggers them. If the ERP is down, the API limit is reached, or the network is slow, your Salesforce users see… nothing.
Replication avoids this fragility. Because the data is already in Salesforce, your teams can keep working even if your ERP or accounting system is offline. Updates will resume automatically when the source system comes back online.
C. AI & Automation Ready
This is where replication really shines. Salesforce AI tools like Einstein or Agentforce, plus automation tools like Flows or Apex, work best when they have fast, local access to data.
If your financial data lives externally and must be fetched on demand:
- AI prompts can time out.
- Flows become slower and more complex.
- Reports can’t be run on complete datasets without triggering dozens of API calls.
With Breadwinner, your ERP and accounting data is local to Salesforce, so:
- AI can instantly reference historical payment data for predictive scoring.
- Flows or Apex can trigger actions based on real-time financial changes.
- Dashboards refresh instantly without hammering your API limits.
D. No Hidden Security Risks
On-demand syncs often rely on pass-through storage: meaning your data might briefly live on a third-party integration server before appearing in Salesforce. This adds another custodian of your sensitive financial information, which can create compliance headaches.
Breadwinner’s replication keeps all your ERP/accounting data inside your Salesforce org, under your existing Salesforce security model, field-level security, role-based permissions, audit trails, and all.
3. A Day in the Life: Replication vs On-Demand
Let’s imagine two different companies:
Company A – Using On-Demand Sync
- 9:00 AM: A sales rep is about to call a customer about renewing their subscription. They click into Salesforce, triggering an API request to the ERP for payment history. The request takes 12 seconds to return because the ERP is under load. The customer answers the phone before the data arrives, leaving the rep unprepared.
- 2:00 PM: Finance runs a report on outstanding invoices. The on-demand integration pulls data invoice-by-invoice. It takes 15 minutes and hits the ERP’s API call limits halfway through… the report is incomplete.
Company B – Using Breadwinner’s Replication
- 9:00 AM: The sales rep opens the account record and instantly sees the latest payment history, updated automatically within minutes of changes in the ERP. They start the call confident and informed.
- 2:00 PM: Finance runs the same outstanding invoices report. Because the data is already in Salesforce, the report loads in seconds: complete, accurate, and ready to share.
4. Performance and API Usage
On-demand integrations hit your ERP’s API every time someone requests data. This not only slows things down but can burn through API limits quickly, especially in high-volume environments.
Replication uses APIs strategically:
- Initial sync brings in historical data.
- Incremental updates run in the background on a schedule measured in minutes, not hours.
- No duplicate API calls for the same data.
The result? Lower API consumption and better ERP performance.
5. Cost Implications
While on-demand sync tools sometimes look cheaper upfront, their hidden costs add up:
- Extra developer hours to troubleshoot sync errors.
- Lost productivity when teams wait for data to load.
- API overages or ERP performance degradation.
- Potential compliance reviews for third-party data storage.
Breadwinner’s replication approach removes these inefficiencies, leading to faster ROI and predictable costs.
6. Scalability for Growing Teams
As your Salesforce org grows: more users, more automation, more AI and the cracks in on-demand syncs widen:
- More API calls = more delays.
- More data requests = higher chance of hitting limits.
- More complexity = more points of failure.
Replication scales seamlessly. Whether you have 10 or 10,000 Salesforce users, they all see the same real-time data without bottlenecks.
7. When On-Demand Might Make Sense
To be fair, on-demand syncs can work if:
- You only need occasional financial data in Salesforce.
- You have very small teams and low API usage.
- You’re okay with seeing data that’s a few hours (or a day) old.
But if Salesforce is central to your sales, service, and revenue operations, on-demand sync will eventually limit you.
8. Why Breadwinner’s Replication Model Wins
Breadwinner’s replication approach is designed for organizations that:
- Need instant financial visibility in Salesforce.
- Operate in industries with strict compliance and governance rules.
- Want a solution that is 100% native to Salesforce, no middleware, no extra servers.
- Plan to leverage AI, automation, and analytics on financial data without latency or fragility.
- Care about fast time-to-value: Breadwinner can be live in hours, not weeks.
9. The Bottom Line
Real-time replication isn’t just a technical advantage, it’s a business advantage. It means your sales teams close deals faster, your service teams resolve issues on the first call, your finance teams run accurate reports without waiting, and your leadership team sees the whole picture, all the time.
On-demand syncs might look fine in a demo, but in the real world, the waiting, fragility, and incomplete data can slow your business down. Breadwinner’s replication approach ensures your ERP and Salesforce work together as a single, secure, always-on source of truth.
Next Step:
See Breadwinner’s replication model in action. In less than 30 minutes, we can show you how to bring real-time ERP and accounting data into Salesforce, without middleware, without messy exports, and without slowing your teams down.
