erp integration / legacy bridges
your sap, oracle, microsoft dynamics or thai-specific erp wired to the rest of your stack, without ripping it out.
for bangkok-headquartered manufacturers, importers, hospitality groups and professional services firms running a real erp (sap, oracle netsuite, microsoft dynamics, infor, sage, or thai-specific systems like express accounting and businessplus) that needs to talk to a modern stack: shopify, line oa, marketplaces, claude, custom dashboards. i build the bridge layer that lives between the legacy erp and everything new, without forcing a replacement.
book a scoping call01 . what it is
a real erp does not get replaced. that is the lesson every bangkok manufacturer, food importer and hospitality group has learned the hard way after one consultant quoted a thb 12 million sap replacement and the project got cancelled at month 8. the erp is the system of record. it holds master data, inventory, finance, payroll and customer master. replacing it is a decade-long bet. integrating it is a 12-week bet.
i build the integration layer between the legacy erp and the modern stack. sap on-premise talking to a next.js storefront. oracle netsuite talking to a line oa customer service bot. microsoft dynamics talking to a shopee and lazada marketplace sync. infor or sage talking to a claude-powered finance ops workflow. thai-specific systems (express accounting, businessplus, formula erp) bridged into the same shape. the protocol is whatever the erp speaks: soap if it is sap, rest if it is a modern netsuite, sftp or edi for the older systems, scheduled csv when nothing else works.
the architecture is calm by design. an integration layer hosted on aws singapore or fly.io, supabase as the cache and event-log layer, idempotent jobs that survive a network blip, a written runbook for every flow. the erp team keeps doing what they do. the new systems get the data they need. nobody has to argue with the sap consultant or the on-premise admin about a database change. the bridge owns the contract.
the bangkok-specific case is the trilingual ops layer most thai manufacturers and food groups run on. finance and ops in thai inside the erp, customer-facing in english plus thai, expat-led management in english only. the bridge handles the translation seam: thai-language master data normalised, english-language reports synthesised, line oa or microsoft teams alerts in the right register for the right role.
02 . who it is for
archetype 01
sap business one on-premise for finance and inventory, 200+ skus, three warehouses, shopee and lazada selling the consumer skus, a thai b2b sales team on whatsapp and line. needs the sap to talk to shopee and lazada (price sync, inventory drawdown), and to a line oa b2b sales workflow (stock check, quote generation, order entry).
archetype 02
two hotels in sukhumvit, one resort in hua hin. pms (oracle opera or rms cloud), pos, channel manager (siteminder), guest crm (currently in a google sheet). needs the pms to feed a claude-powered guest journey workflow: pre-arrival english + thai messaging, in-stay upsell, post-stay review collection, all without a six-month opera customisation.
archetype 03
law firm or accounting firm, 80+ staff, microsoft dynamics for time-tracking and billing, sharepoint for documents, line oa for client comms. needs dynamics to feed a claude-powered legal research and contract automation workflow, with pdpa-grade access controls and audit logging.
03 . what you receive
01
integration spec. 15 to 30-page document covering data model on both sides, protocol per flow, idempotency, error handling, retry policy, observability plan. signed before code starts.
02
integration layer. hosted on aws singapore or fly.io, supabase as the cache and event-log layer. jobs catalogued, scheduled and event-driven flows separated, dead-letter queue for failed jobs.
03
protocol adapters. soap for sap b1 and older systems, rest for netsuite and modern erps, edi or sftp for legacy supply chain, scheduled csv when nothing else works. thai-specific adapters for express accounting, businessplus or formula erp catalogued per project.
04
master data normalisation. thai-language master data (customers, vendors, skus, location names) normalised to a clean utf-8 layer. english-language reports synthesised on top. line oa or microsoft teams alerts in the right register per role.
05
governance pack. pdpa data flow mapping, retention settings, human-in-the-loop checkpoints, logging and audit trail. supabase rls policies enforce access at the row level. for cross-border flows, eu ai act and gdpr alignment.
06
handover documentation. 20-page operational manual, deployment runbook, escalation tree, every job documented with its trigger, schedule, retry policy and contact owner. logins under your accounts, billing in your name from day one.
07
90-day post-launch care. bug fix sla, two tuning passes, one new integration on request, weekly 30-minute check-in for the first month then biweekly. on-call escalation tree for the first 30 days post cut-over.
04 . timeline
phase 0
2 to 4 weeks
paid 30-minute intake call, then a 2 to 4-week paid discovery: stakeholder interviews with the erp admin and the operational teams, data model mapping, protocol selection per flow, technical spec, sprint plan. fixed fee, credited to the build if you proceed.
phase 1
weeks 1-2 of build
integration layer provisioned, protocol adapters scaffolded, first read-only flow live for validation. erp admin signs off on the contract before any write flows are turned on.
phase 2
weeks 3 to n-1
flows delivered in priority order. read-only first, write flows behind a feature flag. weekly demo on friday. observability live by mid-sprint. acceptance tests catalogued and signed.
phase 3
final 2 weeks + 90 days
production cut-over with a written runback plan, dns, monitoring, training session in english for ops and one in thai for finance. 90-day post-launch care begins. handover documentation delivered before the final invoice.
05 . pricing
by scope, fixed price per phase. erp engagements run longer than other services because the legacy contract is the constraint: typical engagement 12 to 24 weeks end to end. transparent quote in your inbox inside 48 hours after a 30-minute intake call. usd primary on the invoice, thb equivalent shown. stripe usd, wise usd, or thai bank transfer. terms: 30/40/30 split common for projects above usd 50k.
06 . proof
case study
75-year-old ifs-certified food importer in belgium, trilingual brand surface migrated from a static brochure site to a multilingual platform with soap integration on a legacy lisa erp. the soap bridge between a 30-year-old on-premise erp and a modern next.js front end is the exact pattern that ships into bangkok food importers and manufacturers running sap b1 or older.
case study
pan-european real-estate crowdlending platform on next.js + supabase. financial data layer, kyc, payment integration, investor dashboards, multi-year retainer. the integration layer discipline (idempotent jobs, audit-log spine, written runbooks) is the same discipline that ships into a bangkok erp bridge.
07 . questions
01
do you replace the erp or integrate with it?
integrate. a real erp does not get replaced inside a single engagement. the bridge layer i build sits between the legacy erp and the modern stack. the erp team keeps doing what they do. the new systems get the data they need. replacement is a decade-long bet. integration is a 12 to 24-week bet that ships.
02
we run a thai-specific erp (express accounting, businessplus, formula erp). does this still work?
yes. thai-specific systems get protocol adapters catalogued per project. express accounting and businessplus typically expose csv or sftp exports, occasionally a rest endpoint. formula erp has a richer api. the discovery phase maps the available protocol per data domain. the bridge handles the translation seam: thai-language master data normalised, english-language reports synthesised, line oa or microsoft teams alerts in the right register per role.
03
what about pdpa for cross-system data flows?
pdpa baked into the architecture: explicit purpose-of-processing per flow, retention settings per data category, data subject rights endpoint wired when volume warrants it, consent flows documented. supabase rls policies enforce access at the row level. for cross-border flows (eu customers on a thai-hosted erp bridge) the eu ai act and gdpr disclosures are aligned alongside pdpa. the governance pack is part of the deliverable, not an afterthought.
04
what is the typical timeline?
discovery: 2 to 4 weeks. build: 10 to 20 weeks depending on the number of flows and the complexity of the erp side. cut-over: 2 weeks. post-launch care: 90 days. total engagement 14 to 24 weeks for a medium-complexity bridge (3 to 6 flows). larger engagements run two or three sequential sprints with sign-off between each.
05
are you physically in bangkok?
yes. piexels has a bangkok founder presence in the sukhumvit corridor and a thai entity in formation with a local partner. site visits to your bangkok office, your warehouse, your hotel front desk, your erp admin's room are part of the engagement. utc+7 timezone, no handoff lag, english-first communication, 24-hour email response.
06
english or thai for the engagement?
engagement and documentation run in english. operational training is delivered in english for ops and in thai for finance when the finance team is thai-native. line oa or microsoft teams alerts are bilingual where the role demands it. thai-fluent reviewers on your side validate thai-language workflows during phase 2.
07
can the build qualify for boi software promotion?
if you operate a thai entity engaged in software development, digital platforms or digital content, boi activity 8.1.1 gives up to eight years corporate income tax exemption with a minimum thb 1.5m annual investment in thai it personnel salaries. an erp integration build itself does not directly trigger boi but the broader software operation may. the discovery phase flags eligibility. for foreign-owned thai dev studios, boi promotion enables full foreign ownership exempt from the 49% cap.
08 . further
ready to scope?
send a one-paragraph brief on the erp side and the systems that need to talk to it. i reply with a call slot. inside 48 hours of the call you have a transparent quote with sprint length, fixed price, and the protocol plan per flow. line official account fallback for thai-first contact.