API development: interfaces that connect your systems
When data is typed from one program into another or sent back and forth as files, it costs time and leads to errors. Sortia Labs builds interfaces and APIs that connect your software, your partners and your customers: documented, secured and monitored in operation.
- API development
- REST API
- System integration
- ERP integration
- Webhooks
- DATEV interface
Which interfaces we build
APIs for your own software
REST or GraphQL APIs through which your web app, your Android app or your partners access data. With paging, filters and clear error messages, so the connection stays simple for the other side.
Connecting ERP, CRM and DATEV
Orders, customers, items and receipts flow between your systems instead of being entered twice. We settle which system is the reference for which data and build the mapping of the fields.
Where there is no API
Not every system has a modern interface. Then we work with what is there: CSV files over SFTP, XML, bank formats such as camt.053 and MT940, or an export that is collected every night.
Webhooks and events
Instead of asking every few minutes, a system reports by itself when something happens: a new order, a payment received, an appointment booked. Signed, so the receiver can check where it came from, and retried after a failure.
Access control and audit log
Access only with keys or OAuth, limits against overload, encryption in transit and a log of every call. Experience from projects for banks and payment providers helps wherever traceability counts.
How we build your interface
- 1
Map the data flows
Which data flows when, from where to where, and who may see it? We map the flows and check the existing documentation and the test access of your partners.
- 2
Contract first
Before any code is written, we describe the interface as an OpenAPI specification with examples. Your team and your partners can review it and start building against a mock server.
- 3
Build with tests
Automated tests cover every endpoint and the awkward cases too: duplicate deliveries, missing fields, timeouts. We plan error handling explicitly instead of leaving it to chance.
- 4
Run and monitor
Metrics and alerts show whether data is flowing. If a connection stalls, monitoring raises the alarm and the logs reveal where it is stuck.
Software we build and run ourselves.
Questions about API development
REST or GraphQL: which is better?
For most integrations REST is the right choice: simple, easy to cache and supported by almost every system. GraphQL pays off when many different front ends each need other slices of the same data. Often a well documented REST API is the shorter way.
Our system has no interface. Can it still be connected?
Usually yes. Many older programs can export files, write into a database that can be read, or send e-mails with a fixed structure. From that we build an adapter that translates the data into a clean API until the old system is replaced.
What happens when the API changes?
Changes that would break existing connections go into a new version that runs alongside the old one for a while. A changelog and the OpenAPI description show your partners what is new and by when they should switch.
Can you connect DATEV?
Yes. A simple route is often the DATEV booking file (Buchungsstapel), which the tax advisor imports directly. For further processes we check with you and your tax advisor which DATEV interfaces are suitable.
Read on.
Which systems should talk to each other?
Name the programs involved and what is transferred by hand today. We reply with a first assessment of which way to connect them makes sense.