Industry
Dealer Portals That Actually Sync With Tally and SAP
Distribution businesses run on dealers, beat plans and one source of truth for stock. Here is what breaks when the portal and the ERP disagree — and how to stop it.
Every distribution business we have worked with has the same argument: the portal says one stock number, Tally or SAP says another, and the dealer is on the phone. The fix is not a better screen. It is deciding who is right.
Pick the source of truth, per field
Not per system — per field. Stock is the ERP's truth. Order intent is the portal's truth. Prices are the ERP's. Delivery status is whoever the courier tells first. Write this down before building anything; most integration pain is two systems each believing they own the same number.
Sync that survives
- Queue, do not call. The ERP will be down for maintenance; orders must not be lost because of it.
- Idempotency. The same order pushed twice must not create two entries. Every push carries a key.
- Reconciliation job. Nightly comparison with a report of what disagrees — the single most useful thing we build for distributors.
- Visible failures. A sync that fails silently is worse than one that stops loudly.
| What dealers ask for | What actually helps |
|---|---|
| Live stock | Stock as of a stated time, plus reserved quantity |
| Order status | One status with the last update time |
| Credit limit | Limit, used and available — computed, not typed |
| Scheme calculations | Applied automatically, with a visible breakdown |
Beat plans and the field
Field staff work where the network does not. Beat plans, order capture and stock checks must work offline and sync when signal returns — which is a different build from an office portal. We wrote about that in offline-first apps for India.
Questions
Can you integrate with Tally?
Yes — usually through Tally's XML interface with a queue in front of it, so an offline Tally never blocks a dealer order.
What if our SAP team will not open an API?
Then a scheduled file exchange, and a reconciliation report so both sides can see disagreements. Not elegant, but reliable and common.
