Glossary
API (Application Programming Interface)
An API is the agreed, documented way one piece of software allows another to ask for its data or trigger its actions — the reason your ERP can create an invoice in your accounting tool, or your website can take a bKash payment, without a person retyping anything.
What it is
Every serious business application — accounting software, payment gateways, e-commerce marketplaces, WhatsApp Business, courier services, banks — exposes an API: a set of addresses that another system can call to fetch records, create them or change them, together with rules about authentication and formats. Most modern APIs are REST or GraphQL over HTTPS and exchange JSON, which is why so many different tools can talk to each other.
The people using the systems never see the API. What they see is the result: an order placed on the website appears in the ERP, a delivery status from the courier shows up against the customer, a payment confirmation from SSLCommerz marks the invoice paid. Where an API only answers when asked, a webhook is its counterpart that pushes an event the moment it happens.
Why it matters for a growing business
Growing companies rarely run on one system. They have an accounting package, an e-commerce store, a CRM, a courier portal, spreadsheets and messaging apps — and someone whose job has quietly become copying data between them. Every copy is a delay and a chance for a mistake, and the reports built on top inherit both.
APIs are what let those systems be connected instead of replaced. A company can keep the accounting tool its accountant trusts, keep selling on Daraz and its own site, and still have one place where stock, orders and payments agree. When choosing any new software, whether it has a usable API is one of the most important and most overlooked questions.
How AutoProbaho uses it
AutoProbaho designs its ERPs and CRMs API-first, so every function of the system is available to other software, and connects them to accounting, payment gateways, marketplaces, WhatsApp and Google Workspace through those systems' APIs — directly in code or through n8n workflows. Where a legacy tool has no API, the team builds a bridge through file exports, database access or a small connector.
Frequently asked questions
An API is the door; an integration is the path built through it. The integration decides which data moves, in which direction, how often, and what happens when something fails. Two systems both having APIs does not mean they are integrated — someone still has to build and maintain the connection.
Look for a developer or integrations page in its documentation, or ask the vendor for API documentation. If the answer is a manual CSV export or nothing at all, the tool will be a bottleneck for automation, and that should weigh in any decision to keep or replace it.
They can and should be. Good APIs authenticate every call with keys or tokens, use HTTPS, and limit what each key may do. On the business side, the important controls are who holds the keys, how they are rotated, and that only the data needed for the process is exchanged.
Related services
Connect the business
API & System Integration
AutoProbaho connects ERP, CRM, accounting, e-commerce, WhatsApp, email, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 and cloud databases through reliable, monitored APIs.
Connect the business
n8n Automation
AutoProbaho designs, builds and hosts n8n workflows that connect your tools and remove repetitive work — self-hosted, unlimited executions, full ownership.
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Case Studies
Illustrative scenario
Garments factory: from Excel stock to a live ERP
Illustrative scenario: how a woven garments factory in Gazipur could move fabric, trims, production and shipment tracking from Excel into one custom ERP.
Illustrative scenario
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Illustrative scenario: how a distributor with several depots and field sales could replace phone orders and registers with one inventory and CRM system.
Illustrative scenario
Clinic: from phone bookings and paper files to one patient workflow
Illustrative scenario: how a Dhaka outpatient clinic could move appointments, records, lab results and billing from phone and paper into one workflow.
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Tired of copying data between systems that should already talk?
Book a free consultation. We map which of your tools have APIs, which do not, and what a first integration — orders, payments or messaging — would look like.