Small and medium-sized companies can take advantage of a wealth of integrated technology solutions to help them manage online commerce and financial processes through a single package. This can be a great help in reducing the headache of handling the complex interweave of online and on-the-ground financial operations.

Being a bricks and mortar company was once considered the only way to truly get big and stay big in the retail world. Then came the online shopping revolution, and people said that it was bricks and clicks companies—those with big footprints on the ground and a solid online strategy—that would rule the hearts and minds of shoppers.

Yesterday, in our Tech Tuesdays roundup, we reported on Acco Brands Europe picking up an invoice processing and automation solution to help improve STP in the purchase-to-pay cycle. But with any such implementation, my first question is always "what about the integration?"

It is all well and good to say that deployment was web-based or the implementation and testing phase took x-number of weeks or months, but that gives no indication of the time and effort involved in not only setting up and configuring the system, but also, and more importantly, preparing the connections between that system and all the various internal and external systems that will touch on the functioning of that solution.