This comes up constantly. An operator has a weighbridge system or a job management package that the team knows inside out, they check the list of providers who have integrated with Defra, and their supplier is not on it. The assumption is that they now have to switch.
Usually they do not.
The obligation is yours, not your software's
Defra requires the operator to report. It does not require the operator to report using a particular product. What matters is that accurate data arrives, in the right shape, on time. How it gets there is your business.
That reframing matters, because it turns "my vendor has not built this" into "something needs to send this data", and the second problem has far more solutions.
Four realistic options
- Ask your vendor when, not whether. Plenty are building it. A date in writing is worth having before you spend money going around them.
- Read the data without touching their application. If the system has a database or a reporting export, a small service alongside it can read what it needs and submit. Their software is untouched and their support position is unaffected.
- Use their API if they have one. Many packages expose more than their sales team mentions.
- Bridge from an export. Less elegant, still automatic. A scheduled job picks up a file the system already produces and does the rest.
Where we will stop you
If reading the database would put you in breach of your licence with the vendor, we will say so and we will not do it. That is not us being cautious for the sake of it: a compliance solution that voids your support contract is not a solution.
The same applies if the system genuinely does not hold the data. If your movements live on paper tickets and only summary totals get keyed in, there is nothing to integrate, and the honest answer is that you need a system before you need an integration.
What to do this week
Find out three things: whether your vendor has a date, whether the system has a database or export you can reach, and whether your movements are actually recorded in it at the level of detail Defra wants. Those three answers decide everything else, and none of them cost anything to establish.
Not sure what your system can do? Tell us what you run and we will tell you whether it can be integrated, including when the answer is no. Ask us