The South Yorkshire-based business said the application programming interface (API) had been in development for some time, and was already being used by some key customers. 

It is now opening up the option to a wider client base, making it available to clients that have a credit account and are able implement the necessary back-end development on their own MIS and e-commerce systems.

The initiative has been spearheaded by head of sales and integration Sarah Kilcoyne-Guilliam, who said she was delighted to bring enhanced integration to the buying process. 

“Automated solutions can give so much back to our clients and we anticipate a big shift towards this way of buying in the future,” she said. 

“Our API will help clients to focus on what really matters to them.”

Kilcoyne-Guilliam added that it was a REST (representational state transfer architecture) API that the company had developed in-house. 

“It’s not linked to any particular software and it means that it can be used in a variety of ways,” she explained. 

Route 1 said the benefits to customers included time savings on admin such as job specifications, automatic pricing updates and faster turnaround times as jobs will enter the production workflow at Route 1 more quickly. 

One early user of the API said it had been “a huge help” in growing its print procurement business. 

“We would not have been able to handle such large order numbers without automation and this means we still get the Route 1 Print service,” the client said.