Glossary AI technique
Single source of truth
What is a single source of truth?
A single source of truth means each piece of data is authoritative in one place, so people and systems work with the same, current version of customers, figures and agreements.
Without a single source of truth, every department has its own version: sales looks in the CRM, finance in the accounts, and the figures differ. A single source of truth solves that by making one system authoritative for each piece of data. It is the core of a data foundation for AI.
It does not mean all data has to live in one system. Customer data comes from the CRM, invoice data from the accounting system, and other systems read from them through integrations instead of keeping their own copy (see system integration). For the core data itself this is called master data management.
For AI it is a precondition: an agent or assistant that reads from two conflicting sources gives conflicting answers. For EVOKE we therefore built a uniform data layer on AFAS: one truth in the figures, with checks down to individual journal entries.
Last updated: 20 October 2026