An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning system) is one system that brings together the core administration of a business: finance, purchasing, inventory, orders and often projects or production as well. In the Dutch SME market, Exact, AFAS and Odoo are well-known examples.
ERP in practice
The promise of an ERP is 'everything in one'; the reality in the SME segment is usually 'a lot in one, plus a webshop, a CRM and a few specialist tools around it'. That is no problem — provided the ERP is well integrated, so that orders, items and invoices are not entered twice.
When choosing or replacing an ERP, integrability therefore weighs just as heavily as functionality: does the system have an open, documented API and are there standard connectors for your webshop or industry software? See, for example, the Shopify–Exact Online integration and Bullhorn–AFAS integration.
Related terms
- CRM — A CRM (Customer Relationship Management system) is the system in which an organisation records customers, contacts, leads and the associated interactions — from first contact through to quote and aftercare.
- WMS — A WMS (Warehouse Management System) is software that drives warehouse processes: stock locations, order picking, receiving and shipping.
- API integration — An API integration is a connection between two software systems that automatically exchange data via their APIs — for example, orders from a webshop to the accounting, or placements from an ATS to invoicing.
- Single source of truth — A single source of truth is the agreement that every piece of data has one leading source: customer data lives in the CRM, inventory in the point-of-sale system or WMS, invoices in the accounting.