ERP Solution for small Business?

stateofflux

Hi I have recently joined a small company ( 4 staff members) that supplies electrical goods to retail Businesses.

things have been getting a bit complex recently as projects are getting bigger and typically involving us ordering from 3 different manufacturers with goods going through two different Logistics companies then being delivered to retailers where a third party Electrician (employed by us) installs the goods.

At the same time we also stock a small amount of parts & smaller items which we courier direct to smaller business.

Literally all orders (purchase & sales) in the company are just sent to a single internal email address for printing and sorting later. they are then inputted to sage by the part time accountant afaik.

Ideally i need software that will allow me to keep track of the supply chain / project stages and the costings involved in each stage ( from ordering from manufacturer to delivery to site).
I also need to have the option of reporting so i can see a breakdown of all purchase orders & costings for a given time period.

It would be great if i could integrate Sage into this but one step at a time i guess.

any advice would be very much appreciated

Gloomtastic!

Have you talked to Sage about a bolt-on solution? They should be able to put you in touch with some of their developing partners.

pedronomix

who owns the sage package, the business or the accountant/bookkeeper?

stateofflux

The business owns the Sage. The boss is also talking about Sage Crm but i don't know how much that will help my needs.

Thanks for the help here btw

Graham

Sage 200 has modules for BoM and manufacturing, would either of these suit?

stateofflux

Graham wrote: »

Sage 200 has modules for BoM and manufacturing, would either of these suit?

I have been told from people that use it that Sage 200 would be overkill for a small business with only 4 people.

Is this the case?

ideally i need a simple solution that is fast to set up, train staff to use and easy to troubleshoot should issues occur.

Graham

No hands on experience of it, I just knew it was out there.

I'd say in general ERP is probably overkill for a small business of 4 people. That's very different to saying it's overkill for your small business though.

I think BoM is available as part of the online Sage200 offering which usually means there will be a drooling salesman somewhere dying to give you a free trial.

pedronomix

I thought even the basic sage packages have some Purchase Order functionality. It may be just unused in your existing package.... happens all the time.

aboth

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