The importance of ERP for SMEs

ERP is scalable and flexible system and is the perfect solution for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). ERP implementation for SMEs has a great impact for cost savings and operational improvements. This helps companies survive and thrive in these difficult economic times.

What is ERP?

ERP is an acronym for Enterprise Resource Planning. This includes various essential processes for running a business. ERP is a modular software system which includes invoicing, payment management, inventory, purchase module, accounting, human resources, etc. All these different processes are gathered under a unified system that can share and be managed through a centralized database and streamline your business operations.

Benefits of ERP

Do you wonder why ERP is so essential for SMEs?

Here are some of the most important benefits:

• Integrated Information

  Allows data sharing between multiple functional areas of the enterprise. It helps to reduce manual entering of information by providing automatic workflow and quicker completion of processes. This also ensures that all the activities are properly tracked and none is missing.

• Streamlined Processes

  If you want to have a complete visibility into all the important processes across the whole organization, ERP is your solution. ERP provides a unified platform to analyze statistics in real time, across all functions. This is very important, especially for the senior management - information on all activities in the organization and its departments is gathered in one place, to help you get a better insight on your business.

• Customer Service

  The software can assist you in sales orders processing, customer relationship management, physical distribution of goods, billing and invoicing. It enables you to keep any kind of information you need on your customers.

  Customer Service is a process, for which you need a complete view of your client's details from prospect to sales and from support to accounting and finance. It helps you know your clients and their needs better. You can keep track on activities, communication history, personal information, orders, invoices and much more. This greatly improves customer handling and customer satisfaction.

• Cost Savings

  ERP can show companies how to increase their productivity by better managing the supplies. Operations related to inventory, products/supplies and customer service are interconnected. ERP is the solution that provides visibility on how one problem is affecting the rest of the processes, a real-time financial data, which gives managers the power to analyze, have better insights and make productive decisions. This offers a competitive edge, helps to increase efficiency and can quite reduce the costs.

• Reporting

  ERP provides better reporting and better business intelligence. It has different types of reports: standard and custom. These reports make managers and employees jobs easier, which increases productivity and reduces delays - especially useful for financial reporting and everyday accounting.

  Reports are often offered through a simple dashboard with data visualization of the organization’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and other metrics. For example, invoice reports, stock report or stock report by warehouse, summary profit report, detailed profit report and many other custom reports according to client’s needs. The data can be presented with graphics and tables and it is easy for users to assess the data and to take better decisions.

 

Features of an effective ERP

Most popular integrations are e-commerce which usually can handle order tracking and processing. It is possible to integrate other systems with the ERP system through an API (Application Programming Interface).

See the features which make ERP so effective:

Customization Capabilities

You should know that every ERP system can be customized, but for some software products it can be done more easily than for others. There are three main points for customizations that you should keep in mind. The system should be:

• Flexible

  Every EPR solution should offer great flexibility, along with the capability to adapt and upgrade quickly. But it is not easy to force the system to address so many issues. Moreover, you cannot predict all new challenges you will face in the next few years. Definitely, the system should be adaptable to new requirements and should not lead to a dead end.

• Scalable

  As your business grows, so does your customer database and your CRM system must be able to handle the increasing customer information. All this data should be synchronized with other applications. It is a crucial ERP software quality that they be capable to handle an increasing amount of work, to have the ability to accommodate your growth.

• Ease of integration

  It is almost impossible to find an ERP solution that offers all features, required by a customer or business. But it will be great the system can provide easy integrations. This is the process of integrating separate systems with each other and communicate with 3rd party solutions and applications. The result is a unique solution that allows you to deliver real-time information to everyone in your enterprise.

Modular

It is very important for ERP systems to be able to implement more than one module based on the requirements of an organization. This means that users can choose the modules they need to use in their system. There are many different ERP platforms targeting different industry niches. You should choose the right one that suites best to your business. For example, the selection process is much easier if you are not a manufacturer.

Multi-Facilities

It is a big plus if the software can work with multi-currencies, locations, languages, etc.

Automatic Functions

This is one of the most important qualities of an ERP solution. Automated operations will greatly facilitate your work, will increase your productivity and reduce the delays.

 

Introducing Composity ERP

Meet Composity ERP Composity is a modular platform that includes: CRM, Inventory, Invoicing, Sales, Payments, POS, Accounting and others.

It combines the most important qualities for an ERP solution. It is customizable, adaptable and easy to integrate. It will grow along with your business requirements and help you improve your decision making.

The best ERP system should provide you all of the key qualities. mentioned above. It should help you automate your core business operations and offer you a better insight on each process within the organization. Using ERP is an easy way to control every department of your organization from one place.