Why we did not build a full ERP

Let's get the awkward part out of the way. The ERP in VectisERP promises more than the product delivers, and we know it. ERP stands for enterprise resource planning, and a full ERP suite is the big, expensive kind of software that runs accounting, payroll, production schedules, sales and stock from one system. Ours runs stock. That is the whole list.

So why keep the name? Because people who search for 'ERP for a small business' are usually looking for something simpler than what they find. We would rather explain the gap here than let you discover it in the middle of a demo.

What we built instead

VectisERP follows a box of goods from the moment you decide to buy it to the moment it leaves the shelf. You raise a purchase order, receive the delivery, put the stock away, pick it for a customer order and count the shelf now and then to check the system is telling the truth. Each of those steps leaves a document behind, so the history of an item reads like a diary, not a mystery.

Why purchasing stayed in

Most stock numbers are born at the purchase order. It says what you expect. The receipt says what arrived. The gap between the two is where an astonishing number of small-business headaches live.

Say you order 10 gallons of primer and the supplier ships 7. A spreadsheet needs someone to remember the other 3. VectisERP keeps the order open and shows 3 still due. If you decide the supplier is never sending them, you close the order short and write down why. Nothing vanishes, and nothing needs a sticky note.

A receipt entered twice is reversed, not deleted. The history stays honest.

What is not in it

Here is the list, because lists are kinder than surprises. There is no accounting: invoices, bills and payments stay in whatever you use today, and nothing connects the two. There is no payroll, no production planning, no online-store sync and no checkout. Stock is one balance per item. You can label locations and bins, but the quantity is not split between them.

Questions worth asking any vendor

These work on us and on every other vendor you will talk to. A good salesperson will enjoy them. A nervous one will change the subject.

• What happens to the order when only part of it arrives?
• Can a wrong receipt be reversed, or does it have to be deleted?
• Does the quantity mean on hand, or available to pick?
• What can I export, and in which format?
• What does the software not do, and what do other customers use for that?

The last question tells you the most. Vendors who know their limits can draw the line for you. Vendors who say 'we do everything' are about to sell you a three-month setup project.

A fair objection

You might say: surely it is better to have everything in one place? Sometimes it is. If you make products, the connection between a customer order, a stock level and a production run is the whole game, and splitting it across tools is painful.

For a business that buys finished goods and resells them, the picture is different. The accounting package already works and your accountant already knows it. Replacing it to gain a stock feature means retraining people and moving years of records. Keeping two focused tools, with clean exports between them, is often the calmer choice.

There is also a quieter reason. A product that tries to do everything has a lot of screens, and each screen is a place for a mistake to hide. We would rather build fewer screens and make them very hard to get wrong.

The short version

If you buy goods, shelve them, and sell or use them from the shelf, a focused inventory tool may be all you need. If you build things, the answer is probably a bigger system (IMS vs ERP explains the difference), and you will know it when you see how many rows your production spreadsheet has.