Coming from the opposite direction (mgmt consulting for big corps -> startup), I was very familiar with the ERP concept, but am still super confused by the ERP market. Every so often I look for an ERP for our company, but am always disappointed by the options. It seems there's an uncanny valley between Quickbooks and SAP, but maybe the issue is just one of discoverability.
We've slowly stitched together an assortment of SaaS tools, custom built modules, and Excel files in the exact way I swore we would never do. If anyone's been through this hell before, I would appreciate some help.
I have been doing ERP consulting for about a decade now and I tend to disagree. I think we have a lot ph ERP options now in the paid space apart from just Quickbooks and SAP. You need to pick and choose based upon what is the most complex operation for a company- be it multi currency financials, complex supply chain or some other parameter. Then you can pick from lowest complexity to highest in the following manner
* Quick books
* Sage
* Dynamics / NetSuite
* JD Edwards / Infor / Manhattan
* Workday
* Oracle EBS / SAP
Each of those on the same line are similar in features and complexity.
This is obviously not a complete list - just the ones I have dealt with.
Quickbooks will do you fine up to $100M in revenue or 8-10+ years in operation. When you cross either of those bridges, you should think about implementing a "real" ERP.
But this doesn't happen until your team (accounting/finance/CEO/CFO) start running into roadblocks in either piecing together financial statements, or the month close process starts taking weeks of manual labor, or there's a HUGE accounting issue and everyone discovers the forecast is way off and the company has been burning cash faster than expected.
At this point you have the organizational momentum to do the crazy amount of work required in getting an ERP up and running, which requires getting most of your business flowing into it so that it'll even be remotely useful (otherwise everyone goes back to Excel).
What needs to flow into it? Everything you're doing by hand to update your three sheets. You need to get revenue/income in there (sales orders, purchase orders etc.), product costs if you have them, payroll, bills (internet, office supplies). Hopefully you use something like Bill.com, and this becomes a (slightly) simpler process.
Maybe you have vendors in Europe where you pay in Euro, so you now also have to figure out how you're going to convert currencies. Maybe you have warranty on your products, so you have to balance accrual accounts. This list goes on, and on, and on.
Every company is different, and you might not even recognize the overlap between two ERP launches besides the fact that they're using SAP.
>Quickbooks will do you fine up to $100M in revenue or 8-10+ years in operation. When you cross either of those bridges, you should think about implementing a "real" ERP.
I think that very much depends on what market you are in. Sure if you are a Saas, but not if you are a European distributor with stock in two countries with different currencies. Stock adds massive complexity. You might be reaching for a lower end ERP at $5m of turnover.
Stock in two countries is nothing that can't be managed by hand without an ERP. I know, because I've done it before.
You usually reach in inflection point where your manual process sans-ERP is costing the company real money, and the ability to make quick(er) decisions is hampered by your current process.
We've slowly stitched together an assortment of SaaS tools, custom built modules, and Excel files in the exact way I swore we would never do. If anyone's been through this hell before, I would appreciate some help.