Oates and Company Blog

One of the most attractive elements of the Sage ERP X3 system is how easily it can be customized. Every business has its own needs and priorities, and the beauty of enterprise resource planning systems is the numerous modules and add-ons that they offer. Sage ERP X3 is a powerful tool on its own; customizing it will make sure that your company gets  the best results and the most efficient use out of this great ERP tool.

Sage ERP X3 is, as we like to reiterate from time to time, the most powerful and flexible solution for businesses that want to grow competitively and cost effectively – even with limited resources.

And in November 2013, the newest release of Sage ERP X3 – version 6.5 – became available.

Inventory is the lifeblood of your business; it probably represents the biggest number on your balance sheet. Managing your inventory is possible through a number of different methods – you can use anything from top-notch software to Excel spreadsheets to paper-based documentation. And while of course each business must make their own decision about how to manage their inventory, we at Oates & Company recommend Sage’s Inventory Advisor. Not only does it make your inventory management easier and more effective, Sage’s products offer stellar customer service as well.

Sage’s Inventory Advisor software is a warehouse-centric system that enables you to track costs and sales histories by warehouse and to set up multiple price lists in multiple currencies and multiple warehouses – so the size of your company is not a boundary with this system. It supports assemble-to-order as well as build-to-order kits, includes lot and serial number tracking, and supports first in first out, last in last out, average, actual, standard, and warehouse-specific costing.

In a previous post, we discussed some signs that might indicate your need for an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. We said that if you have these issues, it’s probably time for new software:

• each of your processes/departments uses different software
• statistics about your business are not easily accessible
• your accounting tasks seem interminable
• your customer service is suffering
• your Information Technology team is stressed out

Our last post asked questions in each of these areas to give you an idea if the response to those indicators was “yes.” Today we’ll talk about how an ERP system will fix those issues.

Each of your processes uses different software

If your accounting department uses a different system than your sales department and both your accounting and sales departments use a different system than your warehouse, you’re doing too much work. In addition, when departments are operated separately from each other, their data may not match, which could affect everything from payroll to the marketing budget to inventory management.

An ERP system has one database that integrates all the data from all the departments and keeps it in a centralized location. Integrated data means several things: more accessible, more accurate, and more up-to-date data than was ever possible before; in addition, your employees will be able to make better decisions more quickly, which leads to higher productivity.

Statistics about your business are not easily accessible

With your current system, key performance indicators, like sales-to-date or average sales margins, take a lot of effort to find. The ERP system’s database gives you and your employees immediate access to all available data. The data, being real-time, offers a current, holistic view of business processes and key performance indicators.

And there’s more: an ERP system can automate reports, so if you need a daily report about completed transactions, the software can create one for you, automatically, every day – and then send it to you in the medium of your choice.

Your accounting tasks seem interminable

Anything being paper-based in your accounting department is a red flag that you need a new system. Paper-based items required manual entry into different systems, which is a huge waste of time when an ERP system could do the job instantaneously. The need for cross-posting, re-typing, reconciling, and compiling data will be gone, along with the high levels of human error that manual data entry is prone to.

Your customer service is suffering

One of the biggest challenges that your growing company will face is inventory management. Learning how to order and stock product so that you have enough is difficult to do when you’re gaining new customers all the time. If your sales, inventory, and customer data are maintained in individual systems, your numbers could easily be thrown off.

An ERP system, on the other hand, allows staff in all departments to have access to the same information. Therefore, an employee in sales can view what inventory is available before he/she promises an order; customer service employees will be able to answer questions without consulting another department.

Best of all, the system automatically updates itself, so when an order is taken, the inventory number immediately refreshes to show current available inventory.

Your Information Technology team is stressed out

If your information technology team is bogged down with maintaining multiple systems, an ERP system will greatly ease the burden. Each team member will be supported by the other members because they all need know only one system, and

So if you found yourself nodding along when you read the reasons that your business should get an ERP system, and you like how an ERP system can fix those problems, contact Oates & Company today to get started!

Businesses know that they must always be growing and improving to stay in – and preferably at the top of – the game. With the current state of the economy, however, businesses are also aware that they need to get the most bang for their buck; any investments, technology or otherwise, must deliver value.

The current business trend in terms of technology is enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. As we’ve discussed many, many times on this blog, ERP systems are, while well worth the effort for most businesses, costly and time-consuming. When considering your business, therefore, there are a few steps that you should take to determine whether or not an ERP system is right for you.

Sage ERP X3 Usability makes it easier for mid range companies with international goals to expand their presence in the world market. Sage ERP X3 can help you achieve your long and short term goals.

In our last post we listed some of the pros and cons of both industry specific software and enterprise resource planning software. Now we're going to expound upon some of those topics and show you why ERP systems are the way to go.

We talk A LOT about enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems on our blog, and for good reason: they are the best bet for your business. If you follow along with us, you've read about how ERP systems work, and what kind of mistakes you should avoid if you implement one, and what stages you'll go through to do so. Et cetera.

Businesses invest in ERP systems for a number of reasons – ERP systems increase business intelligence, reduce costs, and streamline processes. Although the benefits are promising, however, studies show that over 60% of ERP implementations fail to live up to their users’ expectations.

The developers of Sage ERP X3 have several pieces of advice for businesses that want to implement an ERP system.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and customer relationship management (CRM) software usage has become common across businesses of all sizes. The new idea is to take the ERP software and the CRM software and integrate them.