Custom ERP Platform

This page describes a representative custom ERP. The client is not named. We do not claim that five tools became one source of truth, and we do not publish a saving. The work was a system for finance, inventory, and reporting, introduced in phases so the books were not replaced over a weekend.

The situation

Orders were in one tool, stock in another, and the month-end numbers in a workbook the accountant rebuilt from exports. Each tool was good at the job it was bought for. Together they meant the same sale was typed more than once, and a margin question waited until someone had an afternoon. Leadership asked for an ERP. What they meant was that they wanted one place to see an order, the stock it needed, and the invoice that followed.

Buying a large package and turning every module on would have stopped the company for a training month they did not have. Building everything before go-live would have done the same thing with our code instead of a vendor's. The constraint was the close. The books for the current month had to remain explainable.

What we took on

The platform is the custom ERP we describe for firms that have outgrown a pile of tools and are not ready to bend the company around a generic suite. Phase one was inventory and the purchase receipt, because stock was the number everyone else copied by hand. Phase two was the sales order, linked to that stock, so a promise to a customer could see what was in the building. Phase three was the invoice and the export the accountant posts. Reporting came after the transactions existed. A report on data that is still typed twice will be argued with, correctly.

We mapped the fields the accountant already uses. Tax, a credit note, and a part-shipment were designed before the first screen, because those are the cases that break a demo which only shows a happy order. Users kept their old tool until their phase went live. We did not ask the warehouse and the accounts team to change practice on the same Monday.

Access is by role. A stores person does not need the margin. A salesperson does not need to edit a posted invoice. The audit line on a stock movement stays, including a correction, so a dispute about last Tuesday has a record.

What shipped

Staff raise and receive purchases, sell against stock, and raise the invoice from the order. The accountant receives an export they recognise. The workbook that used to be the join between systems is no longer the place a figure is invented. It may still be used as a check during a close, which we would rather see than a silent gap. Training was the screens of that phase, on their data, not a tour of menus they will not open.

What we refused

We did not migrate a decade of historic transactions into the new ledger. Opening balances and open orders moved. Old detail stayed readable in the system it came from, for the years the law and the auditor expect. We did not turn on manufacturing, payroll, or a customer portal because the word ERP can mean those things. They were not this contract. We did not quote a single source of truth as a slogan. Where a figure still starts in the bank feed or the tax portal, we say so.

What a similar project needs from you

The current exports, a recent close, and the person who knows which number the auditor will ask for. A phase you are willing to finish before you start the next. If the pain is only one internal workflow, a smaller .NET portal may be the honest scope, and we will say that before you fund a platform.