The software solution can facilitate a wide variety of interdepartmental tasks and responsibilities, including accounting, human resources (HR), customer management, manufacturing, project management and more within a single platform.
A Python-based ERP software package, ERPNext started as a generic ERP platform. It follows a modular design that has grown significantly over the years, giving the software the ability to serve a wide variety of businesses, thanks to the many enhancements made to the source code. Today, the platform can be deployed via the cloud or on-premise.
ERPNext is ideal for businesses and organizations in the retail and wholesale industries, distribution, manufacturing, education, services, agriculture, healthcare, hospitality and non-profit sectors. It provides great functionality that is seamlessly integrated into a centralized platform for easier and more efficient management.
ERPNext Features
The features offered by ERPNext out of the box are rather extensive. There is a long list of features for each solution provided by the open-source platform. The following should give you a better appreciation of just how incredibly comprehensive this ERP system actually is:
Accounting module
With ERPNext’s accounting solution, you will have the ability to get real-time view and analysis of your organization’s cash flow. This is a full-featured accounting module encompassing virtually all aspects of bookkeeping and financial management.
Some of the core features of the accounting module include point-of-sale (POS) support, sales invoicing, accounts chart, account dimensions for monitoring project financials, quoting, pricing rules, multi-currency support, flexible tax rules, purchase orders, double entry bookkeeping and a full suite of accounting reports.
Asset management module
ERPNext’s asset management module allows you to manage and maintain data on your company’s assets by keeping track of its movements, monitoring value adjustments as well as depreciation. Its main features are asset movement tracking, maintenance management, asset sales and purchases.
CRM module
The customer relationship management (CRM) module allows you to gain new customers and retain the existing ones through proper sales optimization. With this module, your team will be able to efficiently track leads and sales opportunities, as well as send out quotes on-the-go. Some of its main features are email synchronization, email campaigns, opportunity management, lead management, sales pipeline and sales stage tracking.
HR and payroll module
ERPNext’s human resources and payroll module gives you the ability to effectively manage the entire employee lifecycle, from the recruitment and onboarding process, attendance, payroll all the way to separation. Some of the module’s key features are attendance and leave tracking, recruitment and onboarding, contract management, payroll, expense claims and more.
Stock/inventory management module
This module is specifically tailored for businesses in the retail and wholesale sectors. With it, you can expect inventory management with a hierarchical location tree. You have the ability to track stock movements, batches and serials.
Some of its features include price lists, packing slip, stock level reporting, stock reconciliation, stock items and warehouse management.
Manufacturing module
This is one of the industry-specific modules, which also includes education, healthcare, agriculture (beta), hospitality (beta) and not for profits (beta). The manufacturing module allows you to manage multi-level Bill of Materials, as well as strategically plan and monitor your production with Work Orders.
Its other features and capabilities are capacity planning, operations management, production plans, job cards, subcontracting and the ability to track work progress at every workstation.
Project management module
The project management module lets you take care of both internal and external projects. It will help you manage your team more effectively, assign them tasks, monitor their progress and keep every aspect of the project development process on track so you will be able to deliver on time. The module will also facilitate the budgeting process as well as determining profitability.
Some of the key features and tools of the project management module are time tracking, project reporting, projects, project templates, tasks, Gantt charts, Kanban boards and customer portal.
Quality management module
The quality management module allows for proper quality assurance of team performance, company procedures, goals and objectives, customer services and support, productivity, tracking methods, reviewing and operational efficiency. Some of the features included in this module are actions, quality procedures, quality goals and reviews.
Support and service management module
This module allows you to greatly improve your helpdesk services. Provide better quality service for your staff and customers. Boost customer service experience by leveraging the system’s integrated knowledge base and intuitive issue tracker. With tools like issue tracking, maintenance schedules, etc. you can easily track customer tickets, maintain quality server levels as well as monitor personnel response and resolutions. The features in this module are service level agreements and warranty claims.
Sales and purchases module
With ERPNext’s sales and purchases module, you have the ability to increase your productivity while maintaining lower expenses by effectively managing your sales and purchases cycles, from the purchase stage to sales orders. The selling aspect covers a variety of sales operations, including quotations and delivery tracking. The buying aspect, on the other hand, covers material acquisition, purchase orders and supplier quotes.
Customization and integrations module
ERPNext offers good customization and integration, being that it is an open-source system. You can easily figure out how to properly customize your ERPNext platform with print formats, custom scripts, custom fields and more. The platform also has inbuilt integration support for different regions such as the US, Italy, India and the UAE. Other built-in integrations available with ERPNext are Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS), various payment gateways and more.
ERPNext also has customization tools and resources for developers who wish to contribute to this ever-expanding open-source ERP solution. You can learn how to share your expertise and contribute to this growing community or maybe just design and create your own extension.
Website and portals module
ERPNext provides users with a feature-packed content management solution for web pages, blog sites and online forms. With this module, you can manage your business website, shopping cart, web forms, product and service catalog and more with the platform’s built-in portal.
The ERPNext Portals will enable you to connect directly with your customers and vendors by giving them a direct link for submitting bids and to shop for your products and/or services online.
ERPNext Benefits
As previously stated, ERPNext is an open-source ERP solution designed for SMBs to facilitate a wide variety of cross-departmental processes and responsibilities. The ERP software is quite flexible, especially when it comes to the variety of solutions it offers and the industries it covers. The platform is capable of facilitating key organizational processes, including financial accounting, budgeting and planning, just to name a few.
Easy-to-use interface
The ease-of-use is quite surprising, considering how incredibly loaded this platform is when it comes to the number of modules, tools and capabilities available. ERPNext is designed to be user-friendly, allowing non-technical users to handle enterprise resource planning in a more simplistic and cost-efficient manner. This is exactly what makes the software best suited for small and mid-sized businesses.
ERPNext is meant to be your one-stop resource for easy and efficient management, providing an extensive set of features delivered through a single unified platform. It effectively removes the need for in-depth or custom programming mainly due to its Model-View-Controller system architecture as well as its metadata modeling solutions.
Cross-compatibility
Another benefit of ERPNext is its cross-compatibility with other existing solutions and programs. The platform can be used in conjunction with a wide variety of third-party solutions, tools and devices. It has a user-interface (UI) that is well-designed and easy to comprehend, especially for non-technical users. The UI is simple to use and can easily improve productivity and efficiency across the board.
Advanced accounting tools
One of the many selling points of ERPNext is its multi-currency support for its accounting module. Add that to its reporting, tax calculations, bank and payment reconciliation solutions and you have an all-in-one powerhouse, greatly benefiting your finance and accounting departments. This makes the ERP software a valuable asset for businesses looking to expand their market share globally.
ERPNext Pricing
While ERPNext’s on-premise/self-hosted version is completely free, it does offer two paid plans for the cloud-based version. There is the Standard plan, which starts at $10 per user per month with an option of $110 per year. Then there’s the Pro plan, starting at $25 per user per month or $275 annually. The vendor is offering a 14-day trial for both packages.
The Standard plan requires a minimum of five users and it comes with hosting, all modules, standard support and up to three hours of onboarding support. The Pro plan requires at least 10 users and it comes with everything from the Standard plan with up to five hours of onboarding support. The self-hosted version allows for an unlimited number of users. It comes with an account manager, priority support and enterprise-level onboarding. You may contact the vendor directly for more information.
Conclusion
ERPNext is an incredibly feature-packed generic ERP solution capable of serving SMBs and organizations across different sectors. The functionality, ease-of-use, integration capabilities and the extensive set of modules it comes with out of the box makes it an impressive centralized ERP platform and one of the best options out there for all kinds of businesses.
