ERP Software for Small Businesses

Small business ERP software is extremely popular and there are many vendors as well as many solutions available on the market. Small business ERP vendors include the likes of SAP, Oracle, Netsuite, Workday, Odoo, Infor, Sage and many more. 

Deciding on the best ERP for small business depends on many factors including your industry, business size, growth ambitions, geography and more.

Small business ERP software typically has a mixture of costs including ERP implementation, ERP software licenses and support.

Starting costs for SMB ERP can be very low, with some open source and free ERP software on the market, but typically small businesses can expect to pay a minimum of $10,000 per year for software licensing and 2-5X that figure for initial. implementation.

Costs for small business ERP software can grow quickly however and for a midsize organisation quickly enter six figures in year 1.

Small businesses need a slightly different approach to larger businesses when it comes to ERP software. 

One of the key features of small business ERP software is typically to have it as a SaaS or Cloud ERP solution, which can save you and your colleagues a lot of time and money. 

Secondly, small business ERP software should come with predefined processes and ways of working which help to standardise your business and also speed up your small business ERP implementation.  

Another key feature of small business ERP is scalability. Whilst your business may be small today, in a few years it could be very different as well as much larger. It's therefore key to have a scalable solution which can adapt with the times.

It's important to consider what is important for your small business ERP solution before starting this exercise. 

Based on this, we recommend building an ERP requirements document which details the needs of your small business ERP software. This can then be shared with vendors and SMB ERP providers.

Implementing ERP software for small businesses can often be done quickly. This is largely because small businesses often have less employees, complexity, sites and processes. A small business can expect to implement an ERP system in as little as 4-6 weeks and up to 12 months depending on various factors.

Small businesses can benefit from implementing SMB ERP systems in multiple ways including:

• Scalability
• Increased profitability
• Increased consistency
• Process standardization
• Increased investor confidence
• Increase compliance to regulations
• Decreased wastage
• Increased employee satisfaction
• Increased financial reporting & business intelligence
• Increased cashflow