Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems include a range of comprehensive solutions for business performance management.
Some key capabilities of these tools include financial management, customer relationship management, resource management, and more. ERP tools often include industry-specific features, such as supply chain management.
This article will compare 6 top ERP systems according to their key features, benefits, downsides, and customer reviews.
Leading Examples of Enterprise Resource (ERP) Systems
- Productive – Best for comprehensive agency management and human resource planning (HRP)
- SAP ERP – Best for businesses with complex workflows.
- Oracle ERP Cloud – Best for large organizations with comprehensive business needs.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Best for optimizing core business processes.
- Infor CloudSuite – Best for real-time visibility and customizable features.
- Epicor ERP – Best for industry-specific ERP features.
Why Businesses Need ERP Systems
ERP systems can serve as the single source of truth for successful businesses. The best tools offer a wide range of features for making manual processes more efficient, delivering real-time operational visibility, and streamlining cash flow.
When looking for the best cloud-based ERP systems, consider features such as:
Financial Management
ERP systems can provide valuable support for business financial management. By providing a central database for critical data, they can help business leaders make informed decisions backed up by reliable metrics.
Key features include: real-time reporting, project budgeting, financial forecasting, billing, and expense management.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
ERPs can help manage relationships with current and potential customers. Additionally, they can support alignment between your sales team and other business departments, such as management or marketing.
Key features include: customizable sales pipeline, centralized communications, sales performance management, sales revenue forecasting.
Check out our list of the best CRM for agencies to learn more.
Human Resource Management (HRM)
Resource management is important for ensuring that businesses have a skilled and qualified workforce to stay competitive, resilient, and sustainable. ERP systems help evaluate performance, manage workloads, and guide hiring decisions.
Key features include:utilization rate forecasting, resource management plans, time off management, scenario planning
Industry-Specific Capabilities
ERPs are known for offering functionalities tailored to various industries, such as retail, manufacturing, healthcare, and more. These may include supply chain management, inventory tracking, quality control, and service requests.
The Benefits of ERP Systems
According to the 2023 ERP Report, businesses that implement ERP experience:
- Improved productivity and efficiency (74%)
- Reduced operating and labor costs (56%)
- Real-time data (49%)
- Standardization (46%)
- Minimized effects of silos for improved collaboration (14%)
Learn more on how businesses benefit from ERP systems.
1. Productive – A Specialized All-in-one Business Management System
Productive is a specialized ERP solution designed by industry veterans to support agency workflows. Its key features include project budgeting and financial management, human resource planning, and customer relationship management.
Additional features include automations, custom permissions, collaborative documentation with AI, and more.
A lot of information was getting lost between all the tools we were using before. Productive helped us on our road to streamlining everything.
Melodie Ash,
Producer at Joi Polloi
Find out how Productive helps a creative technology agency get more project management autonomy.
One of the biggest benefits of using a consolidated platform is the seamless interaction between different features. This improves the efficiency of your business management processes and supports richer data.
Financial Management
Productive enhances business financial management through features like project budgeting for different client projects, including fixed, hourly, or retainer engagements.
When it comes to the integration of budgeting with other platform features, the most notable examples include resource management and time tracking:
- Resource management: Resource scheduling directly impacts financial metrics such as budget burn, revenue, and profit margin. Reallocation updates these metrics in real time.
- Time tracking:Productive aims to simplify time tracking for employees and their managers. Using time-tracking data, Productive can easily pull the numbers for your client invoices to streamline this manual task.
An additional feature includes Purchase Orders, which support payment tracking and expense management.
Visualize and forecast key financial metrics with Productive
Resource Planning
Maximize your agency’s efficiency with Productive’s dynamic resource management tools, including resource planning, employee allocation based on work hours, and utilization analytics.
It offers features such as workload balancing with indicators of current capacity, time off requests, placeholders for potential and external staff, and tentative scheduling for projects in the pipeline.
Additionally, you can link your bookings with your time tracking, so that entries are created based on scheduled hours.
Productive provides full visibility of your workforce capacity
Through analysis of billable hours and workforce scheduling, Productive delivers valuable insights into workload distribution, identifying overutilized teams and available employees. Check our article on creating a resource management plan.
Sales
Productive provides a streamlined agency CRM to foster collaboration among sales, marketing, and production teams. Customize the stages in your sales pipeline, monitor deals, and use the sales feed for better communication.
Additional features include managing reasons for lost deals, revenue forecasting, performance analysis by sales reps, and other key insights.
Manage sales processes and get real-time insights
The sales feature is integrated with the budgeting feature — this means that you can access data on your service rates, build estimates and export quotes as PDF files.
Learn more about the benefits of CRM tools.
Reporting
Productive offers various ways to get insights into key agency metrics: you can use one of the 50+ agency-focused templates or build your report from scratch. The Reporting feature sources data from various platform activities and features, including Budgeting, Time Tracking, Resourcing, Billing, Sales, and more.
Group and filter your data and use custom fields for specific parameters
To share this data with other members of your teams, you can sync your reports with Slack or email. You can also create customized dashboards with the platform, insert specific reports, and share it with key employees.
Project Management
For managing your high-level project planning, Productive offers various layouts. Organize your workspace with the Gantt, Kanban, List, Calendar view, and more.
For task management, Productive offers simple hierarchies with milestones, dependencies, subtasks, and to-dos. You can customize task statuses, automate updates with notifications, upload and share files, track time from tasks, and more.
Productive also provides free client access. With specific permissions, clients can open, view, and comment on tasks, as well as view certain budgeting information.
Centralize communications and project updates on a single platform
Additional features include: Docs, Productive AI, Automations, Permission Builder
Integrations include: Xero, QuickBooks, HubSpot, BambooHR, Zapier, Slack, Jira, Google Calendar, and more.
Pricing
- Plans start with the Essential plan at $9 per user per month, which includes essential features such as budgeting, project & task management, docs, time tracking, expense management, reporting, and time off management.
- The Professional plan includes custom fields, recurring budgets, advanced reports, billable time approvals, and many more for $24 per user per month.
- The Ultimate plan has everything that the Essential plan and Professional plan offer, along with the HubSpot integration, advanced forecasting, advanced custom fields, overhead calculations, and more for a custom price.
- You can also check out the Enterprise Plan with custom pricing for companies that would include more than 50 active users per month.
Productive offers a 14-day free trial to check what the software can do for your business.
Optimize Your Enterprise Resource Planning
Businesses choose Productive as their top software for daily operations and strategic planning.
2. SAP ERP – A Good Human Resources Management ERP Tool
SAP is one of the leading providers of ERP solutions. The vendor offers a suite of enterprise resource planning software modules, including absence management, analytics, invoicing, supply chain management, digital manufacturing, and more.
Key features:
- Finances and accounting
- Asset management
- Sales performance
- Supply chain and procurement
SOurce: sap erp
SAP’s cloud-based software, SAP S/4HANA Cloud offers a customizable platform with a variety of modules for business requirements. The biggest downside noted by users on Capterra is that the tool is “not very intuitive”. This can make the implementation and adoption a lengthy process, especially for businesses with employees of varying expertise levels.
3. Oracle ERP Cloud – A Good Software for Business Insight
The Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP is an ERP suite that supports teams with artificial intelligence, process optimization, and real-time analytics.
Key features:
- Financial management
- Project management
- ERP analytics
- Risk management and procurement
Source: Oracle ERP Cloud
Users on Capterra state that:
This software works incredibly well for large, global organizations — or organizations that have sophisticated supply chain requirements.
On the other hand, the Oracle ERP Cloud has some of the typical downsides of ERP solutions: it can be difficult to implement, the UI is not as polished as some similar agency project management solutions, and the customizable nature of the platform can impact usability.
4. Microsoft Dynamics 365 – An ERP That Supports Day Business Activities
The Dynamics 365 suite offers solutions for marketing and sales, enterprise resource planning (ERP), finances, customer service, and more.
Key features:
- Operational efficiency
- Business performance management
- Finances and order management
- Multi-project human resource planning
source: Microsoft Dynamics 365
Certain Capterra users praise the Dynamics 365 suite for having a low cost to entry for CRM tools. On the flipside, users report that interactions with customer service can be less than ideal. Similarly to other ERP solutions, the customer interface and implementation time tend to be a drawback.
Learn more on how Microsoft Project performs as an Avaza alternative.
5. Infor CloudSuite – A Cloud Solution With Real-Time Insights
The Infor CloudSuite offers a cloud platform for industries including distribution, manufacturing, and service industries.
Key features:
- Enterprise automation
- Financial reporting
- Customizable dashboards
- Unified data from multiple sources
source: Infor CloudSuite
Capterra users note that while Infor M3 offers extensive customization options, this flexibility can lead to complexity in configuration and implementation. Reviews also mention the potential need for numerous workarounds and repeated adjustments to adapt the system to specific business functions. With its financial tools and industry-specific features, Infor can be a good choice for business growth.
6. Epicor ERP – A Good Option for Various Business Types
EPICOR ERP offers a variety of ERP software, including Epicor BisTrack, Epicor Eclipse, Epicor Indago, Epicor Kinetic, Epicor Vision.
Key features:
- Revenue management
- Financial performance
- Supply chain management
- Planning and scheduling
source: Epicor ERP
Similarly to other ERP solutions on this list, Epicor ERP provides solutions for a range of industries and business processes. One of the downside of Epicor offering various modules is that research on pricing and features, and finding the best version of the tool for you, requires getting in touch with the vendor.
Top Implementation Strategies
According to research by Deloitte, the top barriers to successful implementation of ERP include:
- Resistance to change (82%)
- Inadequate sponsorship (72%)
- Unrealistic expectations (65%)
- Poor project management (54%)
These statistics indicate the strategies you need to consider for successful ERP implementation. To overcome resistance to change and ensure sponsorship, you need buy-in from the top brass. While you need to clarify the benefits of ERP, make sure not to oversell the impact—ROI from software implementation can take time.
Finally, create a plan of action by delegating a software champion, setting reasonable deadlines, identifying desired results, and organizing regular testing and feedback sessions.
Selecting an Enterprise Resource Planning System
Some of the main criteria businesses should consider when selecting their cloud ERP include:
- Scalability ensures that your ERP system can accommodate new users, processes, and needs, so you don’t have to switch systems during a critical business period.
- User-friendlinessincludes streamlined navigation and visual design, which promotes adoption among all employees and helps businesses get the most out of their ERP.
- Customer serviceshould provide crucial support and guidance during the implementation process and throughout your time with the software system
While most tools offer scalability, user-friendliness, and customer service are often points that various tools stumble on. Consider Productive if you’re looking for a tool that offers all three and has a range of features for professional services agencies.
Created by industry veterans, this comprehensive tool can help agencies manage all aspects of their daily operations and strategic planning with real-time data.
Book a demo today to discover what Productive can do for your business.
FAQ
What are some examples of ERP systems?
Some examples of ERP systems include Productive for professional services businesses, Oracle NetSuite, SAP Business One, and Microsoft Dynamics 365. These tools streamline operations, improve efficiency, and support decision-making.
What are the 3 common types of ERP?
The 3 common types of ERP include cloud-based, on-premise, and hybrid. Cloud-based ERP systems are more straightforward to implement and are usually more affordable. On-premise systems require a higher investment in time and money but provide more data protection. Hybrid systems combine features of the two types.
What are enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems?
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are business solutions that combine various operations into a single platform. This can include financial management, HR, customer relationship management, and industry-specific features. They aim to improve efficiency and support informed decision-making.
What is ERP with real-time examples?
An example of ERP with real-time data is Productive, the all-in-one software for agencies. An example is the resource planning module, which lets businesses forecast critical metrics such as budget burn, revenue, and profit margins. Reallocating resources impacts these metrics in real time, letting project managers make decisions based on reliable data.
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