By the Orderfy team ·
The short answer
Inventory software answers one question well: what do we have, and where is it? An ERP for a wholesaler answers the questions on either side of it as well: what did the customer order, what do we need to buy for it, when will it arrive, has it been delivered and has it been invoiced.
If stock is the only thing you struggle to keep track of, inventory software is enough. If orders, purchasing, deliveries and the sales pipeline live in other systems or in spreadsheets, and people re-type between them, that is the work an ERP removes.
What inventory software covers
- Stock on hand by product, usually by warehouse and location
- Receiving stock in and sending stock out
- Reorder points and stocktakes
- Batch, lot or serial numbers
- A connection to an accounting system and to sales channels
Quoting, the customer relationship, delivery runs and the detail of purchasing are often handled in other software connected to it.
What an ERP adds for a wholesaler
- Quotes and sales orders priced for each customer, with deposits, part deliveries and back orders tracked on the order.
- Purchasing tied to the order. A customer order raises its supplier purchase orders, and each waiting line shows what it is waiting on.
- The warehouse and the road. Pick lists, scanning, delivery runs and proof of delivery, updating the same order.
- The sales pipeline. Leads, opportunities and projects beside the quotes and orders they lead to.
- Reporting across all of it, because the sales, purchasing and stock figures come from one place.
Signs you have outgrown inventory software
- Customer orders are typed again to make each supplier's purchase order.
- Deposits, part payments or back orders are tracked in a spreadsheet.
- Nobody can say where an order is up to without asking three people.
- Sales works in a CRM that cannot see stock, prices or lead times.
- Deliveries are signed for on paper, and the signed copy has to be found when an invoice is disputed.
- Month end means exporting from several systems and reconciling them by hand.
When inventory software is enough
Plenty of businesses do not need more. Inventory software alone may suit you if you sell mainly online and your sales channels already hold the order, if you manufacture and your production system runs the rest, or if you sell from stock with few quotes, no back orders and no deliveries of your own.
Where Orderfy fits
Orderfy is an ERP for Australian wholesalers, distributors and trade suppliers. It is built around the order: a customer order raises its supplier purchase orders, and the same record carries through receiving, picking, delivery and the invoice, with a CRM beside it and Xero built in. How it works for wholesale distribution.
It is not a manufacturing system, and it has no ready-made marketplace, EDI or 3PL connectors. Other systems connect through its API on the Max plan. The plans page says what each plan includes.