Loading

ERP Suite Overview

The ERP layer adds what a business system needs once it stops being a database with forms on it: companies with their own books, a general ledger that is the system of record, documents with an enforced lifecycle, stock, projects and the reporting over all of it. It runs against your own datastores, and the people who use it every day reach it through the Admin Panel without needing architect rights.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Setup:

  • ERP Setup — start here: companies, company access, ERP roles, number schemes and binding health, with a checklist of what is still missing

Admin Panel → ERP - Setup:

  • ERP Setup — the same console for an ERP administrator who is not an architect

How the Architect Panel organises it

Architects see the ERP in eight Architect Panel sections. Each holds the consoles for one area and the datastore tiles behind them.

  • ERP - Setup: the ERP Setup console, Legal Entities, Entity Permissions, ERP Bindings, Documents, Document Types, ERP Custom Fields, Calculated Fields and the PunchOut supplier list.
  • ERP - Reference Data: the lists ERP records choose from, such as Units of Measure, Customer Classes, Accounting Books and Account Types. You can add your own values.
  • ERP - Finance: Ledger & Finance, Bank Reconciliation, Feed Queue, Budgets and the ledger datastores (Chart of Accounts, Journals, Tax Codes, Exchange Rates and so on).
  • ERP - Procurement and ERP - Sales: suppliers, customers and the documents that buy and sell.
  • ERP - Operations: items, stock, structures, production and fixed assets.
  • ERP - Projects & Time and ERP - Trading & Analytics: projects, timesheets, pricing, EDI and ERP Analytics.

How everyone else reaches it

A finance clerk, a buyer or a project manager is an Admin Panel user, not an architect. What they may do is an ERP role granted to their security group, and which companies they may do it in is a separate company access grant. Granting a role adds the matching Admin Panel menu entries to the group, in sections named for the work: Processes, Finance, Receivables, Payables, Purchasing, Sales, Inventory & Production, Projects & Time, Fixed Assets, Reporting and ERP - Setup. Anyone holding an ERP role also gets the ERP workspace on their Admin Home page and the ERP search box in the menu. See ERP Roles & Workspace.

Consoles and lists

Two kinds of screen appear, and knowing which you are on saves confusion.

  • Consoles are purpose-built screens such as ERP Setup, Ledger & Finance and Bank Feeds & Reconciliation. They check the rules (balanced journals, open periods, company access) before anything is written. This is where the work is done.
  • Datastore tiles open the generic editor on the table behind a console. Use them to inspect and to correct configuration. Never post a journal by adding a row on the Journals datastore: it bypasses the balance and period checks.

It works against your datastores

The engines do not ship their own customer or invoice tables. A binding tells each engine which of your datastores plays which role and which column fills which slot, so you keep the data model you built. The article Connecting Engines to Your Datastores in Getting Started with ERP explains how.

Setting up, in order

  1. Open ERP Setup and read the Checklist tab. Red rows stop documents being numbered or posted; amber rows work but are incomplete.
  2. Add your companies on the Companies tab.
  3. Give security groups access to each company on Company access, and roles on ERP roles.
  4. Import or build the chart of accounts and generate accounting periods in Ledger & Finance.
  5. Check Number schemes and Bindings, then enable the background tasks your modules need.

Worked example

A UK trading company with a Dutch subsidiary adopts the ERP for finance first. The architect opens ERP Setup, adds the two companies, imports the UK chart template for the parent, generates this year's periods for both, and grants the finance team's security group the ERP: Finance role with Post access to both companies. The next morning the finance clerk signs in, lands on the ERP workspace, and finds Ledger & Finance and Bank Feeds & Reconciliation in the Finance section of the menu. Purchasing and Sales come later, each with its own role.

Recommendations

  • Work down the ERP Setup checklist before inviting users. It names every missing prerequisite and links to where it is fixed.
  • Grant roles, not menu entries. The role adds the right menu entries and removes them again when it is taken away.
  • Adopt one area at a time and run it properly before starting the next.
  • Read the background tasks article early: several features do nothing visible until a task is switched on.