Need Inventory / PO system that can interface to existing Sales System

[jjbrad]

I just can't seem to find a reasonable Inventory / PO system that lets us keep our existing Sales Order / Receivables systems.

Also, the one's I've seen look pretty rinky-dink. For example; they may be missing a basic such as Unit-Of-Measure, don't do barcode scanning, no movement between warehouses, or managing Supplier Part Numbers.

Does anyone know of one that supports SQL Server, has Sales Order hooks for depleating On-Hand quantities (hooking into my existing Sales system), and is pretty robust and will scale well? Also, fairly easy to maintain since I'm the only programmer there and we're not looking for an SAP.

Its for a small (30Mil / yr) manufacturer. Old PO manager retired and he didn't like computers. New one is lost.

I've about given up and started designing my own to do quickly in Access - at least to tide us over for a while. Seems rediculous that such a commonly needed solution wouldn't be available already - just need to find them. So, I'm still looking...

I'm not looking for solicitations from a vendor (since thats not the purpose of this forum) but recommendations from fellow users or fellow software seekers.

 

[KIRBY2000]

What software package are you using now?
Do you know what it's written in (ie: Visual Basic 6.0)?
Do you have the SQL table definitions?

 

[jjbrad]

Thanks for responding.

Currently its a home-grown system. Actually, its written almost entirely in VBScript / Javascript, running on top of IIS. Therefore we have all source code and table layouts. I can easily implement any interface a new system would require - its just a question of the new system supporting such an interface.

It has a SQL Server back end. I'm a programmer and I change it daily.

Its comprised of about 50 .asp pages, a few style sheets and include files, about 50 Crystal Reports, and a few COM objects written in Visual Basic.

However; several of the .asp files are really 5 or 6 programs in one. So its not as trivial as it sounds. Anyway, we're emmersed neck-deep into it and changing is highly unlikely and beyond the scope of this project.

It actually serves our Order and Customer Management needs pretty well, except for lacking inventory, Purchasing, Payables, and GL Interface. Of course, cost accounting (including a Payroll Personnel cost interface) would nice too. We'll probably never need Shop Floor Control since that's just too much for those users (min-wage factory worker types). Also; all our product is completed within 2-3 days start-to-finish and most material takes a month to replinish so Material Requirements Planning isn't needed beyond predicting reorder levels based on sales history. I can handle that in 2 or 3 Stored Procedures.

All the stuff our current system does does is best done on the web, since our customers have very robust Order Entry, Tracking, Payment History, etc. capability.

The Inventory is another story. It will all be done by just a few controlled workstations. Perfect for licensed software.

It would be nice to have the source code of any new solution, but that's certianly not a requirement. However; we would need capability for writing customized reports.

I would imagine it having its own database and I would just write a few Real Time interfaces.

Run across anything you think I should be looking at?

Sage advice?

 

[joat25]

Hi- i have several customers using intuitive erp.
we have ported several apps to it and it's worked nicely.
it's sql server based, and seems to be designed for small to mid-sized mfgrs. my customers that have it like it because they don't have to use all the functions at once. they can use what they like. oh, it's also dot net and you get the source code which rocks.
think they're website is intuitivemfg.com
hope this helps. others are made2manage, epicor. i think all of these packages run about 25k for a 5 user system though. my one customer only has 2 licenses and it works for them.