Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is critical in managing the complexity of the promotional products industry and other industries that sell custom products.

Promotional products sales and other custom products sales involve a sophisticated supply chain, detailed sourcing, and strict attention to the variables – every product, after all, is custom, so no two orders are exactly alike.

Other software tools address pieces of the transaction to varying degrees, but it takes ERP to pull the entire transaction together and simplify the complexity of custom product sales.

Enterprise Resource Planning software accounts for the deep variables and details of the promotional products industry. The ERP remembers those details and automatically applies them throughout the transaction lifecycle.

Other software tools address pieces of the transaction to varying degrees, but it takes ERP to pull the entire transaction together and simplify the complexity of custom product sales.

Here are some of the major benefits of ERP – enterprise-grade technology solutions -- for selling custom products like promotional products.

Know the rules. Businesses have rules for pricing, shipping, overruns, underruns, billing, payments, and much more, and the rules can change from customer to customer, vendor to vendor, product to product, and transaction to transaction. ERP solutions automatically apply the rules.

Know the products. Product Information Management (PIM) is critical in an industry like the promotional products industry that sells hundreds of thousands of products each with different customization options. ERP systems use PIM to manage the sheer volume of product data.

ERP solutions use integration to automate and streamline a supply chain that can be overwhelming to manage with piecemeal solutions.

An integrated back office. ERP solutions feature an integrated back office that connects the entire transaction from Customer Relationship Management to Quotes to Sales Orders to Sourcing to Fulfillment to Accounting and beyond. Information is entered once, if it needs to be manually entered at all, and it automatically flows from one step of the order transaction to the next. Re-keying is eliminated, as are the mistakes inherent in manually accounting for all the variables.

A simplified supply chain. Companies that sell custom products often encounter a sophisticated supply chain. It’s routine for orders to involve multiple items from multiple suppliers with multiple service providers and multiple shipments to multiple locations. ERP solutions use back-office integration, or even vendor and customer integration, to automate and streamline a supply chain that can be overwhelming to manage with piecemeal solutions.

Correct customization. In the promotional products industry, almost every item is decorated. But they’re not decorated in the same way. Imprint methods and locations change product to product, and there are hundreds of thousands of products. Enterprise Resource Planning solutions employ a Product Configuration Engine that helps ensure that only valid customization options are chosen for valid imprint locations.

ERP solutions generate complete, accurate Well-Formed orders that are ready for immediate processing without the costs of correcting them.

Ecommerce integration. Enterprise-grade software solutions integrate ecommerce websites and company stores with the back office so that the wide range of custom product information and its variables are managed just once and in one place. Products managed in the ERP are reflected on the ecommerce site, and orders that come in from the ecommerce site flow directly into the ERP.

Big savings. One large promotional products company estimated that mistakes and omissions on orders cost the company $13,000 per day in time and labor, and the sheer volume and variety of the products invites the costly errors. ERP solutions enforce business rules, eliminate data re-entry, and automate processes to generate complete, accurate Well-Formed orders that ready for immediate processing without the costs of correcting them.