What must ERP software be able to do for sales in the project business?

The distribution and sale of a project is itself a project that should support a fully integrated ERP application. The requirements for this should not be underestimated. Which aspects of the selection of ERP software The following section examines what you should think about for sales in the project business.

The paradigm of totally integrated ERP software

One of the major tasks that ERP software has is the Dissolution of "application islands" and the end-to-end integration of all Processes.
Well - this is not exactly news, you might think. Of course, especially when purchasing new ERP software, you only want to invest in a business application that eliminates error-prone and time-consuming multiple data storage.

ERP applications for manufacturing companies and merchandise management software for retailers have come a long way with this approach.
For business software for project-orientated service providers or Investment farmers the choice of suitable integrated software becomes much smaller.

Selling projects is costly

Companies that handle large projects must first sell them. This sales process is often a project in itself. Sales must proceed in a coordinated and structured manner over very long acquisition phases. Complex requirements require a sophisticated calculation. The resulting quotations must be able to be generated in different versions. And, of course, the entire communication of the sales process should be stored and tracked directly in the process.

The standard opportunity management, which is familiar from numerous CRM systems, is often not sufficient. The opportunity must already be linked to the (potential) project in order to be able to make a decision on the basis of a Project costing and initial planning to be able to provide meaningful information about budget, duration and resources.

MariProject on the basis of
SAP Business One

You can find out how the fully integrated solution for service providers supports you in the sale of complex projects on our Product page.
We would be happy to demonstrate the system to you.
Please contact us for this Contact on.

Recording costs for project sales

As the sale of projects often involves a great deal of effort and therefore costs, the company should also be able to track these costs. Journeys to customers, meetings, business lunches, the cost of calculation and documentation - everything has to be recorded. In the best case scenario, the costs for project acquisition are kept under control via budgets.

Documents in the project business

Quotations for projects are rarely limited to a few items in a table. The services must be described in words and sometimes by means of graphics or drawings. In addition, there are other documents such as loads and/or Specificationsthat have a development over the duration of the sales process.
It should be possible to file this in an audit-proof manner.

Early project planning

It often makes sense for a probable project to determine the required resources pro forma planning. On the one hand, the cost rates stored in the resources provide a valid budget. On the other hand, you can inform departments in the company about the probable requirements, which can then be incorporated into their planning.

Switching from offer to live operation

Once you have done all this (preliminary) work, you don't want to have to enter all the data again after the project has been sold in order to proceed with the controlled implementation. It should therefore be possible to generate the project to be implemented on the basis of the quotation data. The project planning offered is retained and transferred to the next (real) planning. This is where you benefit from fully integrated ERP software.

In from the start

All beginnings are difficult and in Project business it is already costly at this stage. If you want to make sure that you can include this beginning in a single integrated ERP system, you should make an additional effort: When selecting ERP software for the project business, you should take a close look at these processes.

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Demo -Video

The following video shows how MariProject for SAP Business One meets all these project sales requirements.

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