ERP for small businesses

What an ERP is in plain words, and which parts of running a small business Nordlet covers in one set of books.

ERP stands for enterprise resource planning. In plain words, an ERP is one program that runs the main parts of a business on one shared set of data: sales, purchases, stock, staff, money and taxes.

Without an ERP, a small business often uses a separate tool for each job. Invoices live in one place, stock in a spreadsheet, payroll somewhere else. Someone then copies the numbers into the accounting program by hand.

In an ERP, each action updates everything it touches. Selling goods from stock lowers the stock, creates the invoice and records the sale in the books at the same time. A longer explanation is in the blog post what is ERP software.

What Nordlet does

Nordlet is built around one general ledger, the main record of every money movement in the company. Each module below posts to it.

Sales. Invoices, credit notes, recurring invoices, invoice templates and online sales orders.
Purchases. Supplier bills, purchase orders and document capture by e-mail.
Customers and suppliers. One partner list for both, plus leads for sales follow-up.
Catalog. Products and services with price lists.
Stock. Warehouses, stock movements, transfers, stock takes, lots, reorder rules and landed costs.
Production. Bills of materials, routings, work centers and production orders. See the bill of materials guide.
Projects. Projects with billable entries.
Agreements. Contracts with partners, employees or banks. A partner agreement can be invoiced monthly, quarterly or yearly.
Bank and cash. Bank connections, statement imports, payment matching, SEPA payment files, cash receipts and expense reports.
Point of sale. Cash register shifts, receipts and daily Z-reports through the API.
Fixed assets. An asset register with monthly depreciation. See fixed asset management.
Staff. Employees, contracts, timesheets, business trips and payroll.
Fleet and transport. Company vehicles and waybills.
Taxes and filings. VAT returns and other country filings, listed in the filing support table.
Reports. Trial balance, financial statements, VAT reports, debt aging, stock reports and more.
Groups of companies. Consolidated reports for a parent and its subsidiaries. See the consolidation guide.

How the parts work together

Issuing a sale invoice with a warehouse takes the goods out of stock and posts the sale.
Matching a bank payment to that invoice marks it paid and posts the receipt.
The VAT figures come from the same posted documents, so nothing is keyed in twice.
Every posting follows double-entry bookkeeping: each entry has equal debits and credits, and the database refuses one that does not balance.

Starting small

You do not have to use every module. A small business can start with invoicing and bank matching, and add stock or payroll later in the same company.

When you move from another program, your partners, opening balances, open invoices, fixed assets and stock can be brought over in one import. See the migration guide.

Frequently asked questions

Is an ERP only for large companies?

No. The idea is one set of data for the whole business, which helps a small company as much as a large one. The blog post how ERP systems work follows one sale through every module.

Can other software connect to Nordlet?

Yes. Every module is also available through the API. See accounting software with an API.