I'll have my Software with the Lot please?

That's a great order and fair enough. You have a great deal of time and money invested in your software and its processes. Ideally it should run your entire business and be completely integrated with little or no missing pieces. Before I became involved with the software industry, I would have wanted the same, and don't for a minute suggest that this is anything other than ideal.

However

There are those software companies that will offer the lot but that's going to be very expensive, not only for the software, but for the training, customisation, and ongoing support. Even then the peripheral features you wanted are going to be average in most cases.

There is a better way

Most modern software now is cloud based and includes what is known as an API (Application Programming Interface). So connecting and using the best parts of each application is entirely possible and provides an architecture that suits your particular business model.

Firstly, you investigate and list all the moving parts of your business, for example…

A company which has 200 primary items, received, and sold as the same identity, only to limited resellers on account, then you may only need a basic setup such as Xero with a shipping integration

A company which has 50,000 items, purchased, and sold as different Identities, different pack sizes, from multiple suppliers. Some imported, some sourced locally and some manufactured in house. You sell to both cash and account customers with a need for complex contract pricing structures, will need a spread of integrations emanating from a base ERP application. Addons may include Shipping, Multiple Payment Gateways, B2B and B2C Sales Channel addons, Marketplace integrations and so on.

So, you see, you can have it all, but your base ERP system should have an API, documentation on how to use it and a good level of application support people. It helps if the ERP provider can also make any necessary changes to the API to support connections they may not have come across in the past.

Peach is one such ERP Cloud solution with an API and here is a summary of the integrations available to date. If you are after an integration but don't see it here then give us a call and we can discuss the options available. We are Australian Based and all our support staff and developers are here in Sydney.