The main purpose of an ERP system is to increase organizational efficiency of an organization by managing and improving how company resources are utilized. Improving and/or reducing the number of resources necessary without sacrificing quality and performance are keys to effectively improving business growth and profitability.
ERP systems typically cover all aspects of business operations and commonly provide:
- An integrated system
- Common database
- Real-time operation
- Support for all applications/components
- Common user interface across application/components
- On-premise, cloud hosted, or SaaS deployment
ERP software has the ability to collect and compare metrics across departments and provide a number of different reports based on roles or specific user preferences. The data collected makes finding and reporting on data faster and gives a complete view of business performance with complete insights on how resources are being spent.
Over time, ERP systems have grown to include support for other applications and “ERP modules" that support day-to-day business function. In many ERP systems, these common functional areas are grouped into ERP modules, including but not limited to:
- Financial Accounting
- Management Accounting
- Human Resources
- Manufacturing
- Order Processing
- Supply Chain Management
- Project Management
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Data Services