Frappe ERPNext - Migrating Legacy Accounts system for a Garment Manufacturing Company

ERPNext Project — Migrating off Legacy Accounts system for a Garment Manufacturing Company

The client in this case was a MSME company (Enrich Clothing Inc) in Garment Manufacturing and Distribution business since close to 20 years with Multi sales branches, with mix of inhouse and outsourced manufacturing capabilities.

In the past client had attempted with multiple different Software/ERP options which could not succeed for several reasons. It was immense drain on money and lost opportunity added with frustration.

The brief was

1. looking for a Proper Technology platform for next decade of growth
2. robust Inventory Management preferably with Image view
3. Integration of Sales order application with backend
4. Automate Production/Job Work
5. Integrate Whatsapp Communication for Sales/Marketing
6. Preferably Deploy HR/Payroll at later point of time

Client had some discussion with couple of other ERP Options. So the task was to first go through all possible available options, take a demo and analyse Pros and Cons. At this stage Opensource/ERPNext was not even known or discussed. Slowly we found many existing ERPs were still running on quite old technology or churning out features on a different base start point functionalities(for e.g retail operations) and building upon required modules.

Few were quite generic and good but customisation costs were quite high and time consuming. Midway in the process we hit upon option of Opensource along with Zoho. We did lot of due diligence with Zoho platform but got stucked when it came to Module wise offering/functioning and too high vendor quotes for customisation. ERPNext UI Experience and ease of usability was definitely in different league.

What is most fascinating about ERPNext is democratic working at almost every level. Client does not get bound by preset things.

After taking up few demo and reaching out to multiple ERPNext vendors we finally zeroed on two potential partners. One of the challenge here was wide range of estimates we received for same set of requirements.

We decided to go ahead with Inventory/Buying/Accounts/Selling and then Manufacturing.

ERPNext does not have ready print formats suitable for a business who is used to using Tally/Busy kind of setup. So we had to spent a lot of time in customising various Print formats like Sales Invoice, Purchase Order, Delivery Note etc. If these regular formats are made in standard offering it could be easier and can be used by clients with few customisation.

Major Steps we took

1. Basic Setup for Multi Company
2. Analyse difference in Master data and Migrate to new format
3. Create Barcodes for all inventory items
4. Onboard onto Buying Module
5. Onboard onto Selling Module
6. Onboard Job Work/Delivery Challan
7. Reconcile Payments/TDS/RCM workflow
8. Deploy custom Manufacturing Work Order module

Some Unique Solutions we built during this enablement were

1. Integration of ERPNext with Orderaxe sales order management app
2. Integration of ERPNext with Interakt whatsapp application
3. Custom Courier Inward/Outward Document management
4. Custom Fabric Inventory Management using Batch Doctype

Getting ERPNext Flaw Corrected

We highlighted a small flaw in Delivery Note workflow in ERPNext. It was designed and suitable for Sales Delivery Note. It could not be utilised for Job work delivery notes. E way bill feature was available only with Sales DN. After raising this issue the ERPNext team(GST Compliance) made sure that E way bill feature was available with core Job work flow.

Initially we estimate the project timeline to be of 3–4 months. But due to several surprises and misses in requirement management we could finally deliver it in 6 months time frame.

Summary

Customer User satisfaction has been high from UI/ease of usability

It is very important to discuss requirement of user in certain detail. Ask how user perceives or is going to use the system

Track Requirements with proper documentation and user communication

Check if proper resources and buyin exists at User level

Working with MSME in Unorganised sectors could be pretty challenging while enabling ERP. A consultant plays a vital role between Client and Vendor and can improve the success rate of deployments