ERPNext for contractors

I have assigned myself the task of making ERPNext work for our electrical contracting company. It is obviously geared towards manufacturing and selling, but the platform seems powerful and customizable enough to work for anything with enough ambitiion. I was curious if anybody has used the system for construction at all?

We would rely mostly on the Projects/Tasks, Time logs, Calendar, Selling, and the integration of each module… Expanding upon that, we would hope to have a dispatch system that perform like the current calendar, but showing scheduled employees for each project for each day.

Is it worthwhile to make ERPNext function as an all encompassing tool for a trades/construction environment?

Thanks

Hi,

Developing ERPnext for contracting would be beneficial for our company.

Even just having more discussion on the industry would be helpful. I believe ERPNext can do a lot of the functions required but getting the procedures and approaches required is proving hard for us.

One as aspect that not covered by many ERPs is margins and pricing types. eg the relationship between cost, trade price, and retail price.

Kind Regards,
Tray.

This should certainly be worthwhile. But it can only be done case-by-case. If you need help in doing this, let us know (as long as you are willing to contribute back).

I think its about time we had ERPNext for the construction industry. This would definitely be a great hit. We’ve encountered quite a few construction firms desperately seeking an affordable solution tailored to their industry

Cheers!

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@wale get them on board :smile:

@Rushabh I have actually tried that a couple of times. In fact, there was one of them I had to make presentations to 3 times in another city

The issue however is that players in that industry (at least the ones we’ve encountered) seem to want something that’s already designed for construction. Once they see that there’s no ‘construction’ module or industry-specific features, they seem to lose interest

I believe that once we get some basic features on the ERP, it’ll be easier to st‎art bringing them on board. I understand that this may not be priority for the team right now but I’d be really glad if it shows up sometime soon. Construction is quite a large industry and there don’t seem to be many affordable solutions available

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Hi,

Not sure if this the correct location but the following workings might explain how I’ve seen the cost of a project calculated.

Note: These calculations start from the left and work towards the right. Then the sections are summed.

Hi,

Here is the same sheet but with some discounts applied.

Is this a common calculation used by others??

This is possible in ERPNext, you just need to develop your own modules.

Hi,

I have found this wiki reference enter link description here, but I cant get it to work.
I’m not able to send invoices (purchases) to the cost center.
I’m not able to invoice (sales) the cost center (project).

The wiki page seems to have enough information but from my understanding some points/details are missing.

If anyone can help please reply here or update the wiki.

Thanks

If you are booking expense at the time of purchase then you can set the cost center. In the default case, purchases are booked as assets until you consume / sell them (when they are transferred as Cost of Goods Sold). Hence you will not see the Cost Center field.

You can either set the cost center at the time of booking expense, or change the default account in the Purchase Invoice to an Expense Account.

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We are building applications based on ERPNEXT for builders and remodelers. There is a lot of work involved in getting it to function as a contractor would expect, but we are getting close. We expect to release the applications at the International Builders Show in January.

Would be happy to let contractors have access to early release versions late November.

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@rmehta, I haven’t evaluated many other options when it comes to construction-specific software (mostly because they are a generally a costly subscription model with a very direct sales team, putting limitations on trial freedom… Not an ideal scenario for a startup. We are just getting into business ourselves, and infinite amount off possibilities come to mind for ERPNext during the day, but it’s hard to know exactly what structures/features would be reasonable or necessary until it comes down to necessity. I will be happy to contribute funding and personal knowledge as those days come, and I hope this thread stays active until then!

@BuilderMatic It sounds very exciting. I visited the website, and the features look very promising, but is it monetizing directly from the erpnext platform on a private server?

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What we are trying to build is a system for builders similar to Mark Systems IHMS. We have been working on it for four years and we do hope to make a buck out of it. Our model is to get rebates from suppliers who are included in the system.

In your industry something like Wintac or ServiceMax would be comparable. After the release for builders and remodelers we will do versions for service industries.

@BuilderMatic look forward to your contributions back to the community too.

Using / developing GitHub - revant/civil_contracting: Frappe App for use in Civil Contracting Business / Civil Contracting: Documentation

The customization helps in:

  • Labour Attendance
  • Outstanding Wages
  • Wage Payments
  • Worker Master linked to Employee master
  • Can generate basic MB Record (users not using yet)

ERPNext Accounts and Cost Centers help in identifying labour costs / outstanding wage / other labour expenses as per cost center.

ERPNext HR helps manage expense claim and salary for employees (not workers)

For other things especially Stock Management, ERPNext is sufficient and powerful for us for now.

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Same here. I’ve also seen this attitude. @revant_one’s civil_contracting module could help in this regard. We still need to do some work towards developing industry-specific implementation guidelines.

In my experience. I couldn’t agree more with @wale, The response from the construction industry is even greater than education and from. Its very big and rapidly growing in developing countries.

@rmehta I think we should create data that encourages/helps agregates discussions by industry (Domain). Additionally we need a way to compile and document best practices by industry to empower end users and implementers.

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