I’m sure this question gets asked many times here in many different ways, but each business has it’s own way of working and potentially something about it that may not fit with how ERPNext works.
I’m currently using a free trial account to assess if ERPNext will help us better manage our business - which is Coffee Roasting. I really like what I’ve seen so far and I’m keen to get stuck in but I need some advice up front to know if ERPNext is going to be suitable for us (I’m happy to do some customising) or if there’s any show stoppers which make it incompatible with how our business operates.
So here goes…
We have a single company (1 set of accounts) but 2 separate business names or ‘Brands’ that we trade as. These 2 brands started out as geographic based entities but with online sales it’s really just a marketing/branding distinction now… but importantly each customer knows us as either one or the other brand and this is reflected in all the communications (invoices, statements, delivery notes, website, email etc) they see from us.
So that’s Q #1 - can ERPNext work with our company/brand setup as per above? I understand that I could setup 1, 2, or 3 companies in ERPNext and that the website is per 1 company only, but the Website is not a big issue for me as we already have websites. It’s the Stock Control and Sales Order Processing features I’m most interested in and I want to have separate brand cost/sales figures but ultimately they all roles up into the 1 company for accounting purposes.
Our products are essentially the same across both brands but just have different labels on them.
Q #2 - Would I need to setup duplicate products (items) for each brand, or create an item ‘variant’ for each brand, or is it enough to choose the appropriate letterhead when creating the Sales Order to identify which brand made the sale?
We order raw coffee by the sack (approx 60kg-70kg each) then we roast, pack, and sell coffee by kgs. I want to track how many sacks of each coffee I have and each sack has a batch number plus other information like country/farm of origin, year of harvest, certifications like Fairtrade/Organic etc. We also tag each sack with a sequential serial number. I want to track all this information about each sack but then convert each sack into kgs when we roast the coffee and pack it for sale. We also have batch numbers and best before dates on our finished products which I want to track too.
Q #3 - Can ERPNext track our raw materials by both sack and kgs, and is it possible to set it up so that raw material stock is reduced appropriately every time we roast coffee, package and sell it?
I think that’s the main stuff I need advice on. I’m sorry it’s so long, please let me know if you need more info or explanation on any of the above.
I apologise too if my question is filed under the wrong category or if asking such broad questions is ‘not cool’ in this forum.
I look forward to hearing from… well anyone really
Have a nice day!
