Which affordable small business CRM + ERP?

Having trawled through the forum, I see a lot of talk about vendors who 'have' a 'solution'.

I looked at:

• NetSuite - they annoyed me (arrogant and aggressive)
• Microsoft - 3 million businesses use our software...so what!
• Sage - still in the dark ages
• Intuit - Quickbooks, Quickbooks, Quickbooks
• SAP - Kings Ransome
• Epicor - dark ages
• Interprise - clowns
• Everest - Degree in quantum physics required to work the UI
• Others - hacked together solutions
• Open source - this isnt for me - I like to see the owners faces

They are all:

1. Expensive with long term agreements
2. Over burdened with features
3. Seem to have very steep (and expensive)learning curves

I am really clear about my needs. I've looked the 'comparison sites' but nothing really 'fitted' what I need.

My problem is:

• Budget (I want to spend roughly $25 - $30 USD/month per user) and I dont want a long term lock in with a big upfront cost.
• Time - I need a system in one of my businesses immediately
• Effort - I don't want to employ or manage expensive consultants
• Remote working - Many of my employees work off site but need access to information so I am looking for a 'cloud' solution.

I'm at the point where I need to 'standardize' on a system for each of my individual businesses (separate accounts). I'm currently running Quickbooks, PeachTree and Sage with a mess of spreadsheets and contact management systems.

I have two businesses and I'm about to expand to four located in:

• USA
• UK
• Europe - Country not decided but probably the Netherlands
• Australia - Opening in May 2010

I need:

• Really easy to learn and use
• I can deploy it myself quickly
• Low cost - like I said $25 to $30 USD per user
• CRM
• Sales Order processing
• Estimates
• Sales forecasting
• Time sheet capture
• Employee Expense claim management
• Job tracking
• Stock (inventory management)
• Multicurrency Accounting
• Online payments (in and out)
• Manage drop shipments
• E-mail integration
• Oh and lead tracking
• And decent reports - not necessarily dashboards

And like I said I need it in the cloud.

Help me find a solution...

Thanks

Caroline. C.

PS: If you suggest a vendor I have already looked at I will make sure I give you my feedback.

Have you looked at Sugar CRM.

I run a small (40 people) company that manufacture, sell and service specialised pumps for the oil industry. We have 3 offices in 3 countries and up until recently used to run 3 distinct systems for accounts (2 QB 1 Sage), + ACT for CRM, and several highly complex (!) spreadsheets for issuing quotes, logging time against jobs etc. We looked for a single system to replace the whole lot but initially could find only one, NetSuite, and we could not afford it. One of our suppliers then recomended we took a look at salesorder.com, and I was initially sceptical because we wanted much more that order processing - dont let the name mislead you :-) turns out it did 85% of what we wanted at a fraction of the cost - It may not be as comprehensive as some of the larger systems but it is very easy to use, which is very significant if you are trying to get staff to use a new system.

Now reading through your list I recon you should probably take a good look, although you seem to be pretty scathing about a lot of stuff that's out there (I have to say I think pretty unfairly in some cases), so I'm almost reluctant to recomend.....

Interested to see what you think

Jeff Briggs

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Elodie

You should take a look at TioLive. This is an online business software. According to what to you need, it seems to me
that it is could fits your needs :
- It is online : wherever you are, you will be able to connect to your data
- It does not require time to get it : you just have to subscribe on the
website and then you can create as many users as you want
- It is really unexpensive (you even have a free version)
- No long-term agreement : with the Data Protection Agreement, you can
leave whenever you want
- TioLive has got many of the functions you want, you can check it on the website

Hope I could help

---

Thanks for the tip ...

TioLive - took a look....only just appeared in the market....sorry guys I've been there with Interprise and I'm not going back...

- you have no track record
- and your pre-sales service didn't cut it for me
- and your site is confusing

Caroline C

Quote:

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Originally Posted by roban

Have you looked at Sugar CRM.

---

Hey Roban...

Thanks for the tip

SUGAR CRM is a CRM system....and nothing else....

Its not called SUGAR accounting is it...

Caroline C

Hey Jeff,

Thanks for the steer on salesorder.com, I took a quick look. 'On paper' this looks a possible. I signed up for the free trial. So far so good - I wasn't pestered by a pushy sales person!!

Is there any chance we could talk about your experiences?

Cheers

Caroline C.

My 2c:
Caroline:
You are not scathing; you are simply not the type of person who takes SAP's or Sage's (or whoever's) crap for gold nuggets like the rest of the herd. Your findings pretty much sums up the sad state of the Accounting/ERP solutions market for SMBs. What amazes me is people's level of tolerance and docility. People tolerate all kinds of nonsense as long as it comes from big names (Intuit, NetSuite, SAP, etc...). Beware of those who tell you that they have implemeted XYZ solution in there company and now it is working for them. Dig deeper and you'll find that the "now it is working for us" simply means "we got used to the nonsense". I have seen it too many times.
I doubt you'll find a suitable solution. Not because your needs are unusual, on the contrary they are legitimate and common, but because you need something that fits your specific business processes, and I can assure you that there is nothing out there that does that.
Whatever solution you choose, it will cost in $ and in frustration trying to scratch your right ear with your left hand.
Also this statement

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CloudControl

[*]I can deploy it myself quickly

---

does not make sense to me, it is in contradiction with your needs. You are not buying a plug and play video game here.

If we were based in the same city I could have probably suggested something for you. Your ideal solution is to find someone locally who can 1) Build a system that fits you needs and maintain it as you grow and change, 2) Do your accounting on a weekly/monthly basis depending on your volume. This is an ideal arrangement because
- You'll not "employ or manage expensive consultants" as you stated it
- The system will grow with you the way you need it to. One thing that the majority of people don't realize is that a company is a living thing, its business processes change, and more frequently than you think. When this happens, the system must follow. If it does not, you fall back in the canned solution (scratch your right ear with your left hand).
I am proving a link below not as a way to promote my services at all but simply to confirm your thoughts and findings about the various solution providers.

http://www.devantiscapital.com/INTRO

Best wishes,

Hello Caroline,

our requirements are similar to yours but thankfully there are less of them.
Would be very grateful if you posted your findings -

We currently use Quick books and have to manually import data from our
webstore - this is time consuming, and causes lots of issues - are you looking
to solve this problem or similar?

Any info much appreciated

Cheers Andy

Elodie and TomCoyes

This is my very first time in this forum and the information and response from the members has been fantastic. As a busy CEO i have found a very valuable resource which is unfortunately tainted by vendors 'pushing' and in some cases 'thrusting' their products at me. Guys/Gals? I really wish you wouldn't its annoying and distracting.

Sorry for the slap folks but I am sure you understand.

Thank you

Caroline C

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ap_jenkins

Hello Caroline,

our requirements are similar to yours but thankfully there are less of them.
Would be very grateful if you posted your findings -

We currently use Quick books and have to manually import data from our
webstore - this is time consuming, and causes lots of issues - are you looking
to solve this problem or similar?

Any info much appreciated

Cheers Andy

---

Hey Andy,

It's early days yet, but so far I have a had a good experience with salesorder. One of the team there has told me they are close to finishing a solution whereby they can integrate any of the most popular carts....

I do have a webstore and I do know (and have great pain) from the import of orders etc into my existing systems. It seems the folk at salesorder 'get this' and I'm waiting to see their solution. The problem with just about every store I originally tried was the 'real time' synchronization of inventory and piping of orders. In the end I have just had to put up with it...

I will of course publish my findings/experience as it is the very least I can do to repay other members who have given me and my team so much useful advice...

Stay tuned

Caroline C

I am seriously very impressed and relieved. In just two days the team at salesorder.com have over delivered. I have two complete systems up and running and it was extremely painless and enlightening.

They not only got my information from Sage, Quickbooks, ACT! and Salesforce.com in just a couple of hours via the net but they also showed me a few really cool SEO tricks that one of my team has just tried and bought me 8 new customers in just hours!!! The whole experience has cost me less than $600!!!

I just want to say a huge thanks to Jeff (why didn't you get in touch - I owe you) and the folk who run this AMAZING forum....

You rock!!!

BIG THANKYOU

Caroline C.

Cheers Caroline...glad it works for you :-)

Hmmm we have spoken with salesorder.com about SEO at length and
have had some pretty good results. Did they show you this trick

type into google netsuite pricing

The top slot is occupied by salesorder.com 'netsuite pricing too expensive?'

Now that is what I call a result!

Thanks
Jeff

Thanks. MSDS sheets supports ERP systems, which allows for the sharing of information on large database.

Not too sure about salesorder - we have been trying to contact them for over a week now - no response. Are they still in business?

I am seriously very impressed and relieved. In just two days the team at their sites have over delivered. I have two complete systems up and running and it was extremely painless and enlightening.

Since this post was formed a lot of changes have taken place at Interprise Solutions. We now have an eCommerce plus product is completely free to download and use. In our next release we will be adding many of our full version’s CRM features to the eCommerce plus product as well. We do charge a 1% transaction fee in eCommerce plus on credit card charges, but with our rate of 2.18% + .08 cents a transaction it’s comparable to Paypals 2.9% + .30 cents a transaction. If you only do orders with Terms (i.e. net 30) then it’s completely free (include our cart) and fully supported by our community of over 1,100 users.

Thanks!!!

Jeff, not sure you are still active with Salesorder.com but we are going to evaluate it was we are ready to dump out of Netsuite. Any chance I can contact you offline?

Kendor, do you need any additional info on salesorder.com? I expect to be talking with them soon (analyst briefing). I would try to leverage my conversation to help you a bit. I will plan to post back here a summary of what I learn.

I think the real issue for them, and anyone else but say Intuit is whether they are in it for the long haul. The product is compelling, but their smallness makes me nervous. Unfortunately Intuit is probably a version or 2 away from having a real robust competitor to Netsuite for the cloud-based SMB market.

Kendr, I am not sure that I would necessarily mention Intuit in the same breath as NetSuite. And I think there are many vendors focusing on the SMB who are in it for the long haul. I expect to be talking with salesorder.com quite soon. In the meantime, I am aware of many vendors focusing on the SMB. So, as always, it just comes down to, among other things, what you are specifically looking for, what your detailed requirements are, and what your budget is.

@Northxnortheast

There is a difference between those who would like to aquire SMB customer and those who have a practical offering that is trustworthy enough to commit to. Changing out accounting system is not something you can wantonly do like changing your browser, in spite of the fact that those who are trying to acquire new customers make it seem that way... Once you are invested in someone's platform it's very hard to get out, and those in the space know that and will leverage it.

So even though there's a whole bunch of emerging competition in this space, the who is going to be there in 2 years, 5 years is a very relevant question.

As a business owner, my goal is to have a reliable all-in-one cloud-based CRM/Accounting platform that is reasonably priced, well-supported and can scale. I need to handle product sales, but also professional services, and be able to handle job costing.

Unfortunately as a buyer I have not seen good credible head to head evaluation of these solutions, outside of this year-old piece http://www.cpatechnologyadvisor.com/print/The-CPA-Technology-Advisor/2010-Small-Business-Accounting-Review-of-SaaS-Products/1$2784 This is actually a good piece, but already dated.

Who are those in the SMB space that you are referring to?

Kendor, oh boy that is really impossible to answer. There is a long list of vendors doing different things in the different spaces that you have referenced: ERP, eCommerce, FIN / Accounting, CRM. I am following hundreds of vendors in these spaces. So it is impossible to provide a laundry list of the players. There is a reason why you are finding it difficult to find a good credible head to head evaluation of these solutions online - these head-to-head evaluations are (1) are very difficult to do a credible job off; (2) are out of date as soon as they are published, and (3) are not specific to your context. As long as I have been a technology analyst, we have always resisted presenting a side-by-side comparison for these reasons. An online forum like this does a good job of (among other things) providing specific feedback on a vendor. To find a vendor that is a best fit for your requirements, I would highly recommend that you talk to a capable technology analyst who is working closely, from an analyst's perspective, with the vendor community.