It’s 8 PM and you’re still at your desk, bleary-eyed but soldiering on for the good of your small business. You’re determined to finish these invoices that need to be manually keyed into your system. Surely there must be a better way! You long to kick back with your family, but you can’t let your business down.
There IS a better way. You can solve all your business challenges and deliver seamless customer service in a fraction of your current work time. All it takes is a good ERP platform implementation to launch you out of chaos and overwork and into error-free operations with endless scalability.
The experts on Stellar One’s team have supported hundreds of ERP implementations over our collective years in the industry. We put our heads together to create this vision of a typical customer, whom we’ll call Angela, to show you how an ERP platform transforms a business.
- Before ERP Software: Struggling with Fragmented Information
- After ERP Implementation: Seamless Operations, Happy Customers
- A Strong ERP Partner Makes the Difference
- Scale Your Business to Maximum Profitability
Before ERP Software: Struggling with Fragmented Information
Angela runs a growing e-commerce business. Let’s see how her day goes when she is still using several disconnected software tools, without the benefits of an ERP system.
Siloed software systems
Angela’s morning starts with a hurried check of yesterday's orders in her Shopify account. She copies these orders by hand into her standalone inventory system to update stock levels.
Inaccurate inventory tracking
Meanwhile, her warehouse manager calls in a panic — they can't find three items that should be in stock according to last week's Excel spreadsheet. Angela spends the next hour hunting through spreadsheets that don't match up. Her inventory system shows one number, her Excel tracking sheet shows another, and the physical count is something else entirely. "I honestly have no idea what we have in inventory," she says to her frustrated warehouse team.
By noon, Angela's customer service rep rushes in. A VIP customer is upset because their shipment is three days late. The order got lost in the shuffle between systems. Angela scrambles to expedite the order, eating into her profit margin just to keep the customer.
Time-consuming financial reporting
At 3 PM, Angela needs financial reports for a meeting with her banker. She downloads data from her accounting system, manually adds sales figures from her CRM, and builds yet another spreadsheet to show current cash flow. She discovers she's paying for five different software subscriptions - $1,200 for CRM, $2,000 for inventory, plus more for website, accounting, and shipping tools. It's costing her over $7,000 monthly for multiple systems that don't even talk to each other!
Tedious manual data transfer
As evening approaches, Angela still has to manually create invoices for every shipment that went out today. Each invoice requires checking three different systems and takes around ten minutes to complete. With twenty shipments today, she's looking at over three hours of tedious work ahead. Another missed family dinner.
After ERP Implementation: Seamless Operations, Happy Customers
Fast forward three months. Angela walks in at 8:30 AM, coffee in hand, feeling refreshed after a full night's sleep. She opens her Acumatica ERP dashboard and immediately sees yesterday's sales, current inventory levels, and shipments all in one place.
An order comes in through the website, and Angela watches as the magic happens. The system automatically checks inventory, reserves the stock, creates a pick ticket for the warehouse, and sends the customer a confirmation email — all without anyone lifting a finger.
All customer data available instantly 24/7 from one screen
When a customer calls with a question about their order, Angela's team has answers at the ready. Every interaction, from initial quote to payment, is visible onscreen. No more putting customers on hold while hunting through multiple systems.
Automated processes for faster, reliable service
At lunchtime, Angela notices the automation she set up last week is working flawlessly. All shipments processed yesterday were automatically converted to invoices overnight. The task that once kept her at the office until 8 PM now happens while she sleeps.
Angela pulls up a report showing her on-time delivery rate has jumped to 98%, up from 65% before implementation. Another report shows she's processing orders 70% faster than three months ago.
Real-time inventory updates
The warehouse manager stops by with good news — inventory counts match perfectly because the system updates in real time. When someone picks an item, stock levels adjust instantly. No more frustrated hunting for products that should be there but aren't.
Best of all, when Angela checks her watch at 5 PM, she's done for the day. There's no backlog of manual data entry waiting for her. She grabs her keys and heads home for dinner with her family.
A Strong ERP Partner Makes the Difference
Angela's business transformation didn't happen with software alone. The secret of her success was finding a true ERP partner, not just a vendor.
During implementation, the Stellar One team worked alongside her team, helping her understand how the system could best support her business processes. They didn't just flip a switch and disappear — they stood by during go-live, solving issues as they arose and training staff in real time.
Now, Angela has regular check-ins with her dedicated Stellar One support team. They proactively suggest improvements and make sure she's getting the most from her investment.
This isn't the impersonal support ticket system Angela experienced with her previous disconnected software tools. It's a true partnership focused on her business success.
Scale Your Business to Maximum Profitability
If Angela’s scenario rings a bell for you, we can help. Take our quiz to see if you are a good fit for our Stellar One Risk-Free Trial.
Our team has decades of expertise across dozens of ERP platforms. We can clear the way for your rapid transformation and business success. Stellar One will be the ERP partner you need to make a game-changing difference for your business.
To learn more about different ERP options, download our free resource The Hitchhiker’s Guide to ERP Platforms.
