Key Cloud ERP Features to Look for in an ERP System | Accolent ERP 

Cloud ERP Features

Choosing a cloud ERP system involves much more than deciding where your software and data will be hosted. While cloud deployment provides important technology advantages (particularly if on a global platform), the cloud ERP features built into the software ultimately determine how effectively the system can manage your business.

A modern cloud ERP solution should connect financial management, sales, customers, inventory, purchasing, warehouse operations, eCommerce, reporting, and other critical functions within one integrated platform.

For distributors in particular, choosing the right combination of cloud ERP features can improve visibility, automate everyday processes, reduce manual work, and provide employees with the information they need to make better decisions.

So, which features should you consider when evaluating cloud ERP software?

1. Integrated Business Management

One of the most important cloud ERP features is the ability to manage multiple areas of the business within one integrated system.

Instead of maintaining separate applications for accounting, sales, inventory, purchasing, and warehouse management, an integrated ERP system brings these functions together.

For example, entering a customer order can immediately affect:

• Inventory availability
• Customer balances
• Warehouse fulfillment
• Purchasing requirements
• Sales reporting
• Financial information

Because each department works with the same underlying data, an integrated cloud ERP system can reduce duplicate data entry and inconsistencies between different applications.

More importantly, it creates a single source of truth across the organization.

2. Real-Time Access to Business Information

Another essential cloud ERP feature is real-time access to centralized business information.

Employees no longer work exclusively from a corporate office. Sales representatives visit customers, warehouse personnel work throughout distribution facilities, managers travel, and businesses frequently operate multiple branches and warehouses.

Cloud ERP software allows authorized employees to access business information through an Internet connection using supported devices.

For example, a salesperson can check customer information and inventory availability while working remotely. A warehouse manager can review fulfillment activity from the warehouse floor. Executives can monitor financial and operational performance across multiple locations.

Instead of waiting for information to move between departments, users can work from the same current ERP data.

3. Customer Relationship Management

Customer relationship management, or CRM, is another valuable cloud ERP feature.

An integrated CRM can give sales and customer service teams access to information such as:

• Customer accounts
• Contacts
• Sales activities
• Quotes
• Orders
• Purchase histories
• Customer-specific pricing
• Account information

Connecting CRM and ERP information gives employees a more complete view of the customer.

Sales representatives do not have to rely on one system for prospects and another for orders and inventory. Customer service employees can also access the operational information they need to answer customer questions.

This integration can improve both sales productivity and customer service.

4. Sales and Order Management

Effective sales order management is particularly important for distributors.

Cloud ERP software should provide tools for managing the complete sales process, from quotes and orders through fulfillment, invoicing, and payment.

Depending on your business requirements, useful features can include customer-specific pricing, order history, inventory availability, credit information, order status, and fulfillment management.

Because sales order management is integrated with inventory, warehouse, customer, and financial information, employees can work with more complete information throughout the order cycle.

5. Inventory Management

For product-centric businesses, inventory management should be one of the most important cloud ERP features to evaluate.

Businesses need to know not only how much inventory they own but also where that inventory is located, what is available for sale, what has already been committed to customers, and when additional inventory needs to be purchased.

A cloud ERP inventory management system can provide centralized visibility into inventory across warehouses and locations.

Depending on the business and ERP application, inventory functionality may include:

• Real-time inventory availability
• Multiple warehouses
• Inventory locations
• Inventory commitments
• Replenishment
• Lot tracking
• Serial number tracking
• Multiple units of measure
• Landed costs
• Inventory reporting

Real-time inventory information can help sales, purchasing, warehouse, and management teams make better decisions using the same data.

6. Multi-Warehouse Management

Distributors operating multiple warehouses need more than a basic inventory system.

Cloud ERP software should allow inventory and transactions to be managed across different warehouses and locations within the same ERP environment.

Users can then see inventory across the organization rather than maintaining disconnected systems at individual locations.

Multi-warehouse functionality can help businesses manage inventory availability, transfers, purchasing, replenishment, order fulfillment, and reporting across their distribution network.

Because the ERP system is cloud-based, authorized users at different locations can work from the same centralized system.

7. Warehouse Management

Warehouse management is another important cloud ERP feature for distributors.

A cloud ERP system with integrated warehouse management can connect warehouse activities directly with sales orders, inventory, purchasing, and other ERP processes.

Useful warehouse capabilities may include:

• Receiving
• Putaway
• Picking
• Packing
• Shipping
• Barcode scanning
• Inventory transfers
• Inventory adjustments
• Warehouse locations
• Lot and serial tracking

Integrating these processes can reduce manual data entry while giving employees greater visibility into warehouse activity and order fulfillment.

8. Purchasing and Replenishment

Maintaining appropriate inventory levels requires effective purchasing.

Cloud ERP software should provide purchasing functionality that connects demand, inventory, vendors, purchase orders, receiving, and financial information.

Rather than making purchasing decisions from spreadsheets or disconnected reports, buyers can use centralized ERP information to determine what needs to be purchased.

Integrated purchasing and replenishment can help businesses maintain inventory availability while avoiding unnecessary inventory investment.

9. Financial Management

Financial management is a fundamental component of a complete ERP system.

Instead of maintaining separate operational and accounting applications, cloud ERP software can integrate financial transactions directly with sales, purchasing, inventory, and other activities.

Important financial cloud ERP features can include:

• General ledger
• Accounts receivable
• Accounts payable
• Cash management
• Financial reporting
• Customer credit management

Because operational transactions flow into the financial system, management can obtain a more complete view of business performance without repeatedly transferring information between different applications.

10. eCommerce and EDI Integration

Customers increasingly expect distributors to support multiple ways of doing business.

Orders may arrive through sales representatives, customer service teams, eCommerce websites, customer portals, or Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

A modern cloud ERP system should be able to integrate these channels with centralized order, customer, pricing, and inventory information.

For example, an eCommerce integration can make ERP inventory and product information available to an online sales channel while sending customer orders back to the ERP system for fulfillment.

This reduces manual order entry and helps businesses create a more integrated multichannel sales process.

11. Reporting and Business Intelligence

Collecting data has limited value unless businesses can turn it into useful information.

Therefore, reporting and business intelligence should be important considerations when comparing cloud ERP features.

ERP reporting can help management monitor areas such as:

• Sales
• Gross margins
• Customers
• Inventory
• Purchasing
• Warehouse operations
• Accounts receivable
• Accounts payable
• Financial performance

Business intelligence and data analytics can take this further by helping users identify trends, compare performance, analyze exceptions, and investigate the factors affecting business results.

Because cloud ERP brings information together within a centralized system, reporting can draw from data across multiple business functions.

12. Scalability

The ERP system you select today should be able to support your business tomorrow. Scalability is therefore one of the most important cloud ERP features for growing organizations. A distributor may eventually add:

• Employees
• Customers
• Products
• Warehouses
• Branches
• Transactions
• Sales channels
• Geographic markets

Cloud infrastructure can generally expand as computing requirements increase without requiring a business to replace its entire local server environment.

However, infrastructure scalability is only part of the equation. The ERP application itself must also be capable of supporting increasing transaction volumes and operational complexity.

13. Automatic and Centrally Managed Software Updates

Traditional ERP upgrades can require substantial planning, testing, installation, and IT resources.

Cloud and SaaS ERP systems can simplify software maintenance because the ERP provider manages updates centrally.

As enhancements become available, businesses can gain access to current functionality without maintaining separate locally installed versions of the software.

This approach can make it easier for businesses to take advantage of improvements in reporting, automation, integrations, warehouse management, CRM, security, and other areas.

When evaluating vendors, however, companies should understand how updates are scheduled, tested, communicated, and deployed.

14. Security and User Access Controls

Security should be a core feature of any cloud ERP system.

A modern ERP environment may contain financial records, customer information, pricing, inventory information, supplier data, and other important business information.

Security therefore needs to extend beyond the physical location of the server.

Companies evaluating cloud ERP software should consider areas such as:

• User authentication
• Roles and permissions
• Application security
• Data protection
• Infrastructure security
• Security monitoring
• Backup procedures
• Vendor security policies

Role-based access is particularly important because different employees require access to different types of ERP information.

15. Backup and Disaster Recovery

Business continuity is another important consideration.

An ERP system supports many of the transactions required to operate the business. Losing access to the system or its data can therefore have significant operational consequences.

Cloud ERP providers can use professionally managed infrastructure to provide redundancy, backup, monitoring, and disaster recovery capabilities.

When comparing cloud ERP solutions, businesses should ask vendors about backup frequency, data retention, system redundancy, recovery procedures, availability, and disaster recovery planning.

Do not assume every cloud ERP provider offers the same capabilities.

16. Configuration and Workflow Flexibility

Businesses often assume they need extensive ERP customization because their operational processes are unique.

However, a modern cloud ERP system should provide configuration tools that allow the software to accommodate different requirements without extensive changes to its underlying source code.

Configurable cloud ERP features may include:

• Workflows
• User roles
• Permissions
• Approval processes
• Dashboards
• Reports
• Alerts
• Pricing rules
• Document formats
• Business rules
• Integrations

Configuration can provide flexibility while making the ERP system easier to maintain and upgrade than heavily customized software.

When implementing a new ERP system, it is also worthwhile to examine existing processes rather than automatically recreating every customization from the old system.

17. Integration Capabilities

Few ERP systems operate completely independently. A business may need to exchange information with eCommerce platforms, EDI systems, payment providers, shipping applications, banks, business intelligence tools, or other specialized applications.

Integration capabilities are therefore an increasingly important cloud ERP feature.

When evaluating an ERP system, determine how it communicates with other applications and whether those integrations can exchange information efficiently.The objective should be to create connected workflows rather than introducing another isolated business application.

Which Cloud ERP Features Are Most Important for Distributors?

The most important cloud ERP features depend on the requirements of your business. However, distributors should look beyond basic accounting and financial management. A comprehensive distribution ERP system may need to manage:

• Customers and CRM
• Quotes and sales orders
• Customer-specific pricing
• Inventory
• Multiple warehouses
• Purchasing and replenishment
• Warehouse operations
• Barcode scanning
• Lot and serial tracking
• Landed costs
• eCommerce
• EDI
• Accounts receivable
• Accounts payable
• General ledger
• Reporting
• Business intelligence and analytics

The key is integration.

A collection of powerful individual applications does not necessarily provide the same benefits as an ERP platform in which sales, inventory, purchasing, warehouses, customers, and financial information work together.

Cloud ERP Features vs. Cloud Hosting

It is important to distinguish between cloud ERP features and simply hosting traditional ERP software on a remote server.

Moving an application from an on-premise server to a hosted environment may eliminate some local infrastructure requirements. However, that alone does not make the underlying ERP application modern or comprehensive.

When evaluating cloud ERP software, consider two separate questions:

First, how is the technology delivered?

Evaluate cloud architecture, availability, security, backups, scalability, updates, and disaster recovery.

Second, what can the ERP software actually do?

Evaluate inventory, sales, purchasing, warehouse management, financial management, CRM, reporting, business intelligence, eCommerce, integrations, and industry-specific functionality.

Both are important.

A sophisticated cloud infrastructure cannot compensate for ERP software that does not provide the functionality required to run your business.

How to Evaluate Cloud ERP Features

Before selecting a cloud ERP solution, develop a list of the processes that are critical to your organization.

Then evaluate potential ERP systems against those requirements.

Rather than focusing only on a long software feature checklist, consider how the features work together.

For example:

Can a salesperson see inventory availability while entering an order?

Can the ERP system automatically reflect that order in inventory demand?

Can purchasing see the resulting replenishment requirement?

Can warehouse employees see what needs to be picked and shipped?

Can management analyze the resulting sales, inventory, margin, and financial information?

These connected workflows are where an integrated ERP system can provide significant value.

Choosing the Right Cloud ERP Software

The best cloud ERP system is not necessarily the one with the longest list of features.

Instead, look for cloud ERP software with the right combination of functionality, integration, scalability, security, and industry capabilities for your business.

For distributors, this means selecting a system capable of managing the entire order-to-cash and procure-to-pay processes while connecting inventory, warehouses, customers, vendors, and financial information.

Cloud technology provides the infrastructure. Cloud ERP features determine what your business can accomplish with it.

If you are evaluating your deployment options as well as ERP functionality, learn more about Cloud-Based ERP Software and how cloud deployment can reduce IT complexity, improve accessibility, and provide a scalable technology foundation for your business.