ERP - Sales and marketing - CRM
Any company would want to have a good and fighting sales and marketing force to compete in the market.
An efficient sales and marketing module of an ERP software will help the company to achieve the above objective.
ERP sales and marketing module will help a company stay competitive and streamline their sales and marketing activities of both domestic and export sales.
Additionally the following activities can be recorded with the ERP sales and marketing module.
The stock updates are reflected in the stock ledger and the stock registers. General ledger account updates are reflected in the balance sheet, P / L statement and general ledger.
We all know that Customers and Sales play an important role in the business to grow. Sales Orders are the source of cash flows.
Different businesses will have different sales requirements. While choosing an ERP software one should look for the following core features in Sales modules.
Recording Customer details such as Name, Shipping address, Profile details and Credit terms etc.
The system should allow to categorize customers based on any criteria for example, product wise, location wise and outstanding criteria.
Sales order is raised when the sales department receives a specific order from the customer. This document is used to inform all concerned departments such as inventory and manufacturing of the orders which should be fulfilled in future. Using this data, managements can plan purchases and prepare the manufacturing schedules.
There are various transactions which can be triggered from Sales Orders like:
Data recorded in the sales business process:
Order no
A unique number assigned to each order.
Order Date
The date on which an order is created.
Customer Name
The customer to whom this particular order has to be delivered to.
Shipping Address
The address to which the consignment has to be shipped.
Due Date
The date on or before, the order has to be completed.
Item Name, Quantity, Rate, Value
These are the details of the products which have to be delivered to the customer. ERP system populates the item prices automatically. If not entered, it will allow to enter the item rate manually.
Discount
An amount which is deducted from the order value. This amount is usually a percentage of the order value or could be a fixed amount.
Freight
The amount charged for shipping the products to the customer.
Tax
The amount to be paid to the authorities by the organization, which is collected from the customer.
Credit limit
When Sales orders are delivered, customers will not pay the amount immediately. Companies will set the credit limit for customers depending on their orders and the trust level they have. Every time a new order is delivered, the system will check whether customer credit limit is crossed. So, shipments can be held till the expected payments are done.
As shown above, a typical sales order contains multiple products and their sales amounts. Sometimes these products should be shipped on different delivery dates and in varying quantities. Delivery on a particular date or dates is an important requirement for some customers and they would want products to be delivered on those dates. Some orders with multiple products should be delivered together. Some customers prefer to deliver individual products on different dates. The ERP system should support this multiple dispatches against single Sales Order.
In the Sales Order data entry screen, in the customer field, customer lookup displays customer names to select a customer name. System also provides items look up to select items. As soon as items are selected, automatic item price and discount calculation is calculated and displayed.
As shown in the above pic, the Sales Order header contains detailed information about a Customer including the Sales Representative assigned to the Customer, the Customer's Purchase Order Number, location, Billing Address, Shipping Address, and more.
The Sales module also enables you to take orders for special items. These orders can be for one-time and on custom specifications. Billing for these orderare done based on labor cost for that order and materials cost.
Sales forecasts are expected future sales or orders by customer. Many ERP systems include a variety of tools to generate forecasts from past sales patterns. These forecasts are useful to predict future orders and correspondingly raw materials procumbent schedules and production planning.
ERP system can generate report on pending orders based on today, this week, current month and next month time periods.
ERP system can generate sales reports on a geographic location and based on sales persons. Usually, each sales person will be attached to a territory within the system and he will be responsible for orders, bookings, and backorders in that geographical area. Sometimes customers make advance payments to book orders. The system accommodates this advance amount and adjusts by raising a sales voucher automatically.
Many ERP software providers integrate their sales and marketing module with artificial intelligence tools. With this, they provide many useful features to businessesas follows:
ERP sales and marketing module maintains customer profiles and their sales history etc. With AI-features, businesses understand their customers in a more personalized way based on their purchase history and factoring other considerations. This leads to better product recommendations and improve the customer experience. AI tools can analyze millions of customer profiles and their purchase history.One of such tool is Netsuite with AI capabilities.
Sales and Marketing teams in organizations perform many activities like creating and contacting leads, analyzing them,sending emails and replying. AI helps to do these tasks easily. Google offers free AI tool which can work with multiple ERP software and helps sales team to find leads and convert them to orders
Customer service is a main concern for any business and a very important factor for growth. Feedback from the customer which is recorded in the organizations database is not enough to draw conclusions. Customers also givetheir opinions and feedbacks on social media platforms. AI tools aggregate this data with the own systems to generate insights to assist management in product design and improvements. One such ERP software is Microsoft Dynamics and has an advanced analytics tool to help customer service people to interact with customers more efficiently.
It is a challenge for any enterprise to use AI integrated ERP software. If you want to use any AI-enabled ERP system such as NetSuite, Salesforce or any custom CRM and ERP solution with third-party AI tools, you need to fulfill the following two major prerequisites. The first prerequisite is to implement AI-capabilities which is actionable data to feed into AI algorithms. The second one is to have clear goal of what outcome we want by integrating AI.
ERP systems must be able to collect the right data regarding customers, employees, sales and other elements of a business. Always make sure that the data you collect is consistent. After you have captured data from all the right sources, the next step is to clean the data and make it ready to feed to the AI algorithms. Based on the outcomes, appropriate actions can be taken up accordingly. AI-powered ERP and CRM solutions help enterprises to generate more leads,increase revenue, reduce operational costs, and improve customer service.
Activities in sales and marketing
Sales and Marketing module provides functionalities which begin from contacting customers which are referred to as pre sales activities, allows tracking of each customer orders right from placing an order to dispatch of material for that particular order, raising sales invoices and receiving payments from customer. Below are the list of core functionalities of ERP sales and Marketing module.- Sales order
- Order scheduling
- Shipping with delivery note
- Tracking sales invoices
- Sales returns
Additionally the following activities can be recorded with the ERP sales and marketing module.
- Automating the sales force activities such as visits to customers and tracking their expenses.
- Target setting for marketing personnel.
- Business partners and franchises are common in today's businesses. Marketing personnel need to work closely with business partners to promote their business. Recording of these activities.
- Recording of payments received from customers after dispatches are made. An ERP sales and marketing module allows marketing executives to contact customers and follow-up each and every sales invoice and receive payments for invoices.
- Track lost orders and identify the reasons for loosing those orders.
- Allow the preparation of comprehensive reports of the sales and marketing activities of the company such as track sales trends over different periods, drill down for the consolidated data and allow for sales forecast.
Stock updates and Reports in sales module
The stock updates are reflected in the stock ledger and the stock registers. General ledger account updates are reflected in the balance sheet, P / L statement and general ledger.
Core features of ERP sales modules
We all know that Customers and Sales play an important role in the business to grow. Sales Orders are the source of cash flows.
Different businesses will have different sales requirements. While choosing an ERP software one should look for the following core features in Sales modules.
Maintaining Customer Profile in a centralized database
Recording Customer details such as Name, Shipping address, Profile details and Credit terms etc.
The system should allow to categorize customers based on any criteria for example, product wise, location wise and outstanding criteria.
Creation of Sales order
Sales order is raised when the sales department receives a specific order from the customer. This document is used to inform all concerned departments such as inventory and manufacturing of the orders which should be fulfilled in future. Using this data, managements can plan purchases and prepare the manufacturing schedules.
There are various transactions which can be triggered from Sales Orders like:
- Delivery Note
- Sales Invoice
- Material Request
- Production Order
Data recorded in a Sales Order
Data recorded in the sales business process:
Order no
A unique number assigned to each order.
Order Date
The date on which an order is created.
Customer Name
The customer to whom this particular order has to be delivered to.
Shipping Address
The address to which the consignment has to be shipped.
Due Date
The date on or before, the order has to be completed.
Item Name, Quantity, Rate, Value
These are the details of the products which have to be delivered to the customer. ERP system populates the item prices automatically. If not entered, it will allow to enter the item rate manually.
Discount
An amount which is deducted from the order value. This amount is usually a percentage of the order value or could be a fixed amount.
Freight
The amount charged for shipping the products to the customer.
Tax
The amount to be paid to the authorities by the organization, which is collected from the customer.
Credit limit
When Sales orders are delivered, customers will not pay the amount immediately. Companies will set the credit limit for customers depending on their orders and the trust level they have. Every time a new order is delivered, the system will check whether customer credit limit is crossed. So, shipments can be held till the expected payments are done.
Features of sales module
Multiple dispatches against single Sales Order
As shown above, a typical sales order contains multiple products and their sales amounts. Sometimes these products should be shipped on different delivery dates and in varying quantities. Delivery on a particular date or dates is an important requirement for some customers and they would want products to be delivered on those dates. Some orders with multiple products should be delivered together. Some customers prefer to deliver individual products on different dates. The ERP system should support this multiple dispatches against single Sales Order.
In the Sales Order data entry screen, in the customer field, customer lookup displays customer names to select a customer name. System also provides items look up to select items. As soon as items are selected, automatic item price and discount calculation is calculated and displayed.
As shown in the above pic, the Sales Order header contains detailed information about a Customer including the Sales Representative assigned to the Customer, the Customer's Purchase Order Number, location, Billing Address, Shipping Address, and more.
Sometimes there is a need for customized Item Processing
The Sales module also enables you to take orders for special items. These orders can be for one-time and on custom specifications. Billing for these orderare done based on labor cost for that order and materials cost.
Sales forecast
Sales forecasts are expected future sales or orders by customer. Many ERP systems include a variety of tools to generate forecasts from past sales patterns. These forecasts are useful to predict future orders and correspondingly raw materials procumbent schedules and production planning.
Pending orders
ERP system can generate report on pending orders based on today, this week, current month and next month time periods.
Sales reports on a geographic location
ERP system can generate sales reports on a geographic location and based on sales persons. Usually, each sales person will be attached to a territory within the system and he will be responsible for orders, bookings, and backorders in that geographical area. Sometimes customers make advance payments to book orders. The system accommodates this advance amount and adjusts by raising a sales voucher automatically.
How Integration of CRM module with AI helps businesses
Many ERP software providers integrate their sales and marketing module with artificial intelligence tools. With this, they provide many useful features to businessesas follows:
Understanding of customers
ERP sales and marketing module maintains customer profiles and their sales history etc. With AI-features, businesses understand their customers in a more personalized way based on their purchase history and factoring other considerations. This leads to better product recommendations and improve the customer experience. AI tools can analyze millions of customer profiles and their purchase history.One of such tool is Netsuite with AI capabilities.
Providing sales assistance
Sales and Marketing teams in organizations perform many activities like creating and contacting leads, analyzing them,sending emails and replying. AI helps to do these tasks easily. Google offers free AI tool which can work with multiple ERP software and helps sales team to find leads and convert them to orders
Making customer service smarter
Customer service is a main concern for any business and a very important factor for growth. Feedback from the customer which is recorded in the organizations database is not enough to draw conclusions. Customers also givetheir opinions and feedbacks on social media platforms. AI tools aggregate this data with the own systems to generate insights to assist management in product design and improvements. One such ERP software is Microsoft Dynamics and has an advanced analytics tool to help customer service people to interact with customers more efficiently.
How to make your CRM and ERP applications ready to implement AI
It is a challenge for any enterprise to use AI integrated ERP software. If you want to use any AI-enabled ERP system such as NetSuite, Salesforce or any custom CRM and ERP solution with third-party AI tools, you need to fulfill the following two major prerequisites. The first prerequisite is to implement AI-capabilities which is actionable data to feed into AI algorithms. The second one is to have clear goal of what outcome we want by integrating AI.
ERP systems must be able to collect the right data regarding customers, employees, sales and other elements of a business. Always make sure that the data you collect is consistent. After you have captured data from all the right sources, the next step is to clean the data and make it ready to feed to the AI algorithms. Based on the outcomes, appropriate actions can be taken up accordingly. AI-powered ERP and CRM solutions help enterprises to generate more leads,increase revenue, reduce operational costs, and improve customer service.
