Important Topics Of ERP Software Development


ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. Nowadays this term is used extensively in referring to softwares which are designed to manage entire resources and working of a company or an organization.

While the term ERP was originally used to refer to document based control systems, which was an advancement of MRP, today the term ERP has almost become synonymous with software, which are used to manage enterprises.

The popular names used to refer such software are ERP, ERP Software and Enterprise Software. In fact, if you search for ERP in any of the Search engines, you will find the results will be about ERP software.

The single most unique feature of an ERP software is to store data of an enterprise into an integrated database, which means data entered by different departments of the company are stored only once and stored in the ERP database and is available to any user across the enterprise.

One of the first enterprise softwares to appear in the market was the Accounting Software. Accounting softwares covered the all important domain - Accounting.

The features of an accounting software included recording of invoices, cash payments, cash receipts, purchases, sales and preparation of reports like cash flow, trial balance, general ledger and balance sheet.

Along with the accounting software, appeared the billing and inventory software which covered stock management including purchase, sale and deliveries and receipts. Stock valuation features were also included in the inventory software.

Around this time, the first versions of the ERP software appeared which sought to look at an enterprise as a whole rather than each department. The pricing of these ERP softwares was very high and this resulted in only the very large companies opting for ERP.

Small companies could not work out the ROI for installing an ERP software at the high prices.

Sensing the huge opportunities in the ERP markets ERP software development was undertaken by many companies using tools for different platforms. While Windows was the most commonly targeted platform, the popular tools used were Visual Studio and Java.

Continuing with this trend, today the .Net platform is popular and indications are this is going to be so for some time to come.

As ERP software became more widespread, along with technological development, design and programming also saw rapid changes and improvements to meet the needs of the day.

Lower computer and server prices saw the advent of Client Server versions of ERP software.

The Internet boom and cheaper bandwidth costs led to the appearance of Web Enabled ERP software. Rapid improvements to the software systems such as .Net and Web Services, and internet based tools and newer ideas have announced the arrival of ERP software as a service.


All the softwares available in the market include basic modules such as:

Finance, Sales and Marketing, Purchase, Manufacturing and Materials Management

Most software solution providers concentrate on a specific domain in order to gain core competency and thus a competitive advantage. Some of the common domains for which ERP softwares are developed are Textile, Pharmaceuticals and construction.

Today, there are any number of ERP softwares covering multiple domains, with integrated tools to customize the software, certified training institutes, professional ERP courses, countless opportunities for skilled professionals both in the functional side and the technical side.