ERM Front Office and Back Office

User Roles   Front Office: CRM & SFA   Back Office: ERP, Accounting & Finance   Core

Module is a favorite word of programmers because it implies that the different functions in a solution are whole, complete and neatly separate from the other ones. Our Web-based ERP includes CRM, SFA, MRP, Warehouse Management (WMS), Commissions, Accounting, the G/L System with Executive Dashboard, Financial Statements and much more! It is Highly Affordable for subscription or purchase for SMBs, particularly VARs, Resellers, Integrators, Importers and Distributors.

Enterprise resource planning, ERP is fun when you can separate yourself from the day-to-day tedium – and the BScaler Enterprise Resource Manager (ERM) loves tedium! Give this modern business software enough busy work to be happy while you take a longer lunch with stake holders. Each ERM module moves your business data toward completion and wholeness, doing useful things for the user and not requiring silly things from the user.

ERM users have over 30 roles into which ERM combines responsibilities and privileges for the appropriate employee. For example, sales reps don’t need to do accounting, and inventory managers don’t need to deal with sales contacts. Register for live demo

The Total Web-based Business Management Solution

These are highlights of the main ERM modules, to give an idea of its power and flexibility. Contact BScaler for more complete information.

The ERM User Roles

ERM is Role-based to help a business to operate efficiently and comfortably in a secure environment. Each user has a login ID with defined role responsibilities and privileges. Here are some of the role definitions:

• Executive/President – Full privileges including the Executive Dashboard BAM
• CFO/Controller – Full privileges, incl. Customer Credit Line, Financial Statements
• CPA/BOD – View only Financial Statements and Reports
• VP Operations – Full privileges of all Operation functions, incl. MRP/Warehouse System
• Office Manager – Manage/Control/Change entire ERM Front Office
• Sales VP – Manage/Control/Change entire Business Unit/Division
• Sales Manager – Manage/Control/Change entire Sales Region
• Sales Rep – Create, manage Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Quotes; view Forecasts
• Sales Agent – Create, manage assigned Contacts, Opportunities, Quotes; view Forecasts
• Sales Partner –  Access Partner Portal, Create, manage assigned Contacts, Opportunities, Quotes; view Forecasts;  all functions are configurable by Management/Appadmin
• Service – Use the Service Desk to view customer info, generate and update service tickets and communicate with other service participants (Service Rep - Service VP)
• PM & VP Operations – Manage/Control Inventory and Procurement Operations
• Production – Convert Quotes to Orders; record Shipping/Receiving, generate Invoices
• AR – Generate AR reports; apply Customer Payments
• AP - Enter AP Invoices, mark for payment
• Accounting (Mgr) – Credit approval, manage commissions and all accounting functions

Total 29 Employee Roles

Total  6 Partner Roles

Total  5 Customer Roles

Logging In

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Requires user password

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ERM Front Office CRM & SFA

CRM

The Customer Relationship Management module receives and updates information about Leads, Customers and Contacts.  ERM uses information from here in your email, Quotes, Orders and Invoices.

Your sales organization will have easy 24/7 access to this data and the tools that ERM provides:

• Leads Importing and Management
• Real Time Account Information, with multiple Bill To and Ship To names and addresses, the Credit Line given by the Controller, customer purchase and payment history (configurable) and accounts receivable and backlogs
• Sales Contacts info manager, which includes Action Items and Due Dates.  The Sales Manager assigns and re-assigns Contacts to reps.  Rep can view customer purchase and payment history, accounts receivable and order backlogs, and view the Customer Portal for any outstanding issue (i.e. service ticket).  The appropriate user can update Contact information, including the Activity Log, at any time; ERM records this as history
• Service Contacts Manager for tracking, reporting and escalating support issues (a.k.a. tickets)
• Email to contacts or other ERM users
• Sales Desks, Service Desk, Partner Portals and Customer Portals

The CRM module also provides the place for a Back Office user to connect the details of a numbered Service Contract with the Quote, Order and Invoice that carry its sale to the Account.  ERM then provides this information on My Service Desk.

Next are the “CRM Portals.”  A user with the Sales Rep role gets to My Sales Desk from the CRM home page.  The other users see their appropriate Desk as soon as they log into ERM.  Their Desk, and the data that they drill down to, are their only view into your ERM information.

The CRM Portals—My Sales Desk

ERM provides My Sales Desk to have a screen that is devoted to each sales specialist.  This user desk provides these features and more:

• Time Manager with separate action items for Contacts and Opportunities.
• My Suspects, My Prospects, My Customers and My Contacts
• My “Selected” Contacts
• My Opportunities and Quotes
• My Accounts Receivable
• My Account order Backlogs
• Account Pipeline
• Inventory
• Price List
• Drill down for details
• Send email

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My Service Desk

Every Support user has a Support Desk to view existing support instances, called “Tickets,” with the original call and its caller, the service contract (if any) details, and the steps taken thus far. The person who satisfies the service contact and closes the ticket indicates that on the Desk. Other elements:

• All Accounts
• Account Service Contracts
• All Service Contacts
• Open Service Issues, sorted by these categories:

• Gold, Silver, Bronze Service Level Agreements
• Warranty, Out of Warranty, RMA
• Tech Support
• Professional Services

• Service History
• Shipment History
• New Service Request

My Partner Portal

Similar to My Sales Desk, this gives a partner real-time access to appropriate information, including:

• Time Manager with separate action items for Contacts and Opportunities.
• My Suspects, My Prospects, My Customers and My Contacts
• My “Selected” Contacts
• My Opportunities and Quotes
• Account Pipeline
• Send email
• Drill down for details

My Customer Portal

The customer user can log into ERM to gain access to this action and information:

• Create  new Order with My Discounts
• My Price List
• Create My Service Ticket
• Bug Report (informational, no action requested)
• RMA Request
• My Account Status
• My Account Balance
• My Account Backlog
• My Shipment History
• My Invoice History
• My Service Contract(s)
• My Open Support Issues
• SLAs and Escalations

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SFA: Opportunity

A project to your Contact is an Opportunity to you.  This module holds the data that you gather for understanding what the Customer needs, in order to arrive at the perfect solution from you.  Use this module for:

• Notes regarding the Project
• Action Items and Due Dates (Time Manager)
• Credit Approval by the back office
• Sales Management Approvals (configurable)

SFA: Editable Part

This feature is designed for resellers, integrators and brokers to provide a rapid response to potential accounts, and is customer-configurable.  While your Inventory specialist manages the official product line, a Sales specialist may use the Editable Parts module to make a rapid response to RFQ when it requires inclusion of a special item outside of your Price List.

SFA: Quote

In the Quote module, Sales Specialists see the working Quotes data list with clickable:

• Quote ID, Opportunity ID, Customer, Account ID, Probabilities
• Approval status (Credit and Sales Management)
• Sales specialists generate the first Quote and then new Quotes for an Opportunity, including Quote detail information, and can email the Quote.
• The ERM Quote module provides visibility of the Price List and, for tangible items, their inventory status.  It shows your item Categories with the ERM Master Categories.  As appropriate for your business, ERM shows Units Cost and Units List.

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SFA: Forecast

ERM Generates Forecasts with clicks.  No guesswork, no time wasted.

In the Opportunity Module, the sales specialists have marked each project with a probability.  ERM combines all of the Quotes with at least 50% probability with your recent orders and sales to generate the Forecast reports.

Sales Reps see their Forecast Report for chosen start and end dates in the MTD and QTD.  Although ERM lets sales reps make multiple Quotes for the same Opportunity, to offer choices to the Contact.  The rep must mark one of them as the “Active (or Current) Quote,” which is the ONE that ERM uses in Forecasts.

Sales Managers see Forecast Reports for any rep in their department/region and for their whole department/region.

The Sales VPs see Forecast Reports for any rep in their BU, any department/region and the whole Business Unit.

The Executive sees the above, plus Forecast Reports for the Enterprise.  ERM provides all of these with user mouse clicks.

The Forecast Report shows MTD and QTD bookings by BUs, Regions and Sales Reps plus  Products/Parts Forecasts to assist your materials planner and/or Procurement specialist in deciding when and how to order items from their providers.

These Forecasts include, for each part:

• The quantity required for the working Opportunities, under three probability headings (50-69%, 70-89% and 90-99%)
• The quantities On Hand, On Order, On Allocation and Available
• The Lead Time, Time to Reorder Quantity and Obsolete Date

SFA: SO Generation

The Production specialist, having a new customer PO, uses the corresponding Quote to Book the Order (Sales or Service) with this module, after tuning the Quote if necessary and affirming the Ship To information and terms.

ERM performs these things:

• Test for all necessary sales management approvals and credit approval before proceeding
• Book and possibly split the order (e.g. products vs. services), assign Bill To and Ship To information, initialize the shipment or service deployment schedules
• Move the Quote from sales rep control to company history
• Create the “Backlog” and adjust Inventory status (increase Allocation and decrease Available)
• Adjust the statistics in Forecast reports
• Make information available for a procurement PO to a Vendor/supplier
• Make information available to prepare an Invoice (regular or deferred revenue)
• Begin the Commission process

This module replaces the human tasks of copying Quote information from the sales rep’s CRM data to the Back Office fulfillment scheduler, and more.

SFA: Commission

The Commission module generates commission reports for the individual sales specialist that includes sales agent, sales rep, sales admin and sales manager with commission terms as any combination of the percents of:

• Booking Revenue and/or GP
• Invoice Revenue and/or GP
• Collection Revenue and/or GP.
• ERM lets the appropriate user make special adjustments to a commission, and it generates Commission Reports for the time periods selected.

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ERM Back Office Manager - ERP, Accounting & Finance

MRP/Inventory

When users receive vendor shipments to the PO-specified locations and Invoice products from specified locations, ERM automatically adds and reduces their quantities.  Your Inventory specialist uses this module to manage all of these:

• Your official Price List
• Product and Component Item numbers & Descriptions
• Assemblies (BOMs), sub-assemblies, sub-sub-assemblies etc. (and Disassembly) from raw materials to finished goods
• Quantities On Order, On Allocation, On Hand
• Your Item Categories
• Costs and List Prices
• Item Locations, Lead Times, Reorder Quantities, EOL Dates
• Item Transaction Detail Histories (quantities and dollar amounts)
• Approved Manufacturer & Vendor Lists
• WMS Warehouse Management System, supporting multiple:
• Warehouse locations
• Aisles
• Levels
• Sections
• Bins
• To assist with inventory management, ERM provides these Reports:
• Inventory Valuation
• Inventory Status
• Open POs to Vendor
• Open PO Items
• Transaction Summary of tangible Products, Components and Assemblies
• PO Shipments Received
• Forecast by Revenue
• Forecast by Product
• Backlogs by Revenue
• Backlogs by Product
• ERM has a lot of useful information for Inventory control and material resource planning, which its unified database receives from many other of these ERM modules.

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Procurement

In this module the appropriate Procurement specialist:

• Creates new POs:

• For one location or more
• To fill pending orders
• To Drop Ship to Customer
• To restock or for work in progress
• For a Fixed Asset
• To vendors with your assigned G/L Accounts (e.g. POM)

• Revises POs
• Enters and edits Vendor information
• Makes and awaits purchase approvals (configurable)
• Sends email internally requesting approvals, and orders to vendors
• Receives PO items:

• That were ordered (ERM has the PO) for merchandise or Manufacturing
• That will be Fixed Assets (ERM tracks and depreciates)

• Views PO history, POs received
• Views Inventory Reports
• ERM records these transactions in your General Ledger automatically.
• ERM enables tracking ordered items that have significant travel times and definite Stages (e.g. imports), which it will record and show.

SO Process

In this module the Production specialist views and edits the Bill To and Ship To names and addresses, payment terms then marks it ready for the Invoice module. ERM also:

• Makes adjustment to customer order with a last-minute change before invoice
• Puts stop shipment when the customer goes on credit hold
• Cancels an order for any reason
• Allows booking an order without a Quote (e.g. a retail situation), which includes

• Create the “Backlog”
• Adjust statistics for the Booking Report MTD and QTD
• Adjust Inventory status (Allocated and Available)
• Make information available for a procurement PO to a Vendor/supplier

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Invoice

In the Invoice module the Production specialists view, enter and edit Invoice and shipment (or service deployment) details, including Sales Taxes if the buyer is not exempt.

Thanks to its unified database, ERM permits the inclusion of tangible items on an Invoice only when they are On Hand.  It automatically puts the rest into Back Order status.

ERM processes Advance Payment (aka Deferred Revenue) Invoices.

ERM records both types of Invoice in your General Ledger automatically, maintaining balance, following generally accepted accounting principles.

This module lets the appropriate user Roll Back an Invoice to the SO stage, as long as this occurs in the same Operating Period as when a user first created the Invoice.  From there, you may re-create the Invoice to suit things better.

This module lets the Controller user apply a small credit amount to the Invoice total (say to ignore a small balance due as not worth pursuing).

The Controller user may adjust the Invoice to reduce or eliminate Sales Tax in the Invoice, if a user incorrectly charged the tax.  ERM automatically adjusts the amount due the taxing authority(ies) and enters new G/L account entries as required.

The Controller user may adjust the Invoice by deleting any line item that represents a customer return, or other reason.  This is the most rigorous method for adjusting a customer amount due because, with this Revenue Reversal method, ERM correctly:

• Adjusts Inventory quantities
• Adjusts Inventory Valuation
• Adjusts Revenues and Expenses
• Adjusts, even eliminates the Sales Tax due, if applicable
• Makes all appropriate new General Ledger entries
• Records these changes as history and includes the user ID

Accounts Receivable (AR)

The Accounts Receivable specialist enters:

• Payment amounts received toward your Invoices
• Their payment methods (e.g. check, wire)
• Their check numbers
• Which Bank Account gets the deposit (for the General Ledger)
• Any credit due the customer to be applied to the Invoice total
• In the AR module, ERM:
• Immediately adjusts the customer amount due and the AR Aging Report
• Automatically records AR transactions in your General ledger, keeping balance
• Records, for an Advance Payment (Deferred Revenue) transaction, the AR and payment transactions according to generally accepted accounting practices

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Reports Generator

ERM is particularly rich in the quantity and usefulness of its Reports.  These reports provide the appropriate users real-time information that they need to make fast, intelligent decisions.

The real-time Accounting Reports include:

• Customer Payment Register
• AR Aging by Sales Rep
• AR Aging by Customer
• Sales Taxes due to which authorities
• Electronic Waste Fee (CA)
• The real-time Production Reports include:
• Backlog by:
• Order (Non-Recurring and/or Recurring)
• Part Number (items are grouped by their Categories)*
• Deferred Revenue (Advance Payment)
• Invoice Register by:
• Sales Rep
• BU
• Item Category
• Invoice number
• *The Backlog by Part Number Report is a powerful tool for your Materials Planner to see which items need attention.  In it, the user clicks a part number to see those outstanding orders that contain the item (with the item highlighted), the backlog quantity, GM%, Discount% and more.

Sales Tax

In this module, users enter Sales Tax percentages by state, county and local authorities.  A Production specialist working on an Invoice adds the taxes, when the customer is not exempt, with mouse clicks.

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Accounts Payable (AP)

The Accounts Payable module gives the appropriate users flexible and complete access to your orders and order histories in order to manage payments to vendors in exactly the ways that best serve the company.

The AP Module provides these Data Lists:

• Virtual AP Invoices (with data that ERM stored during PO generating and Receiving) with:

• Your PO number
• The remittance address
• The Invoice Number
• The Invoice Date
• The Due Date
• Your General Ledger Account category
• Your Business Unit and Department/Region
• Whether you distribute costs to multiple G/L Accounts and/or Business Units
• Whether you are making a 1099 payment

• AP Invoice History
• Received PO items
• Your Vendor List
• Your Invoice Payment History

 

The AP Module provides these Processes:

• Accounting specialist selects Invoices for payment
• Controller approves selected Invoices for payment
• Roll back an AP check before printing it
• Process & Print AP Checks, including MICR numbers
• You may print voided check copies for your records
• Roll back an AP check after printing it
• Check Update:

• Remove check from the AP Print Check Data List
• Remove Invoice(s) from the AP Aging report.
• Remove total check amounts from Available Cash
• Remove total check amounts from Liabilities

• Void Checks—undo the check updates

 

The AP Module provides these Reports:

• AP Aging—Your outstanding accounts payable between dates
• AP by General Ledger Account
• AP Daily Cash Requirement—payments due by dates due
• Journal Entry—Amounts of AP money paid or not paid yet between dates
• Credit/Discount
• Payment Register

 

The AP Module lets the appropriate user:

• Build a new vendor virtual invoice when you issued no PO (e.g. to record a utility bill due)
• Create a new AP General Ledger Account
• Manually make an AP G/L Account entry (ERM keeps balance)

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General Ledger (G/L)

Before you turn on the Automatic feature of the ERM General Ledger (which a user does on the Executive Dashboard), you make manual entries until the Ledger looks accurate, and you have balance between your Assets and your Liabilities plus Equity.

The General Ledger module enables:

• Manual G/L Account Entry
• Setup of Bank info for AP Checking
• ERM automatic G/L entries while making your everyday transactions
• Managing Your Fixed Assets
• Bank Account Reconciliation (multiple banks)
• Invoking the Executive Dashboard
• Immediate, real time Financial Statements

The G/L Module provides these reports:

• AP Journal Entry
• G/L Account Transaction
• Bank Reconciliation Summary and Detail

The Executive Dashboard BAM

Part of the General Ledger module is the Executive Desk/Dashboard.  This gives the company executive a real-time picture of your relevant G/L Accounts:  Assets, Liabilities, Revenues and Expenses, which the executive user may drill down for details and history.  Because the information is up to the second, we use the term Business Activity Monitoring, or BAM.

Besides monitoring the interesting G/L accounts, for convenience the Dashboard allows viewing and entering information that would otherwise require several steps in ERM to accomplish.  These include:

• Sales Reports
• Inventory Valuation
• G/L Account Transaction Report
• AP Journal Entry
• Financial Statements
• Trial Balance Worksheet
• The AP Check Register
• Forecasts

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The ERM Administrator (AppAdmin)

The AppAdmin Module adds and deletes users and customizes ERM modules for your particular business--information management without a DBA.  It consists of these configuration sub-modules: 

• Company:  Logo, Remit To, T & C etc.
• Business Units/Divisions
• Sales Regions/Departments
• Approved Manufacturers
• Product Categories
• Payment Terms
• FOB Categories
• Order Booking Groups
• Opportunity Probabilities
• Next Sales Actions
• Service Actions
• Account Profile Types
• Mgt. Approvals/Configuration Approvals
• Employees
• Partners
• Customers
• Lead Sources
• Expense Types

Each of these is customer-configurable to meet their business styles.  For example, a company can have multiple addresses e.g. Corporate and Regions and multiple AR Remit To’s; it can upload its logo and set up the fiscal year start date for Sales Forecasting.

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ERM Core Module

All configurations have ERM’s Core Manager.  It contains those functions required throughout the system to ensure continuity, performance and accuracy.

The Search Engine allows the system to format data as you need it.

ERM System Processor moves data from module to module and picks up after activities that have been completed or modified, and ensures that all modules properly interact any time that key events and/or activities enter the system.

Finally, the Applications Administrator Module (AppAdmin) allows you to set custom parameters to ensure that the system operates within your business rules.

Core Manager

• System Processor
• Search Engine Module
• Applications Administration Module

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