Today, retail companies large and small are faced with rapid change and strong competition. Demands for multi-channel presence, complex inventory management and need for enhanced customer service present retailers with a growing number of challenges in their daily operations. In order to be effective and avoid harmful delays and mistakes, the company’s Point of Sale (POS) software and the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems must be perfectly integrated.
Every retail company is different
In our experience, both smaller and larger companies share one trait: they have individual demands for their own ERP system and their POS software. In most cases, it is necessary to map a number of adjustments and processes and adapt the standard framework of the ERP. If the implementation partner has only limited knowledge of the existing ERP system, these enterprise-specific adaptations can lead to problems for large organizations. And even when the partner is knowledgeable, it can be very challenging to integrate various the sales channels with the company’s CRM and ERP system.
In large organizations, an existing ERP software is often tied to other different IT systems such as ERP, CRM and a webshop. However, it is common for different platforms to be unable to communicate properly. This disconnect can be a source of problems, causing inconsistent data and uncontrolled costs. It is of paramount importance that the different systems inside a company communicate perfectly with each other, and that they are matched to the entire process. A successful implementation of the Point of Sale system largely depends on the existing expertise of the implementation partner.
A POS that easily integrates with large ERPs
At PORESY, we have extensive experience implementing POS systems in medium and large ERPs. One of the products we often advise is LS One, a powerful POS software that can easily be connected to any ERP system (past projects include integrations with SAP, Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics ERPs) through an intelligent integration architecture. Our customers are companies of various sizes, from medium retailers to large organizations, that use LS One as a front office to manage their sales and customer-oriented tasks, while the ERP system handles back-office tasks. Thanks to the seamless flow of data from the ERP system to the POS and back, these companies always have consistent data across their business, which also helps them to keep their costs under control. Let’s look at an example of a typical LS One integration to SAP ERP.
An example: integration to standard SAP ERP
When LS One is connected to a large ERP system, different possibilities of integration are available. What the integration will look like in individual cases depends on the architecture of the existing ERP system.
In the following example, LS One is integrated with a standard SAP ERP system. The communication between the ERP system and LS One occurs through the standard SAPIDOC connection. The required data, e.g. prices or article information, will be downloaded from the ERP system and sent to LS One. After a transaction, the sales data will be sent via upload from the POS to the SAP integrated POS DATA Management, and then to the Business Intelligence Database. Additionally, the ERP Database is updated by the data from the PDM. The data integrity lies in the organization’s ERP and Business Intelligence Database.
About the author
Maximilian Harms is a project manager at PORESY Consultant GmbH in Hamburg. With several years of professional experience, he works for the company in the field of implementation of Point of Sale solutions in the retail sector.