Not Every Manufacturer Needs ERP

Keep the accounting you love. Add the manufacturing tools you need.

Your manufacturing operation may need better inventory control, MRP, purchasing, production planning, costing, traceability, or shop floor tools.

That does not necessarily mean your accounting department, sales team, payroll staff, and everyone else in the company need to change systems.

Why disrupt your entire organization because manufacturing needs better tools?

MISys Manufacturing gives growing manufacturers another option. Keep the accounting software and business systems that already work, and add purpose-built manufacturing software where you actually need it.

What's Your Next Move?

Manufacturers come to MISys from every direction.

Some are moving up from spreadsheets and basic inventory tools. Some are moving down from large, expensive ERP systems. Others are moving sideways from software that promised manufacturing capability but eventually fell short.

Wherever you're coming from, you don't have to replace everything to get manufacturing right.

Moving Up?

Maybe your business started with Excel, spreadsheets, or the manufacturing and inventory features included with your accounting software.

That can work for a long time.

But as manufacturing grows, so does the complexity.

• More materials to manage
• More people accessing information
• More complicated bills of material
• More purchasing decisions
• More work in process
• More production scheduling
• More pressure to know exactly what you have and what you need

Eventually, spreadsheets and basic inventory tools may no longer provide enough control.

MISys lets you add serious manufacturing capabilities while continuing to use the accounting system your financial team already knows.

Moving Down?

Maybe you went the other direction.

You implemented, inherited, or evaluated a large ERP system and discovered that the complexity, cost, implementation effort, support fees, or sheer scale of the software was more than your organization needed.

ERP can absolutely be the right solution for some manufacturers.

But if your primary problem is manufacturing, replacing accounting and disrupting every other department may be a much larger solution than the problem requires.

You do not have to replace your entire business system to improve your factory.

Moving Sideways?

Sometimes the problem is not too little software or too much software.

Sometimes you already bought a manufacturing solution that looked right, but eventually discovered its limitations.

When manufacturing gets more complicated, you may discover that you need:

• Real Material Requirements Planning
• Multi-level Bills of Material
• Better inventory accuracy
• Work in process tracking
• Production scheduling
• Manufacturing costing
• Serial and lot tracking
• Shop floor control
• Better purchasing and vendor management
• Stronger integration with accounting

MISys is built specifically for manufacturers that need deeper operational control without necessarily moving to a full ERP platform.

Keep What Works. Improve What Doesn't.

MISys Manufacturing works alongside established accounting software so each system can focus on what it does best.

Your accounting system handles accounting.

MISys handles manufacturing.

Your accounting staff can continue working with familiar financial workflows while your manufacturing team gains the tools it needs to plan materials, manage inventory, control production, track costs, and keep work moving.

Why Make Everyone Change?

A company-wide ERP replacement can affect far more than manufacturing.

• Accounting may need to learn a new financial system.
• Historical financial data may need to be migrated.
• Existing reports and workflows may need to be recreated.
• Employees across multiple departments may need retraining.
• Other departments may have to give up software they already like.
• The implementation can become much larger than solving the original manufacturing problem.

If those changes provide real value to your company, ERP may make sense.

But if manufacturing is the problem you are trying to solve, why replace everything else?

Choose the Best Tool for Each Job

QuickBooks and Sage are part of large business software ecosystems. Companies routinely use specialized software for different departments while keeping accounting at the center of their financial workflow.

Sales may use CRM software.

Payroll may use payroll software.

Shipping may use specialized shipping software.

Ecommerce may use its own platform.

Manufacturing can do the same thing.

MISys gives manufacturing specialized tools without forcing every other department into the same software platform.

Don't Take Our Word for It

Real manufacturers. Real results.

Scanivalve: From ERP to a Better Fit

Scanivalve had already gone through two different systems before finding MISys.

One was a complex and expensive ERP system. The next was a simpler system that claimed to provide MRP, but manufacturing and accounting remained disconnected.

The result was what Scanivalve described as two separate islands, with paper moving back and forth and manual data re-entry.

MISys provided the manufacturing capabilities and accounting connection they needed without returning to the complexity of a massive ERP system.

Scanivalve later reported reducing average lead times from approximately 20 weeks to 10 weeks and improving on-time delivery from as low as 60% to approximately 85-95%.

Read the Scanivalve Success Story

Twistems: Keep QuickBooks. Improve Manufacturing.

Twistems was managing much of its production with QuickBooks Enterprise and spreadsheets before reaching the limits of what those tools could comfortably handle.

Today, Twistems continues using QuickBooks Enterprise while manufacturing operations are managed in MISys.

Finished goods are transferred into QuickBooks, while MISys handles the manufacturing side of the business.

Twistems reports that inventory turns have approximately doubled, improving cash flow and reducing the amount of excess raw material inventory the company needs to carry.

Read the Twistems Success Story

Divine Essence: MISys Manufacturing + Sage 300

Divine Essence uses MISys Manufacturing with Sage 300.

MISys handles detailed manufacturing, purchasing, production, and traceability information while Sage remains part of the company's accounting and sales workflow.

For this regulated manufacturer, preparing documentation for audits once took approximately three to five days.

With information available through MISys and Sage, that preparation now takes about one hour.

Read the Divine Essence Success Story

Better Manufacturing Software Should Not Require Worse Accounting Software

All-in-one software can sound attractive, but one system does not automatically mean every part of that system is the best choice for your business.

If your accounting team is happy with QuickBooks or Sage, your financial processes work, and your employees already know the system, there may be little value in replacing it simply because manufacturing needs more capability.

Keep the systems that work. Replace the manufacturing pieces that don't.

ERP Is Not the Only Next Step

Growing manufacturers are often presented with two choices:

Keep struggling with limited manufacturing tools.

Or:

Replace everything with ERP.

There is another path.

Improve inventory control. Improve purchasing. Improve production planning. Improve costing. Improve manufacturing visibility.

And leave the parts of your business that already work alone.

Keep the Accounting You Love. Add the Manufacturing Tools You Need.

If your manufacturing operation has outgrown its current tools, MISys can help you improve manufacturing without turning the project into an organization-wide software replacement.

Whether you're moving up, moving down, or moving sideways, MISys may be the right next move.