Introduction
MRPeasy is an affordable enterprise resource management (ERP) software for small to medium (SME) sized manufacturers that enables organisations to access the production planning benefits of the more traditional and expensive planning solutions on the market. MRPeasy enables companies to manage their customer order book, production planning capabilities, and improve control of their stock and procurement functions.
Features & Functionality
MRPeasy provides seven distinct modules:
Dashboard
Provides users with an immediate overview of a range of metrics available from the information inside the MRPeasy platform. Behind each metric, users can enter the reporting detail for further exploration. Examples of metrics presented to the user are Sales Values, Stock Value, Manufacturing on Time, Deliveries on Time, Late Invoices, Items Below Reorder Points and Overall Equipment Effectiveness.
Customer relations management (CRM)
Encompassed in the customer relations management module, users can maintain an order book, track individual customer orders, invoicing documents, and customer details. Organisations can create price lists to allocate to customers and consolidate and record return merchandise authorisation (RMA) to process customer returns.
My Production Plan/Internet Kiosk
Real-time manufacturing reporting is achievable through the utilisation of the operator reporting modules contained in My Production Plan and the Internet Kiosk. Operators can report their labour allocation to tasks, view material requirements, and access attached files and PDFs. Advanced Internet Kiosk and My Production Plan enables operators to report produced units, material consumption, and monitor and scan serial numbers and barcodes to streamline the capture of production data.
Production Planning
MRPeasy compiles a wide range of production planning information in the form of workstation or equipment capacity, product bill of materials, and routings which in combination enables the platform to create a master production schedule. By tracking the material and labour costs of manufacturing orders, organisations can begin to reconcile real-time costs associated with their production operations, with additional functionality such as sub-assemblies, nested manufacturing orders, dynamic rescheduling and both forward/backward scheduling capabilities.
Stock
Behind the mechanics of MRPeasy, organisations benefit from individual stock lot tracking providing traceability throughout the operations of the business. With the visibility of real-time stock information across a range of statuses, users can begin to control stock utilisation accurately and efficiently and produce requirements for procurement. The stock control module enables organisations to control multi-site production and stock facilities, create products with variants, capture serial numbers of components and manage SKUs with ease.
Procurement
The procurement module enables users to manage purchase orders, supplier information, and item purchase terms. Furthermore, if your organisation is a make-to-stock manufacturer the forecasting functionality that can help simulate inventory requirements and streamline the creation of purchase and manufacturing orders. Other functionality such as dynamic exchange rates, inbound quality control and free-issuing components to suppliers, provides users with the ability to take control.
Accounting
MRPeasy comes equipped with a standard accounting module which can enable SME manufacturers the ability to reconcile manufacturing profit and loss accounts, balance sheet statements and cash flow forecasts. Typically, organisations seek to utilise integrations into Xero and QuickBooks to streamline their accounting reporting capabilities.
Value for Money
At the time of writing this article, MRPeasy offers four licensing levels: Starter, Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited. The differentiation between the licensing levels is the progressive increase in functionality offered to the organisation.
Figure 1. Pricing per user, per month as of June 2023
MRPeasy offers two methods of payment, both a monthly subscription and an 8% discounted annual subscription. The first 10 users will be billed based on the fee of the respective subscription level chosen, and for each batch of 10 users thereafter the organisation will be charged £59 or £5.99 per user!
This low-cost batch licencing allows organisations to economically scale their operations and utilisation of the platform without being hampered by financial constraints that can be uncovered through other ERP solutions.
| MRPeasy – Total Monthly Cost Per License (June 2023)
(£) Represents the Cost Per User Per Month |
||||
| Users | Starter | Professional | Enterprise | Unlimited |
| 10 | £370 (£37) | £520 (£52) | £740 (£74) | £1120 (£112) |
| 30 | £488 (£16) | £638 (£21) | £858 (£29) | £1238 (£41) |
| 60 | £665 (£11) | £815 (£14) | £1035 (£17) | £1415 (£24) |
| 120 | £1019 (£8) | £1169 (£10) | £1389 (£12) | £1769 (£15) |
Based on an article composed in 2021 by ERP Research1, a typical cost for a cloud-based solution would set organisations back between $20 – $250 or £16 – £2012 per user per month.
One of the key financial benefits of utilising a subscription-based ERP solution is firms can remove the capital expenditure required for system infrastructure to power in-house service-based solutions. While on-site based solutions typically drive a lower software licensing cost, other factors such as ongoing maintenance of servers and eventual replacement costs need to be taken into consideration against a cloud-based solution.
Performance & Security
MRPeasy reports a 99.9% uptime for its service, of which the remaining 0.1% is due to planned maintenance of the systems that occur over weekend periods. Due to being a cloud-based software service, the platform can be accessed from any location where internet capabilities are available and are secured through strong SSL certification.
Their platform is hosted by an AWS service provider in the US and building upon their strong security offering MRPeasy achieved ISO 27001 certification in mid-2022. For further information regarding the security credentials of MRPeasy please see their security release here.
Integrations
MRPeasy integrates into a range of common software solutions typically utilised by SME manufacturers. The platform can integrate into CRM and eCommerce platforms such as HubSpot, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Shopify, SalesForce and Magento. These integrations streamline the management of the customer order book, helping to automate the information flow for order fulfilment between sales and production.
A key driver for the implementation of an ERP platform such as MRPeasy is to streamline the reconciliation of manufacturing accounts, and MRPeasy delivers integration capability into two of the largest players in this market: Xero & Intuit QuickBooks.
Building upon these standard integrations provided by MRPeasy, is the ability to connect with Zapier, a powerful workflow automation system, which at the time of compiling this article provides users with access to 5000+ applications.
Plus, available in the Unlimited licensing model of MRPeasy is the ability to utilise their Application Programming Interface (API) that enables organisations to access their database and program their own technical solutions to view, create, update, or delete values inside MRPeasy. Providing organisations with the ability to create bespoke solutions for elements such as order processing, information dashboards and further reporting capabilities.
Help Documentation & Customer Support
MRPeasy provides an extensive online user manual that provides guidance to system users on the parameters of the vast range of functionality inside the system with a range of complimentary demonstration videos. Their help guide is also accessible throughout the platform via the HELP icon located on the right-hand side of each page which further enables users to access relevant information, through dynamically updating to provide resources relevant to the current page.
Customer support from MRPeasy is operated via a Support Ticket System, which can be accessed within the platform. Their target response time to each query is one business day for queries, bug reporting and functionality questions, and users can even put forward suggested functionality, which may be placed into consideration in the development pipeline.
Overall Pros & Cons
Pros
- Affordable ERP solution for SME manufacturers
- Powerful production planning capabilities that can enable organisations to accurately plan material requirements and production capacity with real-time shopfloor reporting
- Centralised information locations for CRM, Production, Stock and Procurement
- Cloud-based solution accessible from any location with internet connectivity
- 9% uptime, with the remaining 0.1% encompassing planned maintenance during weekend periods
- Variety of integrations into CRM, eCommerce and financial packages are available to streamline and automate information flows
- High-quality security credentials, including ISO 27001 to comply with internationally recognised security standards
Cons
- MRPeasy can be customised through a variety of settings, however, the software cannot be bespoke configured to the organisation
- MRPeasy requires effective staff training and standard operating procedures to ensure the quality of inputted information
- Implementing an ERP system requires project and change management skills to increase the likelihood of a successful roll-out
- Implementing MRPeasy requires ERP system knowledge, and if done incorrectly can lead to inefficiencies down the line
Conclusion
MRPeasy is a powerful ERP system that can be adopted by SME manufacturers at an economical price point to empower their production planning and organisational management capabilities. From managing their customer order book to evaluating current stock control data and real-time production reporting MRPeasy can equip an organisation with information to provide insight and streamline processes.
By being a cloud-based solution, MRPeasy had upheld an impressive uptime service level (99.9%), which combined with recognised and validated security measures can ensure that your data is always accessible and secure. Their pricing structure allows organisations to economically scale their usage of the system providing licenses for as little as £5.99 per user per month.
Through an integration connection between other popular software platforms, the functionality of MRPeasy can be expanded throughout the information chain both up and downstream. From the initial customer onboarding phase with common CRM and eCommerce platforms, through to reconciling accounts and providing financial reporting with common finance platforms.
However, implementing MRPeasy can be resource-intensive, requiring a level of technical understanding of both, the platforms and business processes. Though if implemented correctly, benefits can be realised helping to facilitate continued business success and growth.
How We Can Help
Explic8 are an authorised implementation partner of MRPeasy with a proven track record of assisting SME manufacturers with data gathering, planning, facilitation, set-up and training to ensure that each roll-out is a major success. If you’re looking to explore MRPeasy as a solution for your organisation, then feel free to reach out to us via our contact form here.
Looking to explore the functionality of MRPeasy? Sign-up for a free 30-day trial here.
1 How much does ERP cost? ERP Project Price Guide (erpresearch.com)
2 Based on exchange rate data captured on 05/06/2023 (£1 = $1.24)
- MRPeasy’s Customer Support – What You Need to Know - 19 December 2023
- The Importance of MRPeasy in Managing Your Inventory and Supply Chain for Small to Medium-Sized Manufacturers - 16 November 2023
- Maximising Efficiency with MRPeasy: Tips and Tricks - 15 October 2023
