Questions to ask an ERP vendor before you buy

The licence price is the start of the conversation, not the end. Ask what a second year costs, what counts as a user, and whether storage, API calls, support and new modules are included or extra.

• What is the total price for our shop in year one and year two, in writing?
• Is pricing per user, per bundle or per company, and who needs a seat?
• What is included in support, and what costs extra?
• What are the cancellation terms, and what happens to our data?
• Is there a trial with our own data, and how long is it?

Your items, customers, BOMs and transactions are your business. Ask whether you can export every table yourself, in a standard format, at any time without asking support. Ask how data is imported at the start, whether by CSV or by the vendor's team, and what happens to history if you leave. Ask whether there is an API and webhooks, and whether API keys are included in the plan. A vendor who hesitates on export is telling you something about switching costs.

The words on the website are the same from every vendor, so ask for specifics on the features a small shop uses every day.

• How is job cost calculated, and does it use real issue cost or a standard?
• When stock is corrected, is the old record edited or is a new movement posted?
• Can BOMs carry revisions and scrap allowances?
• How is subcontracted work tracked, including material sent out?
• Can the floor log labour and print barcode job cards?
• Can we add custom fields and rules without paying for development?

Ask how sign-in is protected, whether permissions go down to fields, whether every change is logged with who and when, and when the last security test was done. Ask who answers support, in which hours and time zone, and the typical reply time. Ask for the public changelog and the user guide, and look at how often the product actually ships. Finally ask what the vendor would not recommend their product for. An honest answer there is worth more than any feature list.