ERP System.
Enterprise Resource Planning — the central business system that handles accounts, sales, purchasing, stock, and HR. Most SMBs use Sage, Xero, or similar. ERP is the commercial brain; MES is the production brain.
In plain English
An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system is the central business system that handles your commercial operations — accounts, sales, purchasing, stock, HR, often CRM. Most UK SMBs use Sage (50/200/Intacct), Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, or Microsoft Dynamics. Bigger operations might use SAP Business One.
ERP and MES are complementary, not overlapping. ERP handles the commercial side: customer orders, invoices, accounts, stock levels, supplier payments. MES handles the production side: where jobs are, what's being made, who's working on what. SMBs typically have ERP and bolt MES capability on later — or build bespoke MES that integrates with the ERP.
For AI integration, ERP is usually the destination — clean data extracted from documents (invoice matching), structured data captured from enquiries (CRM records), recommendations generated by AI (reorder lists). The ERP holds the source of truth; AI processes the inputs and writes results back.
Integration patterns vary by ERP. Modern cloud ERPs (Xero, NetSuite, Dynamics) have full APIs and integrate cleanly. Legacy on-prem (older Sage, custom systems) need more creative integration — file-based interfaces, email triggers, RPA where APIs don't exist. Almost always possible; the integration approach just shapes the build.
Real examples
What this looks like in practice.
- AI invoice matching writes extracted invoices back to Sage with cost codes and approval state.
- AI document extraction populates new customer records in HubSpot from intake forms.
- Stock forecasting AI generates draft reorders in NetSuite ready for buyer approval.
- Bookings automation writes confirmed reservations to Xero with deposit handling.
See in action
Where we deliver this for clients.
Related terms
Adjacent concepts.
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