An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system brings a company’s administrative and commercial processes into one place: customer and product master data, sales and purchase orders, stock records, invoicing and accounting. In smaller firms it often goes by a humbler name, “the business system” or simply the accounting package, but the role is the same.
What an ERP does
An ERP is built from modules. The usual ones are sales, purchasing, inventory, production, finance and management control. The value comes from a single database: the order a sales rep enters is the same order the warehouse picks and accounts receivable invoices.
ERP and transport
The ERP knows what has to be delivered and to whom, but usually not how. It doesn’t plan routes, follow vehicles or collect the customer’s signature. Those jobs belong to a TMS or to delivery planning software, which takes orders from the ERP and sends back the outcome. Physical order preparation runs through the WMS, where there is one.
The link between the systems can be an exported file (Excel, CSV) or a direct integration through an API. Files are quicker to start with; an API removes the manual steps once volumes justify it.
FAQ
Is every business system an ERP?
Not strictly. An ERP covers several business areas in a single system, while simpler packages may handle only invoicing and stock. In everyday use the terms blur, and what matters for integration is what data the system can export or expose.
Does Optivo replace the ERP?
No. Master data, the order cycle and invoicing stay in the ERP. Optivo takes in the orders to be delivered and returns the delivery outcome. The connection runs through Optivo’s documented REST APIs or through an export the ERP already produces, and the right route depends on what the system in place can do.