ERP & DMS: 5 reasons to add a DMS to your ERP system

The use of an ERP system is an important tool in companies and organisations to increase their efficiency, improve competitiveness or make better decisions. There are many obvious advantages.

Why do companies use ERP systems?

1. Optimisation of core and secondary processes

One of the main reasons is certainly the optimisation of core and secondary processes. An ERP system enables the integration and automation of various business processes such as financial accounting, warehouse management, purchasing, sales and production. By optimising these processes, companies can work more efficiently, save time and increase productivity.

2. Promote collaboration

Another important aspect is collaboration, the collection and storage of data, information and activities from different departments. This gives employees the opportunity to obtain information that is relevant to their work in real time. Data is managed consistently and uniformly, which improves the accuracy and reliability of the information. We often talk about the leading system for the company or the ‘single point of truth’. This means that employees have a reliable source of information in one central location about stock levels, customer orders, delivery dates or financial data. In this context, it is important to avoid shadow IT, which can unintentionally cause

3. Systematically record operational activities

An ERP also forms a basis for creating and utilising a database for strategic decisions from operational activities. It is ideal for reporting to the management or enables the company to recognise trends with real-time data, create forecasts and make well-founded decisions. ERP systems can support companies in mapping legal regulations and compliance requirements, such as adherence to accounting standards or tracking transactions for auditing in the area of DIN certification.

4. Expand customer relationship management

Last but not least is customer relationship management. Many ERP systems include custom relationship management (CRM) features to track sales opportunities, manage customer information and strengthen customer loyalty. Some providers, such as Salesforce, focus holistically on precisely this area.

All in all, this is undoubtedly a tool that plays a key role in the success of a company. Manufacturers such as SAP, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce, Oracle and many others should be mentioned here. However, it is important to proceed carefully when implementing and using an ERP system.

ERP & DMS: 5 reasons to rely on a combination of ERP and DMS

Many great potentials can be realised and costly and slow processes can be optimised if the ERP system is seamlessly extended with a document management system (DMS). The perfect and powerful combination. The following 5 top advantages can be mentioned to make your ERP even more powerful with the integration of a DMS.

1. ERP 🤍 DMS: Efficient document management and information management

Yes, ERP and CRM systems are able to store information objects, but these are usually distributed throughout the system in their respective functional scope, meaning that many clicks and a loss of context are required to access the right information. With the integration of a DMS, you can seamlessly expand your ERP and CRM system to include information management with directly accessible information in a logical structure, suitable for the activity you are currently working on and without media discontinuity or many clicks.

Information is available company-wide and across the board

Dependent information, e.g. delivery notes or correspondence, can be added from other applications (scanning) and is still available ubiquitously. The logical structure can be digital files, for example in the form of a customer file, supplier file, order file or project file, completely customised to the needs of the company and freely configurable. This allows the end user to find exactly the information they need in the context of their particular activity.

Make information from the ERP system available to employees without access via DMS

Incidentally, this information is then also available to employees who do not have access to the ERP or CRM system, provided they are authorised, e.g. in a department that answers external queries by telephone and needs to have quick access to all customer activities. The centralised consolidation of cross-application information breaks down data silos and prevents the creation of a shadow IT system.

2. ERP 🤍 DMS: Quickly bookable, supplementary apps through the d.velop platform

If the DMS is based on a platform, you have the option of significantly expanding your ERP system with additional functions. For example, you can add the option of digital signatures to your ERP-integrated DMS to legally finalise business processes directly with your customers over the phone. No more printing, sending, reminding and filing. The process of closing a deal is extremely accelerated. And this directly in the context of processing your customer or supplier, be it when placing an order, accepting an offer or concluding a contract.

In addition to this example, there are many other expansion topics, such as the integration of a scanning environment in order to be able to feed dependent documents, or the mapping of entire specialised applications such as digital invoice processing or integrated contract management.

3. ERP 🤍 DMS: Holistic automation of processes

With the document management system, you can further expand your ERP with the option of automating completely customised processes. A good DMS comes with a process automation environment that allows specialist departments to automate recurring routine tasks with workflows and standardise and accelerate workflows. This may involve approval processes or the mapping of an internal purchase requisition, for example. Automation is often easier to set up and, above all, can be mapped across applications and departments due to the centralised nature of the DMS. Processes should also be considered beyond the company’s own boundaries. A powerful extension for your ERP!

4. ERP 🤍 DMS: Improved compliance and traceability

An integrated DMS offers improved compliance, as all relevant documents are stored in a centralised and secure environment and archived in an audit-proof manner. It enables cross-application management of access rights to ensure that only authorised persons can access sensitive information. In addition, change tracking can be performed to track who has edited which documents. This supports companies in complying with legal requirements, but also in their own corporate transparency.

5. ERP 🤍 DMS: Secure cost savings

Digitisation enables companies to significantly reduce paper consumption and the associated costs, printing, copying, storage and shipping costs. This point is hopefully already clear to everyone today. However, you can also save costs from a digital perspective, because internal storage in a cloud ERP or CRM system is often very expensive, so by physically outsourcing documents to a DMS, you not only introduce information management, but also a cost-effective alternative for document storage. The database of the cloud ERP / CRM system is reduced and therefore also costs. Incidentally, everything looks the same for the end user.

Conclusion: ERP & DMS are a really successful combination to make your own company even more efficient

Adding an integrated DMS to an ERP system therefore offers better document management, increased efficiency, improved compliance, automated processes and cost savings. It helps companies to optimise their processes and increase their competitiveness. A truly powerful and complementary combination to put your organisation in the fast lane. Find out here what you need to consider when choosing the right DMS provider.