Magento ERP Integration: Best Practices & 6 ERPs to Consider

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems control various business-critical processes — like accounting and order processing — which makes them a single source of truth for key data throughout the company. 

That’s why integrating your Magento store with an ERP can bring massive benefits like:

• Better efficiency and fewer mistakes. When integrated, your Magento site and ERP continuously exchange data, such as product descriptions, pricing updates, order statuses, customer details, inventory changes, and more. As a result, you can avoid manual data entry between systems, which is time-consuming and prone to human error.
  
  
• Fewer data silos and higher visibility. ERPs bring all business-critical data into one place. This makes it easier for everyone to find the relevant information for their work, as opposed to sifting through multiple systems (CRMs, accounting software, etc.) with different credentials and UIs.
  
  
• Higher productivity and smoother business operations. ERPs can automate work-intensive processes like order and inventory management, which boosts productivity and streamlines operations. Plus, the reduction of manual tasks and easy access to real-time data empowers everyone in the organization to do their best work.

If you don’t already have an ERP, or you are looking for a more modern solution, this guide will help you:

• Compare six of the most widely-used and reputable ERPs for Magento
• Learn common steps and best practices for setting up Magento 2 ERP integrations

However, choosing the right ERP solution and integrating it with your Magento site is difficult. 

The process requires careful preparation, as well as technical skills and an in-depth understanding of the Magento and Adobe Commerce platforms. 

There’s also the issue of maintenance; even successful ERP integrations require ongoing maintenance work, so you need someone with the technical expertise to manage site integrations in the long term.

That’s why, in the second part of this article, we’ll show you how IronPlane — our team of certified Magento developers, Solutions Specialists, and UX designers — can help you find and integrate the right Magento ERP (or improve your current integration).

You can also schedule a free consultation and code audit with our team to evaluate the best ERP integrations for your business.

6 Proven Magento ERPs to Consider

Before we start exploring each option, a quick note:

There’s no all-around best ERP software, and there are many more than those listed here. It all depends on your use cases, business needs, and budget. We advise you to evaluate each option based on your individual circumstances or work with an expert who can analyze your business processes and recommend the right ERP. In some cases, highly industry- or product-specific ERP solutions are required, but even these are worth integrating with your Magento or Adobe Commerce platform.

1. Microsoft Dynamics 365. This is Microsoft’s collection of business apps for finance, commerce, supply chain management, customer service, sales, and marketing. Taken together, they form a robust ERP that can connect your entire business and ensure a consistent flow of data for your processes. This ERP is used by enterprise companies like HP, Chevron, and Toyota. 
   
   
2. Oracle NetSuite. NetSuite is a cloud-based business management solution that helps companies get real-time visibility into their operations and finances. It combines a suite of apps for accounting, order processing, inventory management, warehouse operations, supply chain management, and production. NetSuite is also highly customizable, as it lets you tailor all dashboards, reports, and data visualizations to your needs.
   
   
3. QuickBooks Enterprise. QuickBooks is an accounting and business management software. Its enterprise version adds more advanced functionalities and detailed reports, making it a full-fledged ERP. This ERP is geared toward companies moving from a small to mid-sized market, unlike the previous two ERPs that primarily target large companies.
   
   
4. SAP ERP. SAP offers three different ERPs — SAP Business One (for smaller companies), SAP Business ByDesign (for fast-growing mid-sized businesses), and SAP S/4HANA Cloud (for large companies). Each one comes with different features, but at their core, they all help manage key workflows in accounting, finance, human resources, and sales, and have integrated business intelligence (BI) features.
   
   
5. Epicor. Epicor has two different ERPs for small, mid-sized, and large businesses. Kinetic (their main ERP) is built specifically for large manufacturing companies. The iScala ERP is a more affordable solution for small and mid-sized organizations. Each of these ERPs can be extended with additional Epicor modules, like Commerce Connect, which is specifically built for the Magento ecosystem.
   
   
6. Sage. Like the previous two entries, Sage also offers two ERPs — Sage Intacct and Sage X3. Intacct is an accounting-focused ERP with features for cash management, billing automation, order management, and purchasing. X3 is an ERP for companies in the manufacturing, distribution, chemical, and service industries. It comes with specialized tools for production and supply chain management, alongside the more standard financial management features. 

Finally, note that each of these ERPs can be integrated with your Magento store in different ways, with variables such as data volume, transmission approach, triggers, and frequency. From old-school export / import of a .csv file to real-time APIs connections, each ERP integration with Magento is unique and requires thoughtful design and implementation. 

How to Integrate Your Magento Store and ERP: Preparation, Steps, and Best Practices

Integrating your ERP and Magento store requires:

• In-house expert Magento developers. If you already have a development team (or you’re an experienced developer yourself), read on to learn our best practices for preparing and executing your ERP integration.
  
  
• An experienced agency partner. If you don’t have the required expertise in-house, skip ahead to the next section to learn how our Magento agency can help you find and integrate the right ERP.

1. Define What Data Must Be Shared Between Systems

ERPs coordinate the data flows in your business. That’s why a successful integration relies on you properly defining what data must be shared between your Magento store and ERP.

Each business is different, so it’s impossible to provide an exhaustive list here. However, sharing the following data can be a good starting point for most eCommerce businesses:

• Product descriptions
• Prices, categories, and other product attributes
• Images and other media assets
• Inventory
• Order numbers
• Tax information
• Coupon codes
• Invoice details
• Customer data — names, emails, addresses, phone numbers, pricing, billing information, and customer accounts

2. Define Source of Truth for Data Elements

Once you know what data should be shared, you need to define the source (or sources) of that data.

This can be very tricky if you’re using lots of disconnected systems, like a CRM, an accounting tool, and warehouse management software, for example. If you’re already using an ERP, this step might be easier as most of that data is likely inside the ERP platform. 

Regardless of the specifics, make sure to spend enough time finding and documenting where the relevant data is stored. This will prevent you from missing key information and having to re-do the integration after it’s complete.

3. Select the Right Timing

In theory, you could sync data between your Magento store and ERP all the time. In practice, having data constantly sent back and forth can induce a heavy load on your site, resulting in slow load times and a poor customer experience.

That’s why finding the right time to share different data is essential. 

For example, things like product descriptions aren’t time-sensitive, so syncing them once a week may be enough. However, information regarding new sales orders and pricing changes has to be updated in real-time. 

There are three ways to sync the data between your Magento store and ERP systems once you’ve selected the right frequency:

1. Manual data exchange. This is the old method of exporting the data from one system and uploading it to the other one by hand. It can work if you only need to sync information once or twice a week, but even then, it adds a fair bit of overhead. Unless you’re dealing with a really old ERP, you won’t have to use this method.
   
   
2. Semi-automated via cron jobs. Cron jobs can remove some of the manual work involved in the previous method. For example, you can set up a cron job that exports data from your Magento website at 2 AM every day and another one that imports it into your ERP at 3 AM. This is an improvement over manual exports and imports, but it’s still not a good fit for data that must be synced in real-time.
   
   
3. Fully automated sync via API endpoints. This is the most sophisticated method that modern ERPs rely on. You can use APIs to fully automate the exchange of data between your ERP and Magento store while controlling exactly when each type of data is sent. For example, you can share product descriptions once a week via batch updates while having order data synced in real time. Check out Adobe's documentation for additional best practices on this approach.

How IronPlane Can Help You Choose and Integrate a New ERP (or Optimize Your Current ERP Integration)

IronPlane is an eCommerce development agency, specializing in Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce. 

Our team of certified Magento developers, Solution Specialists, and UX experts has helped dozens of B2B and B2C brands:

• Build and optimize their Magento sites.
• Integrate ERPs and other business-critical systems.
• Improve their site speed, UX, conversion rates, and much more.

We also offer a host of additional services like Magento-optimized hosting, site security, and performance monitoring.

Our work is based on a highly-individualized approach to each client’s circumstances. 

That’s why we start each client engagement with a free consultation and a detailed discovery phase. (You can schedule a consultation with our team here.)

During this preparation, we dive deep into:

• How your business works.
• Your broader business goals (higher revenue, better profit margins, and so on).
• How your Magento eCommerce store can support those goals.
• The technical challenges you’re facing (lack of critical integrations, slow site speed, security concerns, etc.)

We offer three different audits at this stage:

1. The Free Audit, which is an overview of your site’s version, theme, third-party extensions, and modules. 
   
   
2. The Code Audit, which is a detailed look into your Magento store’s core files, installed modules, theming structure, and more.
   
   
3. The Comprehensive Site Audit, which is our most recommended option, as it combines everything from the Code Audit and adds in an analysis of your site’s accessibility, infrastructure, load times, SEO, analytics setup, and other key areas.

This extensive research and preparation process ensures our team can make the best possible recommendations for your business needs. 

For example, during this early stage, we can help you:

• Determine if your current ERP is right for you.
• Choose the correct ERP if you don’t have one already.
• Select the right course of action — whether that’s building a new ERP integration or optimizing your current one — and plan project timelines.

When working with IronPlane, you also get a dedicated Solutions Specialist to act as a strategic partner between you and our development team. Specifically, your Solutions Specialist:

• Answers any questions you may have.
• Helps you clarify and prioritize the tasks that must be completed for successful integration.
• Monitors development projects and gives you regular updates on our team’s progress.

We also give you access to our project management tools and dashboards, so you can track what we’re working on, how much time each task takes, and how you’re being charged.

In the next sections, we’ll take a look at three past projects where we integrated our clients’ Magento sites with ERP systems, so you can get a better feel for our approach.

Barbecues Galore: Integrating Oracle ERP with a New Magento 2 Store

Barbecues Galore is the largest specialty retailer of grills and outdoor living products in the U.S., with stores in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas.

They also have a Magento 2 site where customers can find and buy these products. In order to improve the online shopping experience, Barbecues Galore’s team wanted to make some upgrades to their site and internal processes, like:

• Creating custom catalog displays.
• Adding new financing options for different products and collections.
• Selling products on Amazon and Walmart and syncing all orders with their Magento site for order fulfillment. 

They also wanted to integrate Oracle ERP and M2E Pro with their new Magento setup.

This was a complex project, so they contacted our team to help prioritize and execute the necessary tasks. 

After our audits and project planning, we got to work using the Colibri foundation — a design and development foundation that improves coding efficiency and reduces the time, labor, and cost of implementing Magento updates and security patches.

Our team was able to meet all of Barbecue Galore’s requirements, including:

• Integrating Oracle ERP with their online store.
• Integrating M2E Pro to enable selling on Amazon and Walmart.
• Creating custom catalog displays that highlight more affordable purchasing methods, and much more.

Here are the result of these improvements:

• 325% increase in revenue.
• 101% increase in the number of transactions.
• 110% increase in average order value (AOV).
• 24% decrease in page load times.

Check out the full Barbecues Galore case study here.

Bosca: Migrating to Magento 2 and Integrating an ERP on a Tight Deadline

Bosca has been in the business of manufacturing and selling high-quality leather goods since 1911.

Before contacting us, they sold their products online through a Magento 1 store. However, Adobe would soon discontinue its support for Magento 1, so Bosca had to migrate its online business to Magento 2.

We have lots of experience with Magento migrations, which made us a natural choice for Bosca’s team. There was just one caveat — the migration, as well as additional improvements to the site and an ERP synchronization, had to be done within six weeks.

Our Solutions Specialists got to work immediately on creating a plan that would ensure an on-time launch. Based on that plan, we migrated Bosca’s site to Magento 2 and made key improvements to it, including:

• Syncing the new eCommerce website with their ERP.
• Migrating key customer and product data.
• Creating a new, custom homepage layout.
• Integrating the site with Google Tag Manager.
• Building configurable product swatches and custom RMA forms.

Thanks to our understanding of the c2 dexore business needs and a detailed plan, the initial project was completed within the six-week timeframe.

After that, we continued to work with Bosca. Our team identified further areas for improvement that quickly boosted the site’s load times and conversion rates.

Here are the results five months after the launch of Bosca’s Magento 2 store:

• 8% increase in revenue.
• 11% increase in transactions.
• 45% increase in organic conversions.
• 36% decrease in page load times.

Check out the full Bosca case study here.

Yardstore: Migrating to Magento 2.4.4 and Keeping a Seamless Integration with Counterpoint ERP

Yardstore is a global aircraft supply business. They’ve operated out of Wichita, Kansas since 1946 and have become one of the leading providers of aircraft sheet metal tools and aircraft pneumatic tool repair in the world.

Yardstore wanted to improve the overall shopping experience, implement elastic search, and have the ability to manage payment rules for their different buyer personas. Plus, they needed to keep their integrations with Counterpoint (their ERP) and Avatax (their domestic tax calculator) intact while making these improvements. 

However, their site was built on the older Magento 1, which limited their options. That’s why they contacted our team to help them migrate to a newer version and implement various improvements.

After our initial audit and planning, we started the migration process from Magento 1 to Magento 2.4.4. We used the open-source Alpaca theme to speed up the implementation and set a good foundation for future integrations with Yardstore’s ERP and tax tools.

We also reworked the site’s navigation. We used visual levels of navigation and implemented elastic search and quick order to help shoppers easily find and buy the products they need, without getting confused by the hundreds of product categories.

Thanks to the migration and improvements, Yardstore now has an updated site with a better UX and faster load times. Their integration with Counterpoint ERP also makes product information easily available to shoppers, and order information easily available to their team. 

Check out the full Yardstore case study here.

Contact IronPlane for a Free Consultation and Site Audit

Our team of senior Magento developers, UX professionals, and Solutions Specialists can help you achieve website goals — whether that’s integrating with an ERP or another business-critical system, building custom pages, improving site speed, increasing conversions, tightening site security, and making any other frontend or backend improvements.

Schedule a free consultation and site audit today so our team can help you choose the right ERP for your business or analyze your current ERP integration.

Related reads:

• 5 Top Magento Development Companies | 2023 Buyer's Guide
• B2B Magento Developer: IronPlane’s Approach
• IronPlane Magento 2 Development Services | 2023 Guide