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Customer portal development, linked to your ERP

Your trade customers and distributors track their orders and deliveries and find their paperwork without ringing the sales office. The portal reads your ERP, so nothing is copied by hand. Online ordering and self-service spare parts are optional modules.

Updated

From

£10,500 ex VAT

Timeline
8 to 12 weeks
Pricing
Fixed price per stage
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A sample screen, for illustration. The companies and data are made up.
Customer portalERPOrdersDocumentsCustomer portalERPOrdersDocuments

You need one if

  • The sales office spends its day answering "where is my order?" and resending invoices.
  • Orders arrive by email, by phone or as PDFs, then get keyed into the ERP by hand.
  • Your distributors keep asking for current price lists, stock levels and datasheets.
  • Spare parts are ordered from a drawing, with emails back and forth to find the right part number.
  • A key account has made online access a condition of carrying on trading with you.

What the portal contains

  • Accounts and permissions

    One space per trade account, with its users and their roles: buyer, accounts, engineer. Each sees their own sites, prices and documents.

  • Optional

    Ordering and reorders

    Catalogue at the customer’s agreed prices, ordering by part number or by file upload, repeat of a past order.

  • Order tracking

    Status, delivery dates, backorders and tracking numbers, read straight from the ERP.

  • Documents

    Quotes, order acknowledgements, pro-formas, delivery notes, invoices, certificates and datasheets, filed by order.

  • Optional

    Spare parts

    Search by machine, by serial number or on an exploded view, so the right part is ordered first time.

  • ERP connection

    Through its API, file exchange or a connector: Sage 200, Access Dimensions, Pegasus Opera, Odoo, SAP Business One or an in-house system.

Example: a distributor’s stock reorder

A typical journey with the ordering module, to illustrate. The situations are fictional.

  1. 1

    The distributor logs in and sees their agreed prices and the stock available.

  2. 2

    They upload their list of part numbers from a file, or start again from their last order.

  3. 3

    The portal checks minimum quantities and suggests the replacement for discontinued parts.

  4. 4

    The sales order is created in the ERP and the acknowledgement goes out automatically.

  5. 5

    The distributor tracks the delivery and downloads the invoice, without contacting the sales office.

How the project runs

  1. Audit

    We list the requests that reach the sales office, the data available in the ERP and the permissions to plan for.

    1 to 2 weeks

  2. Specification

    Screen mock-ups, a diagram of the data flows with the ERP, scope and price fixed.

    1 to 2 weeks

  3. Build

    A delivery every two weeks. Two or three pilot customers try the portal before it opens.

    5 to 7 weeks

  4. Launch

    Customers are invited in waves and the sales office is trained. One month of fixes against the specification is included, then maintenance by the month.

    1 week, then a month of fixes

Durations to scale, using the longest stated

What the price covers

The starting price is for a portal with customer accounts, order tracking and documents, linked to one ERP through its API or by files. It includes the specification; the audit is priced separately. The final price is fixed after the specification, before the build.

Estimate my projectSee pricing

Portal: accounts, tracking, documents
from £10,500 ex VAT
Optional Ordering and reorder module
from £4,400 ex VAT
Optional Spare parts module
from £5,300 ex VAT
Audit and roadmap, deducted from the first project we build for you
£1,650 ex VAT
Maintenance
from £390 ex VAT a month

Payment, for each stage

30%
on order
70%
on accepted delivery

Customer portal, extranet or B2B ecommerce site: what is the difference?

A customer extranet lets customers look things up (orders, invoices, documents); a customer portal also lets them act (order, reorder, request a quote); a B2B ecommerce site lets them buy at their own prices and terms.

TermWhat the customer does thereWhen to choose it
Customer extranetThey look things up: documents, invoices, order status.Your first aim is fewer calls and emails to the sales office.
Customer portal (trade portal)They look things up and act: order, reorder, request a quote, raise a service request.A share of your orders is repeat business that needs no salesperson.
B2B ecommerce siteThey buy as they would in an online shop, at their own prices and terms.You sell a wide catalogue to many accounts, including new customers.

A sound way to start is the extranet, then ordering for the customers who ask for it. The public side (catalogue, datasheets, distributor locator) belongs on the website: see manufacturing web design.

What drives the cost of a customer portal

  • The links to the ERP. Reading orders costs less than creating them. Each data flow (prices, stock, orders, invoices) is priced separately.
  • The state of the data. Duplicate part numbers or prices kept in spreadsheets need cleaning before anything goes online.
  • Roles and rules. Order approval by a manager, spending limits, several delivery sites per account.
  • Languages and countries. Each language adds translation and testing, not development.
  • Online payment. Seldom needed in B2B, where customers pay on account; it is added if you ask for it.

Bespoke portal or your ERP’s own module?

Bespoke is not always the right answer. Here is how to decide; the bespoke software guide goes further into buying or building.

OptionAdvantageLimit
Portal module from your ERP vendorAlready linked to your data, quick to set up.Screens are hard to adapt, licences are per user, the experience feels dated.
Portal software on subscriptionStandard functions ready to use.A subscription for as long as you use it, an ERP connector to build anyway, limited business rules.
Bespoke portalFollows your pricing rules, your permissions and your documents; the code becomes yours as each stage is paid.A higher cost up front, to be recovered over several years.
If your ERP’s module covers 80% of the need, take it. Part of the audit’s job is to tell you so.

Security and data

  • Hosted in the EU, in your name. The portal is hosted in the European Union, in an account opened in your name; UK hosting is possible if you ask for it.
  • One login per user. Every user has their own login, and access is logged.
  • Each customer sees only their own. The separation between customers is tested before go-live: one account must not see another’s data.
  • An agreement before real data. A GDPR data-processing agreement is signed before we touch any real data.

Frequently asked questions

How much does customer portal development cost?

From £10,500 ex VAT for accounts, order tracking and documents, linked to your ERP. Online ordering and spare parts are modules priced separately. The final price is fixed after the specification.

How long before the portal is open?

Allow 8 to 12 weeks from the audit to go-live for the first customers. The timescale depends mostly on access to the ERP’s data. The four stages are set out in how we work.

Will the portal work with our ERP?

Yes, if the ERP offers an API, file exports or a database we can read. Tracking and documents only need to read it; the ordering module also has to create sales orders in it. The audit checks both before any commitment.

Do we need an ecommerce site as well?

Not necessarily. The portal serves your existing customers, at their prices. A B2B ecommerce site also wins new accounts. Both can share the same product catalogue.

How do we get customers to use the portal?

By opening it first to a few willing customers, fixing what gets in their way, then inviting the rest in waves. Your reps show the portal on their visits.

What happens if the ERP is down?

The portal stays available with the last data received. With the ordering module, orders placed during the outage are held, then passed on when the ERP is back.

Read next

Start with a fixed-price audit

In one to two weeks you know what to build, in what order and in what price range. The audit fee is deducted from the first project we build for you.

£1,650 ex VAT 1 to 2 weeks See a sample report

Request an auditEstimate my project