At some point every growing business hits the spreadsheet ceiling. Orders live in one sheet, stock in another, invoices in a third, and a WhatsApp group holds it all together. Someone suggests an ERP.
Then the quotes arrive. Licences per user, implementation partners, six-month rollouts, modules for things you've never needed. And at the end, a system your team has to learn to work around.
The ten percent problem
Most teams that buy a heavy ERP use a small fraction of it. They need order management and stock, or dispatch and billing, or approvals and reporting. The rest is cost, complexity and training time.
A light ERP starts from the other end. Instead of a system that does everything, it's a focused tool that does your two or three most important workflows exactly the way your team already works.
What "light" looks like
- Built around one workflow first. The one that costs the most time or causes the most mistakes.
- Fits how you operate. Your terms, your steps, your exceptions — not a generic template.
- Works on a phone. Because the people doing the work are rarely at a desk.
- Connects to what you keep. Your accounting software, your payment gateway, your messaging tools.
- Owned by you. Your code, your data, no per-seat licence.
Growing it
Once the first workflow is running, the second one is faster to build because the foundations — users, roles, data — are already there. Most of our light ERPs grow phase by phase over a year, each phase paid for by the time the last one saved.
When a big ERP is right
If you're running multiple legal entities, complex manufacturing or heavy compliance requirements, an established ERP may be the right call. We'll tell you if that's the case. For everyone else, start light.