SMEs, large companies benefit from open-source ERP

MANILA, Philippines - Thousands of companies both large and small, especially small and medium enterprises, or SMEs, and those engaged in large-scale distribution and manufacturing, will benefit from the more affordable yet fully integrated open-source enterprise resource planning (ERP) system introduced recently in the country.

Business solutions provider e-Methods for Business Management Corporation (e-MBM) has been appointed by xTuple, the global leader in open-source ERP, to distribute and implement xTuple products in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

“We saw the need to bring over xTuple ERP in the country to respond to a growing local economy and address the requirements of companies whose operations have become more complex,” said e-MBM chairman and CEO, Garth Noel Tolentino.

E-MBM is a leading accounting solutions distributor serving more than 5,000 small and medium enterprises in the country and Southeast Asia.

Tolentino said e-MBM can help SMEs and large enterprises transition to x-Tuple ERP application as required by government.

E-MBM recognizes the enormous task of catering to the needs of close to 800,000 registered companies belonging to the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector, with over 400,000 new companies registered last year based on estimated data from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

“Turning to xTuple ERP is a very important step for companies whose growth has become inevitable, generating millions of jobs in the process,” Tolentino said.

MSMEs generated 3.6 million jobs in 2009 or about 63.2 percent of the total jobs generated, while over two million jobs were created by large enterprises in the same year.

E-MBM president and COO Ma. Cristina L. Oreta said that xTuple, a global leader in open source Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), will benefit companies of all sizes as the enterprise-class business management software gives growing companies control over their operations and the tools to power that growth.

XTuple integrates all critical functional areas in one system:  sales, accounting, and operations — including customer and supplier management, inventory control, manufacturing and distribution.

Oreta said that ERP as a powerful tool for management to stay on top of their operations has become complex and expensive for small companies.

“XTuple takes business owners away from the usual spreadsheets and manual management by making xTuple an open source,” said Oreta. The open source ERP community then drives “a relentless pace of improvements and refinements to the product.”

Oreta said that open-source xTuple is free to use or to share so one can get the source code of the software and improved the software to meet your business needs and requirements.

“What used to cost millions of pesos to run a business with powerful tools is now more affordable to medium enterprises and even large companies,” Oreta said.

XTuple ERP’s core offering is xTuple PostBooks, a completely free and open source baseline powered by open source software like the PostgreSQL database, the Qt development environment and its own OpenRPT report writer.

Companies that require additional vertical functionality and are more comfortable with a commercial software license can opt for xTuple’s commercial products packaged for distinct industry segments (manufacturing, distribution, retail or any combination added to the Standard Edition).

Oreta said xTuple allows “easy migration from other accounting, ERP and CRM systems and can be used with desktop applications that run on Windows, Mac or Linux.” Its mobile web application can run on iOS, Android or any browser. It can create unlimited financial and ad-hoc report writing and is scalable. As it is free to download, it also offers free cloud hosting.

In the US, xTuple reported second consecutive record quarter of sales for 2012 “fueled by a surge of new customers in manufacturing and distribution.”

Revenue was up 74 percent over the third quarter last year, while sales in the first three quarters of 2012 were up 59 percent overall from the same period in 2011.

Serving over 5,000 small and medium businesses, e-MBM partnered with Yekyio Technologies, Inc. and xTuple Virginia to bring xTuple to the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Inquiries may be made at www.xtuple.com.ph.