Choosing, connecting, and outgrowing the software a back office runs on.

Every growing brand reaches the point where the stack it started with stops holding. Sort out what the categories mean, which system should own which record, and how to tell a real constraint from a tooling preference.

18 questions answered

• What is a commerce operations platform?→

  A commerce operations platform runs the back office behind selling: catalog, inventory, orders, purchasing, warehouse, retail trading, and planning, on one data model. It differs from a storefront, which takes the order, and from an accounting system, which records the result. It is where the operational record lives between the two.

• What is the difference between an OMS, an ERP, and an inventory system?→

  An inventory system counts stock. An order management system takes orders from every channel and decides how each is fulfilled, holding the inventory position they sell against. An ERP is a finance-first system of record that extends into operations. The categories overlap, and the useful question is which one owns each record.

• Do I need an ERP?→

  Only if you need what an ERP uniquely provides: multi-entity consolidated financials, manufacturing resource planning, or statutory reporting across jurisdictions. Many brands reach for one because inventory and orders are a mess, and that problem is an operations problem. An ERP solves it slowly and expensively compared with a system built for it.

• What is an ERP alternative?→

  An ERP alternative is a platform that covers the operational work a brand needs — inventory, orders, purchasing, warehouse, retail trading — without the finance-suite scope, implementation length, and cost of a traditional ERP. It connects to the accounting system you already run and leaves it in place.

• When do I outgrow spreadsheets for operations?→

  When more than one person needs the same number at the same time, or when the spreadsheet is a copy of data that lives somewhere else. Both mean the file is already wrong between refreshes. SKU count and order volume matter less than how many systems the sheet is reconciling.

• What is a system of record?→

  The system of record for a fact is the one authorised to change it; everything else reads a copy. Designating one per domain — orders here, inventory there, product data somewhere else — is what makes disagreements resolvable, because there is a defined answer to which system is right.

• Why should I not run my back office on my sales channel?→

  Because a sales channel models the world as its own orders. Wholesale purchase orders, retail EDI documents, purchasing, multi-location stock, and returns disposition are outside what it was built to hold, so each gets approximated with tags, apps, and exports. The approximations are what break as volume grows.

• What is iPaaS?→

  An integration platform as a service connects applications without custom code, offering prebuilt connectors, field mapping, and workflow automation between systems. It moves data between the tools you run. It does not decide which of them is authoritative, and it does not reduce how many systems you operate.

• Should we build integrations or buy a platform?→

  Build where the logic is specific to your business and gives you an advantage. Buy where it is a standard interface everyone needs, such as EDI transaction sets, marketplace feeds, or carrier rating. Built integrations carry permanent maintenance as every endpoint on both sides keeps changing.

• Should I customize my commerce platform?→

  Customise the parts that encode how you compete and configure everything else. Heavy customisation on standard processes makes upgrades expensive, freezes you on old versions, and turns routine vendor changes into regression testing. The question to ask is whether the customisation reflects a real difference in your business or a habit.

• What breaks first as a brand scales?→

  Inventory accuracy, usually, followed by order routing and then purchasing. Each breaks for the same reason: a process that one person held in their head gets distributed across more people and more systems without ever being written down. The volume exposes the gap; it did not create it.

• How do I evaluate commerce operations platforms?→

  Score against the work you actually do, and put the feature grid away. Bring your three hardest real scenarios — a wholesale purchase order with retailer labelling, a multi-node split order, a returned unit restocked and resold — and ask each vendor to demonstrate them end to end. Feature lists converge; handling of real cases does not.

• How long does a commerce platform implementation take?→

  It ranges from days to quarters depending on what is being replaced. Connecting channels and migrating catalog and inventory is fast. What extends a timeline is data quality, trading-partner certification, and any process that has to be redesigned before it can move. Traditional ERP rollouts run months because of the redesign, not the software.

• How do I migrate off a legacy system?→

  Sequence it so nothing runs twice. Clean identifiers and product data first, since everything downstream depends on them. Move catalog, then inventory, then open orders and purchase orders. Run the old system read-only for a defined period instead of in parallel, because two live systems means dual entry and guaranteed divergence.

• What does a commerce operations platform cost?→

  Subscription is the visible part and rarely the whole. Add implementation, per-connector or per-trading-partner fees, transaction or order-volume charges, and the internal time to run it. Vendors that quote only a monthly license are usually the ones where the other three are largest.

• What should an inventory management system do?→

  Hold one stock position across every location and channel, distinguish on-hand from available to promise, track inbound and in-transit stock, support allocation and reservation rules, handle transfers and returns disposition, and record adjustments with an audit trail. Anything that only counts what is on a shelf is a spreadsheet with a login.

• How should EDI connect to my ERP?→

  Orders arriving as 850s should become orders in the operational system without rekeying, and invoices should generate 810s from the same records. The integration that causes trouble is the one where EDI is a separate silo exporting files a person imports, because the two then disagree about order status.

• What operational metrics should I track?→

  A small set covering each stage: inventory accuracy, available-to-promise reliability, on-time and in-full delivery, fill rate, perfect order rate, order cycle time, chargeback rate as a share of sales, and contribution margin by channel. Each maps to a decision, which is the test for whether a metric earns its place.

Browse every commerce operations answer, or look a term up in the glossary.