Compare
You already have tools. None of them own the line.
Spreadsheets with WhatsApp, a generic CRM, your ERP. Each one holds a piece of the sale, and the gaps between them are where enquiries, rates and promised dates go missing. Here is the straight comparison, including what SysOMS deliberately does not do.
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Record per order
18
Capabilities compared
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Accounting features
In short
How does SysOMS compare with spreadsheets, a CRM or an ERP?
Spreadsheets and WhatsApp hold the conversation but enforce nothing. A generic CRM stops at the won deal. An ERP starts at the order and is built around accounting. SysOMS governs the stretch between the enquiry and a dispatch-ready order, and hands the rest over.
Head to head
Pick the setup you are running today.
Each comparison has its own table, its own honest verdict on when the alternative is the better choice, and the questions owners ask us about it.
What the gap costs
Nothing here is a software problem. Every one of them costs money.
These three things happen in plants running on chat and memory. None of them show up in a report, and all of them show up in the year.
The enquiry nobody called back
It was in a chat, then under two hundred newer messages. Your competitor answered the same day and the buyer never told you why you lost.
Lost orders you never counted
The rate somebody gave away
One officer quoted below floor to save a deal. Nobody approved it, nobody saw it, and the same customer now expects that rate every month.
Margin that quietly stays gone
The date the plant never agreed to
The delivery date was promised on a call. Production learned about it at job-card stage, the tolerance was never achievable, and the truck left late.
Reputation, and the repeat order
Side by side
What each one actually covers.
Eighteen capabilities that decide whether an enquiry reaches a truck on the promised date, grouped by what they protect.
Swipe the table sideways to compare every column.
| Capability | SysOMSEnquiry to dispatch | Sheets + WhatsAppWhat most plants run | Generic CRMBuilt for software sales | ERPBuilt for accounts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winning the enquiry | ||||
| Every enquiry owned by a named person within the hour | ||||
| Follow-up cannot be closed without the next date | ||||
| Field capture from a phone, calls, visits, enquiries | ||||
| Typed specification templates per product family | ||||
| Feasibility answered before the date is promised | ||||
| Protecting the margin | ||||
| Price books by class, region, slab and delivery basis | ||||
| Floor rate enforced at the moment of quoting | ||||
| Deviation approvals recorded on the quotation itself | ||||
| Every revision versioned, nothing overwritten | ||||
| Credit and outstanding visible before the promise | ||||
| Keeping the promise | ||||
| One record from enquiry to dispatch | ||||
| Sales Admin review gate before the shop floor | ||||
| Production, quality and dispatch on the sales record | ||||
| Customer sees status without calling your officer | ||||
| Owner cockpit without asking anyone for a report | ||||
| Audit trail of who changed what, and when | ||||
| Where we stop, on purpose | ||||
| Invoicing, ledgers and GST filing | ||||
| Payroll and statutory registers | ||||
SysOMS ends at a commercially closed, dispatch-ready order. Invoicing, ledgers and GST stay with your ERP, which pulls orders, production and dispatch from SysOMS.
One ordinary Tuesday
Same enquiry, same plant, four different endings.
Follow a single order through the day and the difference stops being a feature list.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
| Moment | Sheets + WhatsApp | Generic CRM | ERP | SysOMS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:40 am, an enquiry lands | Forwarded to a group. Two people assume the other will call. | A lead is created. Nobody can tell if you can actually make it. | Nothing happens, there is no order yet. | Owned by a named officer with a callback time, and the spec is typed, not described. |
| 12:15 pm, the rate is agreed | A number is sent on chat, below floor, and nobody notices for a month. | A deal value is entered. The price book is not there. | Rate exists, but only once someone raises the order. | Quoted off the live price book, below-floor waits for the Sales Head, on the record. |
| 4:30 pm, the date is promised | Promised on a call, based on optimism. | A close date is set, unrelated to the plant. | A date is entered after the order is punched. | Feasibility and stock are checked first, then the date is committed. |
| Next Tuesday, the buyer calls | Somebody walks to the shop floor to find out. | The CRM has no idea, the deal is already closed. | A production status exists, if someone updates it. | Status is on the same record, and the buyer can see it without calling. |
Honest reading
What each option gets right, and where it stops.
If one of these already fits your plant, keep it. We would rather you knew now.
Spreadsheets and WhatsApp
Suits
A single plant, one or two people selling, under roughly forty orders a month.
Gets right
Fast to start, everyone already knows it, costs nothing on day one.
Stops at
There is no single record. The rate lives in a chat, the specification in a photo, the committed date in somebody's memory. Nothing can be enforced, so nothing is.
You will know when: You ask three people for the status of one order and get three answers.
A generic CRM
Suits
Teams selling a catalogue product where the deal ends at the signature.
Gets right
Good pipeline hygiene, reminders and reporting on the sales side.
Stops at
It stops at the closed deal. It does not know a coating class from a coil weight, cannot hold stock, cannot release a job and cannot tell you if the order will ship on time.
You will know when: Your officers update it after the fact, because the real work happens elsewhere.
Your ERP
Suits
Accounts, inventory valuation and statutory filing. Keep it, we do not replace it.
Gets right
Correct books, correct stock value, correct returns.
Stops at
It starts at the order. Everything before that, the enquiry, the negotiation, the approval, the specification, happens outside it and arrives as a purchase order with no history.
You will know when: Nobody in sales logs in unless finance forces them to.
Inside the system
The same order, on one screen.
This is the order desk, the place where a booked order is reviewed, held or released to the plant.
In the app
Nothing reaches the plant until the desk releases it
Sales Admin checks rate, quantity, credit and dispatch date once, then releases the order.
- Checks run before release
- One record, no parallel sheets
- Changes leave a trail
Illustrative screens.
Swipe the screen sideways to see more.
Fair questions
What owners ask before they switch.
We already paid for the ERP.
Keep it. SysOMS ends at a commercially closed, dispatch-ready order and hands that order over. Your ERP keeps the money, the stock value and the filings. Nothing is bought twice.
My officers will not use one more system.
They use one screen, My Day, on the phone they already carry. A call, a visit and an enquiry are logged in seconds, and the desk sees them at once. There is no separate reporting chore at the end of the day.
Our products are too specific for software.
That is exactly why specification templates are typed per product family, coating class, tolerance, coil weight, packing. The system is configured to your families before you go live.
What if it does not fit the way we sell?
Bring one live order to the walkthrough. We run your enquiry, your rate and your plant through the system in forty minutes, and you will know before you spend anything.
Published research
Why speed on an enquiry decides the order.
7x
Firms that respond to a web enquiry within an hour are about seven times likelier to have a meaningful conversation with a decision maker than those that wait even an hour longer.
Harvard Business Review, “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads”, 2011
42 hrs
Average first-response time across 2,241 audited companies, while 24% never responded to the enquiry at all.
Harvard Business Review, “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads”, 2011
Bring one live order. We will run it end to end.
Forty minutes on your own product, your own rates and your own plant, not a canned demo. You will see exactly where your current setup lets the order slip, before you spend anything.
No obligation, and we will tell you if your current setup is enough