Open Source ERP software

Recently I’ve made some researches for a good ERP software, open source of course, and so I want to share some of the product I’ve found while doing this small search. As first thing a definition for ERP:

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems integrate internal and external management information across an entire organization—embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application. The purpose of ERP is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the organization and manage the connections to outside stakeholders

Openerp

OpenERP (previously known as TinyERP) is an open source integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, the software is published under the AGPL licence. OpenERP is a comprehensive suite of business applications including Sales, CRM, Project management, Warehouse management, Manufacturing, Financial management and Human Resources just to name a few. Over 700 OpenERP modules are available on Launchpad, the suite it’s highly modular, this approach allows customers to start with one application and add other modules later. Customers keep the benefits of an integrated software but avoid a “big bang” project.

The Architecture of OpenERP

To access OpenERP you can:

• use a web browser pointed at the OpenERP server, or
• use an application client (the GTK client) installed on each computer.

Both access methods give similar facilities, and you can use both on the same server at the same time. It is best to use the web browser if the OpenERP server is some distance away because it is more tolerant of time delays between the two than the GTK client is. An OpenERP system is formed from two components:

• the PostgreSQL database server, which contains all of the databases, each of which contains all data and most elements of the OpenERP system configuration,
• the OpenERP application server, which contains all of the enterprise logic and ensures that OpenERP runs optimally. It also contains the web server.The server part is written in Python programming language. The client communicates with the server using XML-RPC interfaces. Business functionality is organised into modules. A module is a folder with a pre-defined structure containing Python code and XML files.

Reporting

OpenERP also provides a reporting system with OpenOffice.org integration allowing customization of reports. Alternative report engines are available using Webkit, or Jaspersoft.

Openbravo

Openbravo is a commercial open source software company.

Openbravo is a web-based open source business management solution that automates all of the core business processes for small and medium-sized companies, ranging from accounting and financial management, to sales, purchasing, inventory management and more. Written in java and offering a choice between oracle and postgresql as database, openbravo is model-driven, allowing easy extension and configuration of the system. the simple, powerful, and consistent browser screens do not require any client software installation, are intuitive for users to learn, and designed for efficient daily use. the comprehensive web service coverage enables easy integration with other applications.

Using Openbravo ERP, organizations can automate and register most common business processes. The following processes are supported: Sales, Procurement, Manufacturing, Projects, Finance, MRP and more.

Numerous commercial functional extensions are available on the Openbravo Exchange which can be procured by users of the Professional Subscription version of Openbravo ERP. This paid-for version offers additional functionality compared to the free Community Edition (such as: integrated administration tools, non-technical tool for updates and upgrades, access to Openbravo Exchange and a Service Level Agreement).

Characteristic of the Openbravo ERP application is the green web interface through which users maintain company data in a web-browser on their PC or PDA.

Reporting

Openbravo can create and export reports and data to several formats, such as PDF and Microsoft Excel.

Compiere

Compiere (pronounced KOM-pyeh-reh, “to accomplish, complete, fulfill” in Italian) is an open source ERP and CRM business solution for the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) in distribution, retail, service and manufacturing.

Compiere is distributed by Consona Corporation and through a Partner Network, a collection of trained and authorized business partners. Like many commercial ventures built around open source projects, there was a degree of contention between company management (who sought to monetize the investments in R&D, Services and Support) and voices from the Adempiere community (who desired that Compiere source code and business processes remained free and open).

On June 16, 2010, Consona acquired Compiere, Inc. Terms of the deal were not disclosed . The application and source code is provided on the basis of the GNU General Public License version 2; this comprises the Community Edition. Also available for a fee is a Professional Edition with more features, a commercial license, documentation and support contracts.

Architecture

Compiere is a Model Driven Architecture development, deployment and maintenance framework designed with the intention of following changes as business evolves. At any time, customers can change the information structure, adjusting to new information needs. Compiere provides multiple views of business information based on the detail of the actual transactions. This structure allows flexibility and integration of supplemental external information. And since information is presented as views (using Compiere’s MVC architecture), they can be changed to meet the needs of the business.

Compiere is entirely based on the concept of Active Data Dictionary (ADD). Until version 2.5 the only database supported was Oracle, since version 2.5.2 Compiere is database independent to some extent. The project has released a Database Kit for porting Compiere to multiple databases. PostgreSQL, MySQL and Sybase ports are in Beta status. Compiere can also be run under the Firebird database using the Fyracle extensions, without porting.

Adempiere

ADempiere (pron.: /ˌɑːdɛmˈpjɛreɪ/) is an Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP software package released under an open source software license. The word ADempiere in Italian means “to fulfill” or “to accomplish”. The ADempiere project was created in September 2006. Disagreement between the open-source developer community that formed around the Compiere open-source ERP software and the project’s corporate sponsor ultimately led to the creation of Adempiere as a fork of Compiere.

Within weeks of the fork, ADempiere reached the top five of the SourceForge.net rankings, and has remained one of the top-ranked open-source projects since then.

Architecture

Adempiere is developed with Java EE technology, specifically utilizing the JBoss application server. Currently database support is restricted to Oracle and PostgreSQL. A MySQL port of the database is currently underway. Adempiere inherited the Data Dictionary from the Compiere project. This architecture extends the Data Dictionary concept into the application; thus the application’s entities, their validation rules and screen layout can be controlled from within the application itself. In practice, this means that customization of the application can be done without new coding.

This article was originally posted on Linuxaria