ERPNext

ERPNext is a free and open-source integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) software developed by an Indian software company Frappe Technologies Pvt. Ltd. It is built on the MariaDB database system using Frappe, a Python based server-side framework.

ERPNext is a generic ERP software used by manufacturers, distributors and services companies. It includes modules like accounting, CRM, sales, purchasing, website, e-commerce, point of sale, manufacturing, warehouse, project management, inventory, and services. Also, it has domain specific modules like schools, healthcare, agriculture, and non-profit.

ERPNext is an alternative to NetSuite and QAD, and similar in function to Odoo (formerly OpenERP), Tryton and Openbravo. ERPNext was included in the ERP FrontRunners List by Gartner as a Pacesetters.

Core modules

ERPNext contains these modules:

• Accounting
• Asset management
• Customer relationship management (CRM)
• Human resource management (HRM)
• Payroll
• Project management
• Purchasing
• Sales management
• Warehouse management system
• Website

Industry modules

• Manufacturing – Manufacturing
• Point of sale (POS) – Retail
• Student Information system – Education
• Hospital Information system – Healthcare
• Agriculture Management – Agriculture
• Nonprofit Organization – Non Profit

Software license

ERPNext is released under the GPL-3.0-only license. Consequently, ERPNext does not require license fees as opposed to proprietary ERP vendors. In addition, as long as the terms of the licenses are adhered to, modification of the program is possible.

Architecture

ERPNext has a model–view–controller architecture with metadata modeling tools that add flexibility for users to adapt the software to unique purposes without the need for programming. Some attributes of the architecture are:

• All objects in the ERP are DocTypes (not to be confused with HTML DocTypes) and the Views are generated directly in the browser.
• Client interacts with the server via JSON data objects on a JSON-RPC supporting server.
• There is ability to plug-in (event driven) code on the client and server side.

The underlying web app framework is called "Frappe Framework" and is maintained as a separate open source project. Frappe started as a web-based metadata framework inspired from Protégé though it has evolved differently.

This architecture allows rapid application development (RAD).

Source code and documentation

ERPNext source code is hosted on GitHub, using the Git revision control system, and the contributions are also handled using GitHub.

A complete user manual is available at the project website.

Software as a service

ERPNext is available both on user hosting and as a software as a service (SaaS) from their website. The product also received a funding of INR 10 crore ($1.3 million) from Zerodha and Rainmatter in June 2022.

Investment

In November 2020, Rainmatter incubator invested ₹10 crore ($1.3M) in Frappe Technologies PL, to support development of ERPNext, other open source products, and scaling plans.

Release history

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FOSS United

FOSS United (formerly ERPNext Open Source Software Foundation) is a non-for-profit organization. The goal of the foundation is to provide a platform for the FOSS community of India to come together and build open source applications. Foundation also organises various events like conference and code sprints.

See also

• List of ERP software packages
• iDempiere
• List of free and open source software packages

References

External links