An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system provides agility to a business. It offers software applications to streamline complex processes and operations. ERP platforms, such as metasfresh and Visibility ERP, vary in their approach to enterprise planning. Metasfresh, for instance, is a free, open-source ERP platform. Visibility ERP is industry-specific.

Simplify your ERP software search with our Product Selection Tool. Tell us about your business — company size, industry, and preferred software features — and we’ll send you a list of ERP options tailored to your needs.

Metasfresh vs. Visibility ERP: An overview

Metasfresh is a cloud-based ERP with an open-source version available for free for businesses in a range of industries — wholesale distribution, fresh produce/agriculture, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, engineering, e-commerce, associations, and publishing. It offers easy-to-use tools for business planning, controlling, and execution.

Visibility ERP delivers a fully-integrated ERP platform for manufacturers. It offers advanced software applications for optimizing business effectiveness. It allows you to gain insights into processes and enhance performance.

Metasfresh: A free ERP platform

Open source ERP

While other ERP platforms are costly, metasfresh leverages open source technologies to provide a full ERP version with competitive capabilities free of charge. Regular updates are also free, and its latest source code is available online, offering flexibility and freedom to innovate.

Business Management

Metasfresh offers a data-driven platform for managing your business processes, providing you with real-time data access to evaluate your operations. It lets you gain insights for better business decision-making and to improve performance. Metasfresh allows you to take full control of your business.

Managing data 

You can easily manage your data with metasfresh. It features a dashboard that delivers targets and key indicators, provides real-time data updates, data entry wizards, powerful indexing tools, and access to open-source search engines. The platform is easy to use, and with just a click, you can access its advanced fields. It processes data faster, and it saves data automatically so you can focus on your tasks.

Communication and team collaboration 

Metasfresh supports team collaboration by providing tools that allow you to communicate within the system. It has a personal inbox where you can view your messages and tasks anytime, anywhere, and on any device. Metasfresh also offers full link support that lets you share links to a window or document, making it easy to collaborate with others.

Multi-tenancy and open interfaces

With metasfresh, you can manage multiple legal entities and multiple interfaces for specific services. It supports an unlimited number of tenants with separate data storage, and its REST-API allows you to transfer data from third-party platforms.

Advanced automation

Metasfresh has a central management and control system to map and automate your virtual business processes with precision. It integrates all sales channels into the system for easy monitoring. Metasfresh also features autosave, auto-complete, and auto prompt so you can work on your data and contact list without interruption.

Sales, order management, and accounting

Metasfresh has a sales and order management feature that offers tools for handling customer orders, tracking order status, and getting orders ready for delivery. It integrates accounting and finance, offering a range of capabilities, including shipping and delivery, procurement, consignment booking, invoicing, payments, payment reminders, data processing, and bank statement management.

Visibility ERP: A manufacturing ERP suite

Analytics and business performance

Focus your data analytics on improving your business operations with Visibility ERP’s business performance management (BPM) suite. Connect to your data from various sources, consolidate, and organize them for easy access. With Visibility ERP, you can analyze all your data across the enterprise and gain insights into specific processes and operations to improve business performance.

Financial management

Visibility ERP allows you to manage and track your financial operations in real time. It integrates finance with analytic and reporting, providing a complete financial management application that synchronizes your processes with overall goals, allowing you to predict cash flows. The platform offers general ledger, payroll, accounts payable/receivable, revenue recognition, installment billing, product costing, cost accounting, and project accounting capabilities.

Project communications management

Visibility ERP provides a collaborative product foundation that allows you to have real-time access to information for seamless collaboration with users and teams across the business. It automates communication, streamlines business processes, provides advanced tools to manage project communications, ensuring that products reach the customer on-time.

Operations management

Simplify processes and align your day-to-day activities with long-term operational tasks. Visibility ERP offers an operations management suite that reduces excess inventory, letting you invest in the right inventories. It enhances communication and allows you to allocate personnel and resources more efficiently.

Engineering and product lifecycle management

For your complex product manufacturing, Visibility ERP features an engineering and product lifecycle management application. It offers a range of capabilities, from product data management to continuous engineering, allowing you to develop, describe, and communicate detailed product information.

Material and production planning

Visibility ERP features a material and production planning suite to help you meet supply and demand requirements through the entire product life cycle. It offers material requirements planning (MRP) and capacity requirements planning (CRP), which helps improve the efficiency of your planning processes.

Customer relationship management

Provide your clients with an exceptional customer experience and maximize the value of your interactions with Visibility ERP’s integrated CRM. It offers capabilities for interacting with your clients throughout the buying cycle, from leads-building to after-sales customer service, enabling you to build customer loyalty.

Which ERP system better suits you?

Choosing which ERP platform is the better fit for your business always depends on your needs and preferences. The advantage of metasfresh is that it is open-source, and it delivers an easy-to-use interface. But it has a complex installation procedure that may require technical expertise. 

Visibility ERP is a solid choice for manufacturers of complex products. It supports make-to-order, engineer-to-order, project-based, discrete, and hybrid manufacturing. It features a home portal that you can modify. It has a modern design with an easy-to-use interface and drag-and-drop functionality.

For more ERP software options, check out our Product Selection Tool. It’s easy to use and free of charge.