In this article, I shall guide you through the best practices that can make your WP-ERP powered business take the leap of a mile.
Here is a list of 10 optimizing tips for WP ERP which I think will make you a power user overnight!
1. Set your company information
Your business identity is the first thing to add. It is used in the invoice and other documents.
For setting your company information navigate to WP Dashboard → ERP Settings → Company
Include as much details as you can. You should also note that you company logo must be in square format so that it fits properly.
2. Setting up HRM module
If you are planning to use HRM module, you should define the Workdays. You have options for setting all 7 days of the week as working, half-working or non-working days.
The Attendance Management is the most used add-on of WP ERP users. You can generate attendance report of you employees to track their performance. With this add-on you will also be able to set up grace times to let your employees manage their attendance. It will also help you to enable or disable shift management.
The latest additions to WP ERP are the Recruitment and Asset Manager add-ons. As your company is growing, you will require new employees. The Recruitment add-on can help you to evaluate job applicants and manage overall selection project.
If you want to easily manage your documents related to HRM, you can try the Document Manager add-on. It works like Google Drive so it can be pretty handful to your business.
3. Setting up Accounting module
WP ERP is offering you free Accounting module. With it you can manage your accounts, tax, create invoices and generate useful reports. WP ERP has default currency set to US Dollars ($). If you need other currency, you can change it from, WP Dashboard→ ERP Settings→ Settings→ Accounting.
You can also include thousand separator, decimal separator, number of decimals and currency positions.
You can format your invoices that will be generated from accounting module from the Invoice Formatting tab.
Now, click on the Sales Tax tab and click New Tax Rate Button. Then enter information related to your tax into the form and click on Create New.
4. CRM module management
You might be using other CRM tools, but you should note that WP ERP is offering free CRM module. It can help you to manage your customers and build strong relationship with them.
You can turn auto import feature on or off. You can also choose user roles that will be imported. The Mailchimp Contacts Sync and Hubspot Contact Sync are available as add-on. You can easily use them to import your contacts from your mailing list.
There is a Templates tab that can be configured by defining Name, Subject and Message Body.
You can also make your CRM module more helpful to your business with the following add-ons,
- Gravity Forms to create contacts when a submission is done on your custom forms.
- Email Campaign (Upcoming) to create automatic, personalized and customized outbound emails for your customers.
5. Import or export your users
Do you know it is possible to import and export users using WP ERP settings? You can import your WordPress Users directly to WP ERP as customers. It is also possible to set the roles of newly imported users according to your requirements.
In addition, you can easily import users (contacts, company or employee) from CSV files into CRM and HRM systems.
Similarly, You can export users from CRM and HRM systems to CSV file for later use. For you ease, you can also select specific fields from the form at the time of exporting.
6. Customize the general WP ERP settings
You can skip this one if you have properly followed and configured the Getting Started Guide Menu. If not then you should consider the WP ERP best practices to recheck general settings. This general information is used is HRM and Accounting modules. You can set up the company launching date, set date formats and financial year. This will make sure that reports generated from WP ERP is up to date.
7. Email & notification email settings
Sending email is very important when managing your business. So you should configure you email related settings. For this you should set up senders name, email, email footer and header image.
There are also some predefined notification email templates available for your use. There is a Configure button beside the templates. You can edit them before triggering the notification mails.
8. Make proper use of SMTP
If you don’t have any idea about SMTP, you should consider the Documentation for more guidance.
It helps you to configure your outgoing email settings. Navigate to WP Dashboard→ ERP Settings→ Settings→ Emails→ SMTP. You should considered the following.
- You can enable or disable SMTP as your requirement. If disabled, the WordPress mailing system will be used.
- Use the server address of you email service provider as the mail server.
- Include the port number, which can be found in the email service providers settings.
- Select suitable authentication method such as SSL or TSL.
- Input your username and password so that mailing client can access your email server.
- There is also an option for sending test email. You should try it out.
9. Setting up IMAP/POP3
You have the cloud based feature in your system thanks to WP ERP. It is possible handle your incoming mails by setting up IMAP and POP3. You should consider the following.
- Check the status of you incoming mail server. If its working, it will show connected. Otherwise, it will display not connected.
- You should enable the IMAP so that you can receive inbound emails from your CRM module.
- Schedule your system for checking for inbound emails. You can choose hourly scheduling for better performance.
- You should enter the mail server address and port number.
- Your username and password are also required.
- Finally, choose the authentication type so that everything works properly.
See WP ERP Documentation for More Assistance
10. Hide and show menu bars
While using different types of plugins, your Dashboard Admin Menu becomes over populated. You can select specific menus for the WP dashboard and hide them if necessary. You can also customize admin menu bar just like the following screenshot.
It is expected that your efficiency of your internal business operations will get a boost if you can consider the above 10 optimizing tips for WP ERP.
WP ERP also has a Project Management module that can aid you in managing your business projects. You should check it out because it can greatly benefit your business.
Hi,
Is integration with Zapier coming or planned at all?
Would make it a ton more powerful.
Thanks,
Dale.
Yes of course, it’s planned. But we are taking a bit time to bring the REST API into ERP, then actually it’ll make sense for integration and make it even more versatile.
Hello Dale,
We appreciate your positive words ?
For Zapier integration, we have to complete the API first. We have a plan to work on the API feature in February 2017.
I look forward to the API / Zapier coming online. I am just considering moving from Active Campaign to Drip email service but Drip has no CRM feature though it is 25 to 30% cheaper on the larger email numbers.
Mind you I just found out on this post that you can handle incoming email so that may alleviate many problems – the main plugin page doesn’t really detail that you handle incoming emails.
Dale.
Thank you very much wonderful plugin.
Well, I am trying to work with plugin and found that invoices has very basic design. Is there any way to customize invoices?
Hi Nick,
Thanks for using WP ERP and hope it will be a great tool for you to solve problems.
Unfortunately, the invoices are not customizable. If you need more information regarding this, please feel free to contact our support support[at]wperp.com
Cheers 🙂
Hi I would to know if its possible to auto import customer of CRM section to Customer Accounting section ?
Is it possible ? Thanksss