Boost Every Aspect of
Your Apparel Operations
Why You Need an ERP Partner Who Specialises in Your Market Sector
Within the apparel marketplace there are several niche sectors, each with their own unique requirements and differences ranging from clothing, footwear, homeware and accessories to sportswear, work wear and contract-based businesses.
Choosing an ERP partner who already has an in-depth understanding of your marketplace ensures that they will understand your challenges, business constraints and daily operations while challenging your existing business assumptions and processes to create a more streamlined, effective and efficient way of working.
Creating a platform to support future ambitions, the right choice in software providers will maximise your potential by helping you achieve your business goals quicker with a streamlined implementation process, and be a partner who has a long-term commitment to your business solution with cost effective, ongoing, relevant software development.
The UK’s Leading Provider of Apparel Business Software
Enter Aptean. We know your world. We’ve built a strong, detailed understanding of the challenges the apparel marketplace faces and how to overcome them.
Our wealth of industry knowledge means we’ll deliver software solutions that are agile, fully scalable and designed for your unique business needs. We provide process and practice improvements, transforming the whole organisation and ensuring everyone feels involved and informed.
Our highly functional, easy-to-use modular application provides full visibility across all business operations, simplifies processes, improves business efficiency and provides the data you need to make informed decisions which drive business growth.
Whatever fashion and apparel products you provide, and however you make, buy, sell or distribute them, we have the ERP software solution for you.
“Working with Aptean to ensure we have the best technology means that we can create the best products in the quickest and most beneficial way, whilst still maintaining the excellent quality Aykroyds is known for. This all results in fantastic relationships with our customers, which is of huge importance to us.”
Real Customers, Real Results
Ballyclare Group Chooses the Smart Solution: Aptean Apparel ERP
The Ballyclare Group had outgrown its operational systems, operating a variety of IT systems and processes in multiple countries which also needed to cater for specific local regulatory requirements. They needed to overcome several issues and Aptean’s specialist apparel software offered the perfect solution, delivering a platform for every aspect of the company’s daily operations.
Connected Software to Power Your Business
Product Development
Our product lifecycle management (PLM) module streamlines and transforms the design and development process from initial concept through production, supply and final delivery—creating a more efficient workflow and improving delivery times to market.
A central, single point of access promotes collaborative working with suppliers and factories around the world to proactively manage the product lifecycle and manage the flow of information to all parties, whilst a centralised critical path ensures that everyone in the supply chain can access up-to-date product and event information. Full reporting capabilities ensure informed strategic decision making.
Stock Control
Leading companies who recognise the importance of accurate, up-to-date stock availability to operate efficiently, maximise revenue opportunities and deliver consistently high-quality customer service. Your stock is maintained within a single stock record that is accessible to all modules within our apparel ERP software. This ensures real-time, precise information regarding stock availability regardless of the chosen channel-to-market.
The application supports the requirement for multiple warehouses / locations and can hold stock in a variety of stock keeping units including packs, cartons and pallets and the use of barcode scanning technology facilitates efficient processing in the handling, recording and controlling of all stock transactions.
Warehouse Management
Our warehouse management system (WMS) module is designed to support and streamline your warehouse operations, simplify the returns process, deliver the scalability to seamlessly manage increased warehouse throughput and optimise stock turnover using stock consumption methods.
This module allows stock items to be recorded against specific locations in a warehouse and facilitates barcode scanning of products and locations to enhance the efficiency of the Goods Inbound, Goods Outbound and Stock Control processes. It also enables managers to proactively manage, reassign staff and resolve operational bottlenecks for optimum efficiency.
Wardrobe Management
Our Wardrobe Management module takes your customer service to another level and sees not only customer retention improve but significantly supports your bid for new contracts with our specialist web-ordering self-service.
This module controls and supports wearer allocations based on job role and grade while delivering detailed KPI reports on usage, delivery, performance and expenditure—allowing your customers to manage this aspect of their business more effectively. This functionality can then be extended out to the wearers themselves by giving them web-based access to place their own uniform replacement requests.
Order Management
The Order Management module is specifically designed to deliver efficient process management across your sales, purchasing and stock control functions. The highly configurable nature of the software means it can meet the specific needs of your business and retain the agility required to fulfil the dynamic needs of the apparel marketplace.
This ensures visibility of stock across all channels and customer transactions, seamlessly integrating to external systems for real-time access to stock and sales figures to optimise inventory levels and maximise sales opportunities. This module also manages business data with a flexible product matrix with easy order entry and comprehensive reporting. Flexible reporting and data analysis provides strategic and operational reporting insights for better business decisions.
Product Sourcing
Make informed decisions, reduce lead-times, optimise stock levels, increase customer satisfaction, sales and profit with our Product Sourcing module.
Revolutionise your product sourcing with complete control and visibility. Find quality products and materials at the right price, monitor overseas factories supplying goods on a CMT basis, take charge of the end-to-end procurement process with automated purchasing and cost control functions whilst maintaining optimum inventory levels.
Business relationships are improved with better communication and a more collaborative approach, working together to achieve mutual success. In addition, this module provides detailed performance monitoring with critical path management to ensure your deadlines are met.
Inventory Planning & Forecasting
Whether you manufacture, source, buy or sell, being able to predict the optimal quantity and timing of raw materials or finished goods to meet future sales demands and production capacity can be a real game changer.
Powerful forecasting tools allow your business to make informed decisions by reducing lead times and work-in-progress whilst accounting for new market trends, short product lifecycles and seasonal uplifts.
Not only does our Inventory Planning module provide access to real-time data, including historical and forecast demands, it will continually monitor projected stock levels to ensure that there is neither too much or too little stock against projected sales taking into consideration your budgeted sales, planned sales, known sales orders and planned production.
Despatch & Allocation
To drive measurable operational efficiencies, your software needs to be responsive to customer-driven demand and ensure products get to market in a timely manner. Aptean offers integration to numerous carriers with both domestic and global capability; saving you both time and money with dynamic invoicing functionality while offering extensive flexibility when it comes to allocating, despatching and invoicing your orders.
Allocating stock on order can be done by customer, order number or product, both manually and automatically with minimum intervention. Picking can be optimised to ensure timely despatches when combined with our Warehouse Management module.
Manufacturing
Whether your business has its own manufacturing facility in the UK, a requirement for remote production monitoring overseas, utilises third party operations, or has a mix of these, our Manufacturing module will enable you to manage and control your whole production process from sourcing to despatch with full visibility.
For manufacturers, we provide complete control over the production process, combined with detailed reporting, effective stock control and support for multiple factories. Our integrated suite allows your manufacturing business to seamlessly manage the whole production process supporting more efficient processing, delivering accurate information and reducing stock.
For overseas monitoring and third-party operations, we provide the system support required—whether that is a detailed CMT level where raw materials are supplied direct to a factory, as part of a JIT process or fully factored.
Wholesale Order Management
Our Wholesale Order Management module is specifically designed to support your Customer Services team with wholesale orders by providing an adaptable, simple, fast and effective ordering process. Whether they are placing an order, amending an order or querying the progress of an order, the module enhances customer interaction with systemised customer progression and allows service teams to quickly process orders and respond faster.
The single screen overview supports a fully immersive and streamlined experience for the user. All processes can be tailored and configured in the user interface to support the key order processing requirements, from rapid order entry to an information-at-your-fingertips customer service function. Also, our module assists with promotional management by encouraging up-sell, cross-sell, complimentary and alternative product options for improved customer service and sales opportunities.
Supplier Portal
Collaboration features in our Supplier Portal module provide clear communication between suppliers and customers on the progress of orders across the entire supply chain for an improved customer service experience. Both parties can record and maintain conversations in a centralised location with real-time updates which are also followed up by email notifications to ensure no action is missed.
The Supplier Portal is a browser-based module that enables your customers to manage their supply chain with direct access to view, manage, despatch and collaborate on their orders. Seamless real-time integration with Order Management data creates greater accuracy, substantially reducing errors and order processing overheads with a single view of data across the whole business.
Critical Path
Ensuring that the right product is available to the right market at the right time and at the right price in a globally dispersed supply chain is a continual challenge. With our Critical Path module, progressing key milestones in the design to market lifecycle is intuitive, open and easy to track with a single view of all critical events and supports the interface to multiple disparate applications as required.
Managing the progress of critical events, ranging from sample sign-off to inbound logistics and delivery to stores, our Critical Path module ensures synchronised processes and allows you to improve efficiency easily rescheduling and reassigning tasks to manage issues and balance activity, reduce cost and eradicate costly errors caused by miscommunication and missed or delayed tasks.
Wholesale Web Portal
Specifically designed for the wholesale/trade channel, our Wholesale Web Ordering module provides a portal for both your customers and sales representatives to enter sales orders online. Providing an e-Commerce look and feel, the user is intuitively guided through the order entry process with real-time access to the latest product and promotional information.
With functionality such as tailoring the range of products for individuals or groups of customers, as well as the configurable nature of the product catalogue to display, limit or hide stock availability levels—our Wholesale Web Portal will strengthen your customer relationships by empowering your customers and users to place and track orders anytime and anywhere at the touch of their fingertips.
Sales Ordering & Returns
Complementing the diverse needs of your business, within our omni-channel software there are a variety of ways to enter a customer order depending upon your needs and the environment in which you work.
Direct order entry for either wholesale customers or end consumers is accompanied by accurate, up-to-date and relevant information in a single screen which assists the user in providing excellent customer service, as well as taking advantage of additional selling opportunities. Alternatively, users can enter orders via a web-based application using a variety of browsers or handheld devices which allow remote data entry for specific customers, remote sales teams, exhibition stand representatives and more.
e-Commerce Inventory Management
Providing a fast, reliable and proven integration with your corporate website, we deliver digital technology solutions to re-imagine your business, creating new or expanding existing revenue streams, providing greater efficiency and outstanding customer experience.
Seamless, real-time website integration ensures the right product is available in the right colour and size—enabling the true stock position to be viewed as soon as a product is selected for fast, accurate, reliable data and optimised levels of stock control. With no manual input, the process is all automated and actioned in seconds; delivering outstanding customer service and empowering sales staff.
Retail Management & EPOS
Our industry-specific retail management module controls product information, stock levels and availability whilst communicating directly with the centralised (hosted) till system to ensure that individual tills are always up to date. Complete integration allows your team to comprehensively manage promotions, make inter-branch transfers with ease and eliminates the need for individual product pricing or repricing.
Stock allocation and replenishment is handled within the head office retail management module and offers a wide range of replenishment plans including ideal stock levels, minimum stock levels, rate-of-sale replenishment, product line leagues and grading of products/stores to name a few.
Customer Service Management
Our Customer Service Management module supports multi-channel trading environments empowering businesses to deal seamlessly and quickly with all aspects of customer ordering, queries or returns via a single-user interface. This in turn, builds stronger relationships with customers increasing the regularity of visits, average spend and encourages them to continue shopping with you in the future.
Operators can recommend items based on purchase history and advise on upselling and cross-selling opportunities. Query progression is systemised to ensure timely responses. Direct links to payment service providers ensures payments are authorised when an order is placed. Improved business management information and sales analysis helps you to better understand trends and manage inventory levels.
Financial Management
Electronic access to collaborative financial information delivers reduced costs, provides greater visibility and makes valuable, accurate management information available across your entire organisation in real-time. This breadth and depth of functionality aptly meets the needs of all business sizes with a modular approach, easy-to-use design and scalability to manage and adapt with your business.
The flexible chart of accounts has unlimited analysis codes and reporting hierarchies. The system provides multi-company, inter-company, multi-division and multi-currency capabilities as standard with full drill down capabilities across the entire suite to support the wider business community and supplies the supporting evidence required for auditing and regulatory requirements.
Business Intelligence & Reporting
In today’s dynamic business environment, it is essential to have the ability to make time-critical decisions on the go. Aptean’s Business Intelligence software is highly flexible enabling you to extract the information exactly when you need it with the ability to create, modify and distribute focused and personalised reports to explore data, data relationships and trends directly from your mobile device; enhancing strategic decision making with "ask any question" functionality.
Use unified business analytics with collaborative analysis to maximise cash flow and make the most of market opportunities. Existing deployed business intelligence reports may be re-used to lower the costs of implementation.
Payroll & HR
Effective people management is often quoted as the most valuable single thing a business can do. But quite often, due to time pressures and cost cutting, not enough time and focus is given to this area of the business. Our innovative solutions provide single data entry, rich functionality and ease-of-use with employee self-service and workflow management, adding real value to the Human Capital Management process.
The OpenPeople suite of modules includes payroll, HR, time and attendance, talent management, e-recruitment and business reporting/analytics tailored specifically for the fashion marketplace all in one place, saving time and money. This can be delivered onsite or through either a managed or bureau service.
Aptean Insights
Start transforming your fashion business today
We’ve got the specialist apparel ERP software modules you need to conquer your unique industry challenges.
