Why not an ERP?
You outgrew the whiteboard and the spreadsheets. The next thing everyone points you at is an ERP - and for a sub-50 custom fab shop, that's the wrong size of tool. There's a third option between the whiteboard and the enterprise ERP, and that's the one Factory is built to be.
Not the license - the rollout
An enterprise ERP or MRP is a serious system built for serious volume, and standing one up reflects that.
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None of that is a knock on the ERP. It's the right tool for a 300-person manufacturer running the same parts at volume. It's just a forklift for a job that needs a good set of hands.
Too big for spreadsheets, too small for an ERP
Factory runs the whole loop - quote, schedule, run the floor, get paid - and it earns its keep four specific ways.
Factory syncs with QuickBooks Online, Xero, and MYOB - your books stay where they are, no new ledger to learn.
It's a setup, not a rollout. No year-long project, no consultant on retainer.
It bends to how your shop already works, and you configure it yourself.
Built the way a shop thinks, so the floor clocks on and the office quotes in it without a fight - the thing that quietly kills most ERP installs.
It's built by fabricators - its founders ran their family's custom fab shop for years - so it's shaped around the work, not an enterprise org chart. Factory is its own company.
A factual comparison, row by row
Enterprise ERP and MRP systems are referenced only as a factual comparison category, never singled out by name. ERP implementation reality - roughly 6-18 months and around A$25k into six figures in services - is used as qualitative contrast.
It's the whiteboard, and the job nobody can find
The whiteboard, the Quoting_FINAL_v3.xlsx, the job nobody can find, the margin that leaks because the hours lived on a clipboard. An ERP is overkill for that; a spreadsheet is undermatched. Right-sized is the point: enough system to run the floor, light enough that your shop keeps using it.
If you're actively comparing, see the ERP-alternative breakdowns →Questions shops ask about ERPs
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Bring a real job and your accounting.
We'll run it through Factory in about fifteen minutes - quote to paid, synced to your books - so you can see what right-sized feels like before you ever weigh an ERP.