Orders that are placed once and delivered over eight months, to sites that move.
Early accessCubeERP for building products & construction supply
ERP for manufacturers and suppliers of building products - configured items, site deliveries, call-offs and long-running projects.
- Building products
- UK hosted, implemented on site
- 01234 672 617
Supplying construction is not the same as supplying a warehouse.
Orders are placed as contracts, called off in phases, delivered to sites with access restrictions and delivery windows, and frequently changed after the fact. CubeERP handles the contract as a single commercial record with call-offs against it, keeps configured and made-to-size items straightforward to quote and build, and treats site delivery as a scheduling problem rather than a despatch afterthought.
- Per contract
Value, phasing and exposure
- Configured
Made-to-size quoted in minutes
- Per site
Windows, access and offload
What goes wrong
The recurring problems in building products
Not every business has all five. Almost every business we speak to has three.
Contracts managed as many small orders
A project placed as one commitment gets entered as a series of unrelated orders, so nobody can see remaining value, phasing or exposure on the contract as a whole.
Made-to-size quoted by hand
Dimensions, finishes and options are configured in a spreadsheet by an experienced estimator. It works, slowly, and it stops working when they are on holiday.
Site deliveries planned optimistically
Delivery windows, access, offloading and site contacts are known informally. A failed delivery costs a vehicle, a driver and a day.
Programme changes absorbed silently
Site slips and the manufacturer holds finished stock, re-plans production and absorbs the cost, usually without any commercial conversation.
Retentions and applications
Payment terms in construction are not the same as trade terms. Applications, retentions and stage payments handled outside the system make cash forecasting guesswork.
What we do about it
How CubeERP is set up for building products
Configuration, not a separate edition. Everything here is in the same product - it is switched on and shaped during implementation.
Contracts with call-offs
One commercial agreement with agreed prices and quantities, called off in phases, with remaining value and phasing visible at all times.
Configured and made-to-size
Dimensions, finishes and options generate the price, bill of materials and routing automatically, so a bespoke item is quoted in minutes rather than hours.
Site delivery scheduling
Delivery windows, access notes, offload requirements and site contacts held on the delivery, with vehicle loading planned against them.
Production against programme
Works orders scheduled to call-off dates, with the effect of a programme change visible immediately rather than at the end of the month.
Applications and retentions
Stage applications, retentions and payment terms specific to construction handled in the system so cash forecasting reflects reality.
Certification and compliance
Declarations of performance, test certificates and CE/UKCA documentation held against the batch and issued with the delivery.
In practice
Two situations from this sector
Anonymised, but not invented. These are the situations businesses describe before they change anything.
A contract with no visible total
The situation
A manufacturer supplied a large project as a stream of individual orders. Nobody could state the remaining contract value or how much had already been called off.
What changed
The contract is a single record with call-offs against it. Remaining value, phasing and exposure are reportable, and the commercial conversation happens before the overrun.
Deliveries turned away at the gate
The situation
Site delivery windows and access restrictions were held in emails. Several deliveries a month were refused, each costing a vehicle and a driver for the day.
What changed
Site requirements are held against the delivery address and checked when loading is planned. Refused deliveries became rare.
How it happens
What implementation involves
The same five stages whatever you make. Discovery, training and go-live are done on your site, because most of what the system needs to know is learned in the building.
- 1
Discovery
A structured session mapping how you work now - the systems, the spreadsheets and the bits held together by one person’s memory. We come back with what the platform covers as standard, what needs configuration, and what needs building.
- 2
Configuration
Your sites, warehouses, price lists, approval limits, document templates, workflows and permissions set up to match the business - not a demo tenant with your logo dropped on it.
- 3
Data migration
Customers, suppliers, parts, bills of materials, price lists, open orders and stock balances brought across and reconciled. We migrate, you check the numbers against the old system, and only then do we cut over.
- 4
Training & rollout
Role-based training so the order desk learns the order desk and the warehouse learns the warehouse, with a pilot group first where it makes sense. Documentation and short screen recordings left behind for new starters.
- 5
Ongoing support
UK support from the people who built the platform, with a named contact, agreed response times, and a product roadmap you can influence.
Questions
What this sector asks first
Yes. A configurator turns dimensions and options into a price, a bill of materials and a routing, so estimating does not depend on one experienced person and a spreadsheet.
The contract holds agreed prices and quantities; call-offs draw against it with their own delivery dates. Remaining commitment is always visible to both sides.
Yes - loads are planned against delivery windows, weight and vehicle capacity, with proof of delivery captured on a driver’s phone.
Certification is held against the product and batch and issued automatically with the delivery paperwork rather than retrieved manually on request.
Yes. Distribution, trade counter and contract supply are all covered, and businesses that both make and factor products run on one system rather than two.
Where to start
The parts that usually matter most here
Order Management Software
Take, allocate, fulfil and invoice orders from one screen - with live stock, part-shipments, back orders and contract pricing handled automatically.
Read moreQuoting & Estimating Software
Build quotes from live material costs, labour rates and real availability - then convert the winners to orders without retyping them.
Read moreManufacturing Software
Bills of materials, works orders, routings, shop-floor booking and real job costing - for businesses that make things to order.
Read moreWholesale & Distribution Software
Trade pricing, multi-warehouse stock, fast order entry, pick-pack-despatch and carrier integration for wholesalers and distributors.
Read more
Related
Sectors with similar problems
- Engineering & FabricationERP for subcontract machinists, fabricators and engineering firms working to drawing, to order and to a promised date.
- Wholesale & DistributionERP for wholesalers, importers and distributors - trade pricing, multi-warehouse stock, fast order entry and integrated despatch.
- Field Service & InstallationERP for installers, service companies and maintenance providers - scheduling, van stock, contracts and same-day invoicing.
If your process really is unusual
Some requirements are specific to one business rather than one sector. Those get built against the same documented API everybody else uses - not bolted on to the side of a database nobody is allowed to look at.
Building products
Show us a real job from your building products operation
Bring one order that went wrong and the paperwork that went with it. That tells us more about whether this fits than any list of features.