Elevate Your Business: Why BisTrack ERP for UK Builders’ Merchants Outshines the Competition

Executive Summary:
Building supply companies face margin pressure, labor shortages, and increasing customer expectations. This article explains:

• The top operational challenges facing the building supply industry
• Why legacy systems limit growth and visibility
• How modern, industry-specific ERP enables faster fulfillment, better inventory control, and scalable operations
• How Epicor supports builders’ merchants at every stage of growth

If you're in the building supply Industry and relying on an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that your provider touts as the perfect fit, it’s time to take a closer look. Reality often doesn't match the promises made. Do you find yourself overwhelmed by the painstaking process of entering timber lengths individually, instead of grouping them? Are frequent requests from leadership for detailed reports met with frustrating delays as your IT struggles to extract data from the system?

Meanwhile, as you juggle production tasks, like pre-assembly for a recent customer deal, do you find yourself questioning how to manage these exceptional demands within your current ERP framework? It’s becoming clear: the challenges are multiplying, and your existing solution is falling short of its promises. Perhaps it's time to consider replacing outdated server hardware or upgrading to a modern ERP system tailored specifically for your industry.

BisTrack is an ERP system designed to give you the software as a service (SaaS) advantage for builders’ merchants and and wholesalers, including timber yards and trade-focused suppliers. It supports yard, counter, warehouse, delivery, pricing, and financial operations in a single, ‑industry-specific‑ platform.

What should you look for when choosing an ERP designed for builders’ merchants?

  Key Takeaways:

• Your ERP solution should be designed and enhanced with feedback from those who know the industry.
• Tasks should be easy for builders’ merchants to process and manage.
• Accessing data to create custom reports and dashboards should be intuitive and seamless.
• Connecting your ERP solution with external services should be straightforward.

Let’s examine those essential requirements to help you evaluate your current ERP solution and find the right fit for your business.

Designed With and for Builders’ Merchants

It's crucial that ERP providers comprehend the unique requirements of the building supply industry. A well-crafted, industry-specific solution will be specifically designed for builders’ merchants, timber yards, and wholesalers.

Out-of-the-box solutions save both time and money because they eliminate the need for extensive customisation during implementation. When industry-specific features are pre-built into the system, it streamlines processes while minimising disruptions. Unlike generic ERP that necessitates a lot of custom programming, a flexible, industry-focused ERP will simplify these necessary updates, delivering a more efficient overall experience.

A Place Where Your Voice is Heard

 A robust ERP provider will conduct regular Customer Advisory Board (CAB) sessions with peers in the industry. This helps ensure that they are on top of current requirements and trends.

 If your vendor isn't taking your needs seriously, particularly if their core customer base lies outside your industry, essential enhancements may not be prioritised — or worse, they may simply be ignored. This underscores the importance of selecting a supplier that genuinely understands and is invested in the building supply industry.

What Are the Most Important Industry-Specific Requirements?

Consider how your current ERP handles timber products, including the specific challenges associated with different timber configurations. For instance, how does your current system manage timber tallies during new deliveries? A well-crafted ERP should efficiently segregate various types of timber packs such as:

• PTL (Packaged to Length), where all pieces in a pack share the same length.
• APTL (Almost Packaged to Length), where most lengths are similar.
• TB (Truck-Bundled), which encompasses all other packaging formats.

Although the width and thickness of these packs typically remain constant, the lengths vary significantly. Evaluate whether your current ERP allows for straightforward entry of these quantities and whether it can efficiently adapt to your business’s unique packaging requirements.

Managing Manufacturing Tasks

As a reliable supplier in the building supply sector, you may operate assembly tasks on-site, such as producing doors, windows, or custom joinery. It’s essential that your building supply solution supports these component manufacturing operations effectively.

Does it facilitate the management of offsite construction tasks as well? Look for features like built-in product configuration tools, Work in Progress (WIP) visibility, and capabilities to monitor costs associated with materials and labour throughout your production processes.

These capabilities are what set industry-specific tools apart from generic ERP systems, which often fail to adequately support specific tasks; this, in turn, risks inefficiencies and can impact profitability across your business.

Can You Easily Access Data and Connect to External Services?   

A crucial aspect of any ERP system is data accessibility. If you are tethered to a solution that complicates data retrieval or limits your ability to generate custom reports, it stifles your ability to make informed business decisions.

Assess how your current industry-specific tools to make sure they do the following:

• Allow access to data to build insightful reports and dashboards
• Provide seamless integration with other applications
• Create a unified view of your data to inform key decisions 

Ready to Simplify Your Cloud Migration?

Why change a system that has worked well for a long time? The answer is straightforward: the pace of change is accelerating, and systems that were once secure are now vulnerable to increasing security and cyber threats. Consider how many IT security professionals you plan to hire for your organisation.

An alternative is to run your ERP solution in the cloud and collaborate with your cloud provider on a robust security package. Typically, cloud providers implement the latest security measures and employ hundreds of security experts globally.

Such a level of security is nearly impossible for individual organisations to achieve, when they’d be better served focusing their resources on growth and innovation.

It’s essential to work on your core business rather than on becoming an IT powerhouse. In contrast, when you move your data to the cloud, that security and IT powerhouse comes along with the migration. 

Regarding ERP systems, you have a significant advantage if your solution is built on the Microsoft.NET framework and uses a Microsoft SQL database. Transitioning to a Microsoft Azure cloud environment with this combination puts you in a strong position, as it allows for the fast and flexible deployment, management, and operation of your ERP system.

This is precisely what Epicor offers with its BisTrack cloud solution. Epicor BisTrack provides a comprehensive and tailored ERP solution specifically designed for builders’ merchants, timber yards, and wholesalers. Unlike one-size-fits-all solutions, Epicor BisTrack stands out in several ways:

Adaptability

Rather than being designed only for one size or type of building supply business, BisTrack adjusts to your needs and changing supply chain dynamics. This ability to deliver consistency across multiple locations (if needed) while remaining flexible means you get a system that grows and scales with you.

Specialisation

BisTrack speaks the language of today’s builders’ merchants, including cubing to determine key measurements and tally to analyse the environmental impact of various materials.

Browser-Based UI

In contrast to other solutions that are hybrid or desktop-centric, BisTrack’s browser-based UI lowers IT costs, offers access from anywhere on any device, provides enhanced security and compliance advantages, supports increased innovation, and aligns enterprise software with modern work patterns.

You deserve a streamlined, cloud-based solution that frees you up to spend more time nurturing customer relationships and growing your building supply business.

If you have any questions about Epicor, BisTrack, or how our solutions can enhance your operations within the building supply industry, please feel free to contact us at info.uk@epicor.com.

FAQs  

• Is BisTrack suitable for builders’ merchants? BisTrack is an industry-specific solution designed for builders’ merchants, timber yards, and wholesalers.

• What types of building supply businesses use BisTrack? BisTrack serves owners, operations leaders, finance leaders, and site managers across a variety of specialties, including heavy side materials, plasterboard, roofing and siding, hardwood timber, wainscoting and laminates, home improvement centres, doors & joinery, and truss & compression.

• Does BisTrack support yard and delivery operations? Yes, BisTrack is designed to manage bulk, length-based, and variable-weight materials. Epicor BisTrack Dispatch & Delivery streamlines delivery scheduling, vehicle assignment, and route optimisation, helping you improve fleet efficiency, reduce errors, and deliver exceptional customer service. BisTrack also integrates with What 3 Words to ensure deliveries reach the exact correct location the first time, every time.
• How is BisTrack different from general ERP systems? Unlike generic ERP platforms, BisTrack is designed specifically for product-centric and trade-focused builders’ merchants, with native support for timber yard operations, trade pricing, delivery logistics, and site-level‑ inventory management.
• Can BisTrack handle trade pricing and rebates? Yes, Bis Track automates rebate calculations, payments, reporting, and compliance checks, eliminating inefficient, error-prone manual processes.

Case studies/examples

Founded in 1981, Coventry Plumbing and Heating Supplies provides a wide range of the latest in bathroom design, plumbing, and heating supplies. They use BisTrack deployed in the cloud across all three of their locations, supporting the entire lifecycle from initial quotes through to order fulfilment and payments, and the results speak for themselves.

“So many features in the latest version of Epicor BisTrack have improved our user experience and helped power our business to better serve customers,” says Office Manager Lucy Tinkler. “Now we’re able to turn around quotes two times faster and with improved accuracy, which translates to more orders.”

James Latham, one of the UK and Ireland's largest independent distributors of timber, panels, and decorative surfaces, has a history dating back to 1757— so they’ve seen plenty of industry changes. With shifting market prices and ongoing challenges in supply lines, James Latham relies on technology to minimise the impact of outside factors and help ensure the company's 12 depots have the right products at the right time.

According to IT Manager Sophie Trabucchi, “Being current on Epicor BisTrack opens up the ability to do so much more with three big platform advantages: speed, better ways to use intelligence, and new efficiencies in the warehouse, across sales, and with customer management.”