What manufacturing software has to do
Accounting and inventory systems record what you bought and sold. Manufacturing software has to record what happens in between: materials turned into products, in batches, on machines, by people, with waste and rework along the way.
The practical test is one product. Pick something you make every week and ask the vendor to follow it from a customer order through materials, production, inspection and finished stock, ending in a cost per unit.
Test 1: your bill of materials, as you make it
Bring a real BOM with its components, quantities, units and any sub-assemblies. Check that it can be modelled with versions, so a change in design does not rewrite history, and that components can be bought or made.
If your process has routing steps such as cutting, assembly and finishing, check those can be modelled too, with the work centres or machines involved.
Test 2: MRP that you would trust
Material requirements planning (MRP) should take demand from orders and forecasts, explode it through every level of the BOM, net it against stock, incoming receipts and reservations, and propose what to buy and what to make, with dates.
Run it in the demo for a real month and check the answers against what your store manager would have ordered. If the vendor cannot run MRP live, treat it as missing.
Test 3: materials drawn from stock
When a production order is confirmed, the materials it needs should be checked and reserved. When a batch starts, they should be issued from stock without anyone posting a manual adjustment. Ask to see raw-material stock before and after a batch.
This link is what keeps the store and the shop floor in agreement, and it is the step most often left to spreadsheets.
Test 4: quality recorded per batch
Ask how inspections are defined (templates and stages), how results are recorded per batch, and what happens when something fails: a non-conformance report, corrective and preventive action, and a record of the root cause.
If you supply larger customers, check that certificates, labels and a compliance register can be kept and produced on request.
Test 5: real cost per unit
Ask to see a finished batch with its material, labour, machine and overhead cost, and the resulting cost per unit. Then ask how variance against the planned cost is reported.
Without this, pricing decisions rest on an estimate made once and rarely revisited.
What drives the cost
Pricing varies by modules, users and plants. The larger costs are often BOM and routing set-up, data migration, training and integration with inventory and accounting. Ask for each as a line item, and compare total first-year cost.
Questions to put to every vendor
Use the same questions with each vendor so the answers are comparable.
- Model one of my BOMs with a sub-assembly and a version change.
- Run MRP for next month and show the buy and make lists.
- Show raw-material stock before and after a batch.
- Record an inspection, fail one, and show the NCR and CAPA.
- Show cost per unit for a finished batch, and its variance.
- What does year one cost in total, including set-up and training?
Options available in Nepal
Manufacturing software in Nepal ranges from accounting packages with production add-ons to full ERP suites. Shortlist across that range.
Descriptions below are the vendors' own positioning, taken from their public websites in October 2026. They are not rankings and we have not tested every product. Vividia is a vendor too, so check every claim, including ours, in a demo with your own data.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central: an ERP used by larger organisations, covering finance, operations and manufacturing.
- NitiERP: describes itself as an IRD-approved ERP with POS, inventory, accounting, HRM and industry packs.
- OptERP: a modular ERP positioned for Nepali businesses with industry-specific workflows.
- Providhy: ERP aimed at distributors and trading companies.
- Kishan Care: ERP focused on dairy operations.
- Vividia Manufacturing: BOMs, MRP, production orders and batches, work orders, quality control with NCR and CAPA, waste, and cost per unit, with materials issued from Vividia IMS.
