1. One database, or modules glued together?
Ask the vendor to enter an invoice in front of you, then open the inventory report and the financial report. If each needs a separate entry or a "data transfer", it is not integrated. When modules share one database, the inventory number and the financial number are the same number.
2. Can a document be traced from start to finish?
In a manufacturer an order starts as a quotation, reaches a warehouse issue, becomes an invoice and finally a journal entry. Ask whether you can go back from the journal entry to its invoice and quotation. A "document chain" means record once, trace to the end.
3. Are production and quality control really inside the system?
Production planning, batch inspection, holding a suspect batch and resolving it (release, scrap or return), recording non-conformance and corrective action, and batch genealogy for fast recalls are the things to see in the demo. If quality control is just a scanned paper form, it does not talk to inventory and reports.
4. What about machinery and after-sales service?
For the production line, a periodic service plan per machine and usage logging matter. For sales, starting a service request from the item serial number, the warranty status and referral to a technician by capacity. Ask whether these are part of the same system or a separate add-on.
5. Can approval processes change without a programmer?
The approval path for quotations, warehouse issues or contracts changes as the company grows. If every change is a request to the software team, you will go in circles within months. Look for a visual process designer and a form builder that let you define stages and the rules for moving between them.
6. Does it support multiple companies and fiscal years?
If you run a group of companies, you need to manage several companies and fiscal years in one installation and grant each user access per fiscal year. People usually discover this after buying, not before.
7. Cloud, or on your own server?
Some organizations will not let data leave, and some do not want to run servers. Ask whether both paths are supported, and how software updates are delivered and by whom.
8. How fine-grained is user access?
"Admin and user" is not enough. Ask whether access can be set per menu, form and operation, and whether an audit trail (who changed what, when, and from which value) is recorded.
Demo checklist
| Question | What you should see |
|---|---|
| Data integration | Enter one invoice and see its effect in inventory and finance with no manual transfer |
| Document chain | Go from a journal entry to its invoice and quotation |
| Production and quality | Batch inspection, quarantine, non-conformance and its report |
| Maintenance and after-sales | A machine service plan and a service request started from a serial number |
| Changeability | Build a new approval path in front of you, with no coding |
| Multi-company | Switch between two companies and two fiscal years |
| Deployment | Cloud and self-hosted options and the update method |
| Access and audit | Access by menu/form and a change history |
Where does Afrandeh stand on this checklist?
Afrandeh (a product of Fekrgostar Fanavar) is a web-based ERP whose modules share one database. On this very checklist:
- A document chain from quotation to invoice and journal entry, fully traceable.
- Quality control: per-item inspection definitions, batch inspection, quarantine, non-conformance and corrective action (NCR/CAPA), batch genealogy, quality certificates and AQL sampling.
- Maintenance: machine definition, versioned services, a plan per machine and mileage usage logging.
- After-sales service: starting from the item serial, approval, referral by technician capacity and closing with a handover checklist.
- BPMS: process and form design with no coding, a Kanban board and permissions per user and stage.
- Multi-company and multi-fiscal-year, cloud or self-hosted deployment, and role-based access.
What it does not have, so you are not surprised later: there is no standalone "fixed assets" module in Afrandeh, and material shortage calculation happens only inside production planning, not as a separate module. Electronic signing is currently wired to contracts only.