ERP that tracks every signage job from quote to install,
and shows what each one earns.
See your real margin per job from the first cost. Every variation order has a number, a price, and an approval before production starts. Material cost lands on the job, not a spreadsheet.
5 wks
Typical go-live
Per job
Live margins
Zero
Unbilled variations
Common Challenges
The problems you already know.
Variation orders lost in WhatsApp. Material costs found at month-end. Jobs overrunning on labour with no one watching. ERP fixes this, but only if it's set up the way signage and fitout really works.
You only know what a job earned after it's closed
Material costs, install labour, and subcontractor work sit in different places. By the time you work out the real margin, the client's already been billed.
How we solve it
Every material issue, timesheet, and subcontractor bill lands on the job as it happens. Margin per job is live from the first cost recorded.
Material waste and over-ordering eating into your profit
Materials ordered job by job, with no check on what's already in stock. Off-cuts and leftover substrate written off with no record. Buying team orders things already on the shelf.
How we solve it
Material needs planned per job against current stock. Off-cuts and remnants stored in a separate area. New purchases triggered only for what's missing.
Installs and deliveries booked on WhatsApp
Crews sent to sites with no confirmed access. Materials arriving before installers are ready. Clients angry because no one has one view of what's going out when.
How we solve it
Delivery notes and install work orders linked to the job. One dispatch calendar shows all outgoing jobs. Site updates flow back to the job, live.
Variation orders billed late, or not at all
Client asks for a change verbally. Your team does the extra work. The change never makes it to the invoice because no one wrote it down in the system.
How we solve it
Variation orders raised against the original job. Each one is priced, approved, and billed on its own line. Nothing slips because it's recorded the moment the change is asked for.
Project flow
How a signage and fitout job flows through the system.
Every job follows the same nine stages, from enquiry to retention release. Each stage is a document in the system that feeds the next one. Nothing falls through the cracks because nothing relies on someone remembering to do it.
Enquiry
Customer enquiry captured with scope, budget, and timeline. Routed to the right estimator. Every follow-up logged on the lead.
System documents
Site Survey
On-site visit. Measurements, photos, access notes, and constraints recorded. The output goes straight to design.
System documents
Design & Drawings
Concept work, technical drawings, and the bill of materials produced. Client approval recorded against the drawing version.
System documents
Estimation & Quote
Materials, labour, machine time, and overheads costed. Quotation built from the same numbers the production team will see.
System documents
Sales Order & Project
Order confirmed. Deposit invoice raised. A live project opens with the budget locked in and the team assigned.
System documents
Procurement
Material requests raised against the project. Purchase orders matched against suppliers. Stock allocated to the job, not the warehouse pool.
System documents
Production
Job cards opened. Fabrication, machine hours, and labour logged against the job. Quality checks recorded before dispatch.
System documents
Installation
Delivered to site. Install crew assigned. Snag list raised and cleared. Customer signs off the installation on the spot.
System documents
Handover & Retention
Final invoice raised against the milestone. Warranty period tracked. Retention released when the warranty ends, automatically scheduled.
System documents
Each document links to the next. The system blocks shortcuts: you cannot raise a purchase order without a project, or a final invoice without a signed installation. The chain is the controls.
Inside the scope
Eleven areas of your business, set up to work together.
Not just turning the software on. The signage and fitout setup covers your sales pipeline, the production floor, project profitability, finance, and your team, configured the way the trade actually runs.
Lead and customer pipeline
Every enquiry that comes in, captured in one place. Every follow-up and quote stays attached to the customer. Nothing slips between WhatsApp, email, and your rep's notebook.
Quotes, sales orders, invoices
Build quotations, turn them into sales orders, and invoice when the work is done. The whole enquiry-to-cash flow runs in one screen. No double entry. No exports to Excel.
Estimates that match the real job
Build accurate estimates that account for materials, labour, and timelines. Save them as templates so every estimator follows the same logic. Same trade, same numbers, no surprises at handover.
Plan the work, see the progress
Resources, tasks, and timelines on one dashboard. You see what's on track, what's at risk, and where the time is going. The team knows what to do next without a daily standup to find out.
Built-in reports
- Work-in-progress, live
- Profitability per project
- Estimated vs actual variance
Production tied to the project
Production tasks live inside the project module. Material used and hours spent roll up to the job they belong to. The site supervisor and the accountant see the same numbers.
Know what your machines and team are doing
Live view of machine and labour utilisation. Who's busy, who's free, what's running, what's idle. Plan tomorrow's work without guessing today's capacity.
Profit per job, no guesswork
Compare what each job cost against what it earned. See the gap between your estimate and your actuals. Catch the leak before the next quote goes out at the same price.
Buying tied to the job that needs it
Purchase orders raised against the project they're for. Suppliers, requisitions, and stock movements in one place. Stock levels match the shelf, not last week's count.
Every dirham in and out, properly recorded
Accounts payable, receivable, general ledger, and banking. Vendor payments, customer receipts, bank reconciliation. UAE chart of accounts ready for VAT from day one.
Reports your accountant and your bank both want
Balance sheet, profit and loss, cash flow. Pull any of them in seconds. The same numbers your CFO and your bank ask for, without the month-end Excel ritual.
Staff, salaries, leave, and documents
Employee records, attendance, and leave in line with UAE labour law. Payroll runs in the WPS format the bank expects. Gratuity accrues as people work, not at exit. Visa and document expiry alerts fire well before the date. Job postings and applicant tracking included.
Client Result
A real signage implementation.
The Situation
Roots is a serious business. They build for Dyson, Google, Aldar, the kind of clients that don't tolerate slipups. So when they brought us in, the brief surprised me. Their existing ERPNext was sitting unused. Estimation was so painful the team had quietly stopped using it, they were back on spreadsheets. Production was logging entries, but nothing matched reality on the floor. Finance had never been switched on. We weren't there to implement, we were there to revive.
What We Did
We started where the pain was sharpest, estimation. I sat with the estimator for two days, and we redesigned the flow from scratch. Quote-to-estimation as one continuous workflow. Calculations that update automatically when anything changes. A summary panel that lets the team sanity-check a job before it goes out. Once estimation was back, production followed naturally. Task planning, material requests, transfer validation, a profitability report per job. Then HR, payroll, finance, all turned on, configured, running. The CFO told me later: 'You didn't add anything we didn't already have. You just made the things we owned actually work.' That's the rescue brief.
Outcomes
Estimation process
Back in use after being abandoned entirely
Quotation updates
Automated — no manual recalculation
Job profitability visibility
Per-job report, real-time
Payroll & finance
Activated and running inside ERPNext
Questions
Questions signage companies ask us.
Can the system track material cost per job, live?
Yes. Every material issued to a job is posted to that job's cost record right then. If your team pulls substrate or vinyl from the warehouse, it shows on the job cost report straight away. No waiting for the job to close.
How do we handle variation orders the client approves verbally?
You raise a variation order against the original job with its own scope, price, and billing amount. When the client approves, by email, signature, or a WhatsApp message you attach, the variation is marked approved. Production starts against the approved variation. Billing is separate from the original contract so you always see what was base scope and what was extra.
We use outside installers. How are their costs tracked against the job?
You raise a subcontract work order linked to the job with the scope and agreed rate. When the installer sends their bill, you check it against the work order. The cost lands on the job cost record. You see the full job margin, including install, not just fabrication.
Can we track off-cuts and remnants for reuse?
Yes. We set up a separate stock area for remnants and off-cuts. When production uses full sheets but leaves usable off-cuts, a transfer moves them to the remnant area at zero cost. A future job uses the remnant at zero or near-zero cost. Write-offs drop fast.
How does stage billing work for a typical signage job?
You set the stages when the job is set up: design sign-off, production done, delivery, and final install sign-off. Each stage has a billing percentage. When the stage is reached, the invoice for that stage is raised. Variation orders are billed as a separate line on the final invoice or as their own invoice, whichever you prefer.
Signage & Fitout ERP
Send us a live job.
Send us one of your live jobs. We'll show you exactly how the system would handle the design sign-off, the production cost, and the variations on that job. No generic demo.
We typically respond within a few hours during UAE business hours.