MRP for small business, without the ERP project
Cloud-based MRP built for manufacturers with 2 to 50 people: lot-tracked inventory, recipes and BOMs, quality control, and native Shopify sync. Set up in days. No consultants, no per-user fees.
The moment a small manufacturer needs MRP
Nobody adopts an MRP system because a blog told them to. It happens after one of these:
- Two orders claimed the same stock, and one customer got an apology instead of a shipment.
- A supplier flagged a bad batch and tracing where it went took two days of tab-hopping.
- The spreadsheet says 80 units; the shelf says 63. Nobody knows which movement went unlogged.
- A product expired in storage because nothing warned anyone it was aging out.
- You quoted a job from last quarter’s material costs and the margin quietly evaporated.
If two or more of these sound familiar, your spreadsheets have already told you their limit. Our article on MRP vs Excel goes deeper on the switch.
What small-business MRP should look like
Simple does not mean shallow
A simple MRP system should be simple to run, not simple-minded. IEMSuite keeps the daily surface small - receive, produce, ship - while the engine underneath tracks every lot, freezes cost at allocation, and refuses to oversell. Guided in-app tours walk each module; most teams run their first tracked lot on day one.
Cloud-based, nothing to install
IEMSuite is cloud MRP software: it runs in the browser, updates itself, and your data is backed up centrally. The warehouse, the office, and your accountant see the same live numbers. If you sell on Shopify, it also runs embedded inside Shopify admin.
The guardrails small teams skip
Small manufacturers usually postpone QC and traceability "until we are bigger". That is backwards - a recall or a lost lawsuit hurts a 10-person company more. Lot tracking, expiry-first picking (FEFO), and QC holds are defaults here, not enterprise add-ons.
Costs that do not punish growth
Per-user pricing makes a growing team a growing bill, so people share logins and the audit trail dies. IEMSuite plans are feature-tiered with no per-seat fees: hire your fifth, tenth, twentieth person and the invoice does not care.
Frequently asked questions
What is MRP software for a small business?
MRP (Material Requirements Planning) software tracks materials, production, and stock so a manufacturer knows what to buy, what to make, and when. For a small business it replaces the web of spreadsheets tracking inventory, BOMs, and orders with one system where a stock movement in the warehouse updates everything else instantly.
Is MRP overkill for a small manufacturing business?
Not if you make physical products in batches. The signals you are ready: you have oversold, you cannot trace a bad batch quickly, spreadsheet counts drift from reality, or you cannot state the true cost of a finished order. If none of those have happened yet, spreadsheets may genuinely still be fine.
How is cloud-based MRP different from on-premise?
Cloud MRP runs in the browser with nothing to install or maintain - updates, backups, and security patches happen centrally, and everyone works from the same live data. On-premise MRP runs on your own servers, which means more control but also an IT burden most small manufacturers do not want.
What does a simple MRP system cost?
Typical small-business cloud MRP pricing runs per user per month (commonly $50–150 per seat), base-plus-add-ons, or feature-tiered plans. IEMSuite is feature-tiered with no per-user fees and is free during Early Access - current plan details are on the pricing page.
How long does setup take?
Days, not months. Import products, set up locations and units, load opening stock as lots, and connect Shopify if you sell there. Guided in-app tours cover each module. There is no implementation partner or consulting project.
Try it with your own products
Import a few SKUs, receive a lot, run a batch, ship an order. Free during Early Access, whole team included.
Start free