Best Order Management Software for Manufacturers and Distributors (2026)

The best order management software for most manufacturers and distributors is the sales order module already in their ERP, such as Epicor Kinetic, Epicor Prophet 21, Oracle NetSuite or Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, because pricing, inventory, credit and invoicing already live there. A separate order management system (OMS) such as Fluent Commerce, Brightpearl or Cin7 earns its place when orders come through many online channels and ship from many warehouses or stores. B2B ordering portals such as OroCommerce, Shopify B2B and Pepperi let customers and reps place orders themselves. For most manufacturers the real gap is order capture: getting the purchase orders customers send by EDI, email and PDF into the ERP accurately, which is where EDI providers such as SPS Commerce and AI order-entry tools such as Conexiom and Fluent fit.

Fluent is one of the options below; we have tried to be fair.

The four approaches

"Order management" is used by vendors in four different categories. Decide which problem you are solving before you compare products.

• ERP sales order management. The order module inside your ERP: Order Entry in Epicor Kinetic, and the order management in Prophet 21, NetSuite and Business Central. The order is created where pricing, available inventory, credit limits, production and invoicing already are. Every manufacturer and distributor on an ERP already owns one. If the ERP itself is still under review, compare seven manufacturing ERPs first.
• Standalone and distributed order management systems. Software that sits above one or more ERPs and sales channels, decides where each order ships from, and tracks it through fulfillment. It is built for many channels, many locations and high order counts. Fluent Commerce, Brightpearl and Cin7 are examples, each with a different center of gravity.
• B2B ordering portals and eCommerce. A storefront or app where customers, or your own sales reps, place orders against customer-specific catalogs and prices. OroCommerce, Shopify B2B and Pepperi are examples. Orders placed here are structured from the start.
• Order capture. Getting the orders customers send you into the ERP. EDI providers such as SPS Commerce handle trading partners who send EDI. AI order-entry tools such as Conexiom and Fluent read the purchase orders that arrive as PDFs, spreadsheets, scans and email bodies, and prepare the sales order.

These categories overlap more than they compete. A typical mid-market manufacturer runs the ERP's order module, receives EDI from its largest customers, and keys everything else by hand from email. A portal can move some of that email onto structured orders, but only for customers willing to log in. The useful question is which piece is missing.

Comparison table

"Ask" means we could not confirm the answer from the vendor's public positioning.

Evaluation criteria

1. Do you already have order management in your ERP?

If you run Epicor Kinetic, Prophet 21, NetSuite, Business Central or a similar ERP, you already have sales orders, pricing, available-to-promise and invoicing in one place. A second system that also holds orders means a second copy of customers, parts and prices to keep in step. Buy one when the ERP cannot do something you need, such as routing orders across dozens of stores and warehouses.

2. How do your orders arrive today?

Pull a month of incoming orders and sort them by channel: EDI, portal or webshop, email with a PDF or spreadsheet, email body, phone, and fax or scan. The mix tells you which category matters. A company whose orders are mostly emailed PDFs gains little from a new OMS and a lot from order capture.

3. How many channels and ship-from locations do you run?

Distributed order management earns its cost when one order can be filled from several places and the choice matters: stores, regional warehouses, third-party logistics providers and drop-ship suppliers. A manufacturer shipping from one or two plants usually has that logic in the ERP already.

4. Will your customers order through a portal?

Portals work well for repeat buyers of catalog items who like self-service. Many industrial customers will keep sending a purchase order from their own system, because their purchasing process requires it. Plan for both: a portal for those who use it, and capture for everyone else.

5. What happens to customer part numbers, units and prices?

This is where orders go wrong. Customers write their own part numbers, order in cases while you sell in each, and quote a price from last year's agreement. Ask each vendor how a customer's part number is resolved to yours, how units are handled, and how a price difference is shown before the order is saved.

6. What happens when something does not match?

Ask what the person on the order desk sees when the customer, ship-to or a line cannot be resolved, or when the same PO arrives twice. A good answer names the line and what was searched, and waits for a person.

7. What sits in or near your ERP?

Ask what gets installed, what access is granted, and how it is scoped. Some tools use import files or staging tables; others call the ERP's API from outside. Your ERP administrator will want this answer in writing.

8. Who changes the behavior?

When a customer changes its PO layout or you add a new customer, find out whether your own team can adjust the tool, or whether it needs a mapping project or a change request to the vendor.

Best for, option by option

Epicor Kinetic. Kinetic's sales management covers quotes, Order Entry and order management, with Epicor's EDI/Demand Management, Sales Order Automation and CPQ listed in the same suite. For a manufacturer already on Kinetic, this is the order management system; the work is usually in getting orders into it. See our guide to automating Epicor sales order entry.

Epicor Prophet 21. A distribution ERP whose order management takes orders from the counter, mobile devices and online channels, alongside CRM, inventory and warehouse management. Best for wholesale distributors who want order management built around distribution workflows.

Oracle NetSuite. Order management is included in the NetSuite license and covers the order from entry to fulfillment and payment, with rules for how orders are fulfilled, split shipments and drop ship. Its multichannel order management decides how to fill an order from available inventory across locations. Best for companies already on NetSuite that sell through several channels.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Sales orders with partial shipments, multi-location inventory, drop shipments and special orders linked to purchase orders. Best for small and mid-sized manufacturers and distributors standardized on Microsoft.

Fluent Commerce. A distributed order management system that orchestrates orders across channels, stores and warehouses, for B2C, B2B, B2B2C and direct-to-consumer businesses. Its published customers are mostly retail and consumer brands. Best for high-volume fulfillment across many locations. Fluent Commerce is a separate company with no connection to Fluent, the last entry in this list.

Brightpearl. Positions itself as a retail operating system for multichannel ecommerce, serving ecommerce, direct-to-consumer, and wholesale and B2B businesses, with integrations to Shopify, Amazon, BigCommerce and other channels. Best for brands and wholesalers whose orders mostly come from online stores and marketplaces.

Cin7. Cloud inventory management that Cin7 also describes as a small business ERP, for manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors, and retailers. It includes EDI and a B2B portal. Best for growing product businesses that have outgrown spreadsheets and accounting software but are not on a full manufacturing ERP.

OroCommerce. A B2B eCommerce platform for manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors, with customer-specific catalogs and pricing and RFQ workflows, available as SaaS or on premise. Oro publishes an integration with Prophet 21. Best for companies with complex catalogs that want customers to order online.

Shopify B2B. B2B features in Shopify Plus that let a business sell to businesses and consumers from one platform, aimed at wholesalers, distributors, manufacturers and direct-to-consumer brands adding wholesale. Best for brands that sell both wholesale and direct.

Pepperi. A B2B commerce platform for brands and wholesale distributors that combines a B2B eCommerce portal, order taking for sales reps, and direct store delivery. Best for consumer goods brands and distributors with field sales teams.

SPS Commerce. An EDI network connecting retailers, brands, manufacturers and distributors, with full-service EDI and an Epicor ERP integration. Best for suppliers to large retailers that require EDI. It does not help with the customer who emails a PDF.

Conexiom. Order automation for manufacturing and distribution that turns emailed and PDF orders, RFQs, vendor order acknowledgements and invoices into ERP data, with support for 40+ ERPs including SAP, NetSuite, Dynamics 365 and Epicor. Best for companies running several ERPs that want one capture tool. See Fluent vs Conexiom and Conexiom alternatives for Epicor.

Fluent. AI agents that read customer purchase orders in any format and draft the sales order in the ERP for a person to review. Built around Epicor Kinetic and also offered for Prophet 21, NetSuite, Business Central and other ERPs. Best for Epicor Kinetic teams that want order capture without installing anything inside Epicor.

Where Fluent fits, and where it does not

Fluent is order capture. It sits in front of your ERP's order management and does not replace it. Fluent is not an ERP, not an OMS, does not route orders across warehouses, is not a B2B portal, is not an EDI VAN or translator, and is not a CPQ. If you need any of those, the options above are the ones to evaluate.

What Fluent does: the Order Entry agent reads a customer purchase order as a PDF, scan, photo, spreadsheet, email body, XML or EDI document. It resolves the customer, the ship-to, the customer's own part numbers, units of measure as the document states them, and prices against live Epicor data, and flags a PO number the customer has already sent. If the customer cannot be matched, the order is drafted with a note of what was searched and waits for a person. Nothing posts until a person processes the draft, and every field read and every decision is recorded on the document.

There are no templates per customer, no field mapping and no model training. Behavior is set with written instructions, and corrections become instructions. Fluent connects to Epicor Kinetic's REST API from outside, with no customization, BPM, staging table or import file, and each agent generates an Epicor access scope listing the services it calls. It works with Kinetic on premise or hosted by Epicor.

Sales orders are one of ten Kinetic screens Fluent covers. The same platform drafts Quote Entry, Customer Shipment, AR Invoice Entry and Cash Receipts Entry on the order-to-cash side, and PO Entry, Receipt Entry and AP Invoice Entry on the procure-to-pay side.

Where another option fits better: if your orders come from webshops and marketplaces and ship from many locations, you need an OMS. If your customers will order in a portal, a B2B eCommerce platform reduces the orders that need capturing at all. If a retailer requires EDI, keep an EDI provider. If you run several ERPs and want one capture vendor, Conexiom supports more ERPs today.

How to choose

• Orders mostly from online stores and marketplaces, shipped from many locations: an OMS such as Fluent Commerce or Brightpearl, or NetSuite's multichannel order management if you are on NetSuite.
• Small product business without a full ERP: Cin7 covers inventory, orders, EDI and a B2B portal in one product.
• Repeat customers buying catalog items: a B2B portal such as OroCommerce, Shopify B2B or Pepperi, connected to your ERP.
• Large retail customers that require EDI: an EDI provider such as SPS Commerce.
• Customers who email purchase orders as PDFs, spreadsheets and email bodies: an AI order-entry tool. On Epicor Kinetic, compare Fluent, Conexiom and Epicor's own Sales Order Automation.
• Already on an ERP with working order management: keep it. Fix how orders get in before you add a second system that holds orders.

Whatever you shortlist, test it on your own orders, including the messy ones: customer part numbers, orders in cases when you sell in each, prices that differ from your list, and the PO that arrives twice.

See it on your own purchase orders

If Epicor Kinetic is your ERP, the order entry automation page covers sales orders in detail, and all products lists the other agents. Plans and usage credits are on the pricing page. You can book a demo and run Fluent on a batch of your own customer POs.