Personal ERP system

Well, they strive to, and there are special editions and tons of third party add-ons. But ultimately, it is up to you do deicide what your ERP system should look like and whether or not there is "off the shelf" solution available. You could rely solely on Quickbooks, or make the Quickbooks a part of your ERP, or go with something else all together. The sky (and the size of your pocketbook) is the limit.

OK thanks for reply

I'm still a bit fizzy on just what an ERP system should do tho

Any opinions on that?

ERP is a buzzword of a few years back; it stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. Basically it means an information management system (as simple or complex as it can be) that integrates all aspects of the business. Specifics vary for different industries: it could be integration between manufacturing facilities, warehouse, retail, and tying everything into accounting at the main office.

ERP and QuickBooks follow the same philosophy: "Do not enter anything twice" (not an exact quote).

The goal of the ERP is to give an insight into every aspect of the business that the system deals with; inventory control or order tracking, for example. Good ERP systems would theoretically let you do rapid "resource planning", but, despite the name, real world ERP systems often much more concerned with the task of integrating every function of the company into a single computer system, than anything else.