10 Best Order Management Software in the UK

A customer has ordered 500 units. There are 280 sitting in stock, another 150 are due from a supplier next week, and nobody has confirmed where the last 70 will come from.

The sales team now has a few decisions to make. Ship what is available? Wait for the supplier? Find the missing stock elsewhere? And, perhaps most importantly, what delivery date should the customer be given?

These situations are common in wholesale, distribution and retail. They also show why order management software is more than a way to record sales orders. The system needs to bring together stock, purchasing and fulfilment so that people can see what is happening and act accordingly.

The requirements vary from one business to another. A retailer operating from a single warehouse may need relatively straightforward order and stock control. A UK distributor with several warehouses, thousands of SKUs and a large supplier base will have a very different set of requirements. So, there is no one-size-fits-all option when it comes to choosing Best Order Management Software. But to make it easy, we have curated this list of 10 best order management software options in the UK based on the business requirements.

What is Order Management Software?

Order management software is used to keep customer orders on track after they come in. It gives the team a view of the order, the stock behind it, and anything that still needs to be sorted out.

Take a simple case. A customer orders four items, but the warehouse only has three. The business might send the three available items, move stock from another location or order the missing one from a supplier.

With a small number of orders, people can keep track of this themselves. They might use a spreadsheet, email, or a few different systems. That becomes much harder when the number of orders starts climbing. An OMS keeps the main order and stock information together, so the team can see what has happened and what needs to happen next.

10 Best Order Management Software in the UK

Let's know more about the 10 best Order Management Software options in the UK. 

1. Dynamics 365 Business Central

Business Central is a different kind of option here. It is an ERP, so order management is only one part of what it covers. Sales, purchasing, inventory, warehousing and finance can all sit in the same system.

For a wholesaler, that can make a real difference. Say a customer orders 500 units and only 320 are available. The business now has to decide what can be shipped, what needs to be bought and when the remaining stock should arrive.

That work does not have to start again in a separate purchasing system. The sales order is already part of the wider process, so purchasing and inventory teams can work from the same information.

This is probably the strongest reason to consider Business Central for order management. You don’t need another tool for processing orders. Business Central is designed to keep operations connected.

It also supports inventory across different locations, including transfers between warehouses. Microsoft documents that inventory changes are recorded when purchase and sales documents are posted, which helps keep stock movements tied to the underlying transactions. Businesses looking to improve stock control can also explore Business Central inventory management.

There is an important distinction here.

If the only problem is synchronising Amazon and Shopify orders, a specialist ecommerce platform may be a better fit. If sales, purchasing, stock and finance are all part of the problem, an ERP starts to look much more sensible.

2. Linnworks

Linnworks is built around a problem that becomes familiar to ecommerce businesses very quickly: too many places to check.

One order comes through the website. Another arrives from a marketplace. A third needs to be fulfilled from a different warehouse.

The customer sees one company. Internally, the business may be dealing with several separate order streams.

Linnworks brings those orders together and connects them with inventory and fulfilment. That is its main appeal.

Linnworks focuses mainly on ecommerce, inventory and fulfilment. That’s why it becomes a good option for a retailer selling through several channels that needs better control over orders and stock, but doesn't require a full ERP. The ecommerce and warehouse teams can focus on the parts of the process they deal with every day.

3. Brightpearl

Brightpearl is aimed at retail and wholesale operations where order processing does not happen in isolation.

A retailer may have strong sales but weak purchasing discipline. Another might have stock arriving regularly without a reliable view of outstanding customer demand. Once volumes increase, those gaps become expensive.

Brightpearl brings order management together with inventory and purchasing processes, giving retail businesses a broader operational view.

It is therefore more interesting to a growing retailer than a basic order dashboard would be. The system has to answer not only what has been sold? but also what stock is committed, what is coming in and what needs attention?

That is the point at which retail order management starts to overlap with wider operations.

4. Cin7

Cin7 is worth putting on the shortlist when inventory is a major part of the problem.

Think about a business with hundreds or thousands of SKUs, several sales channels and regular replenishment. Every customer order affects the available stock figure. Purchasing decisions affect what can be promised to customers next week.

Those activities are closely connected in Cin7.

The platform covers areas such as purchasing, inventory and order management, making it more suitable for product businesses than companies that simply need a basic sales-order tracker.

For businesses with complicated stock movements, the question is less about finding an attractive order screen and more about whether the system gives purchasing, sales and operations the same version of the stock position.

5. NetSuite

NetSuite belongs further up the complexity scale.

A large business might have several warehouses, multiple sales channels and different rules for allocating limited stock. It may also need order fulfilment to connect directly with the wider ERP and finance environment.

That is where NetSuite becomes a serious contender.

Its order management capabilities are part of a much broader ERP platform, so the business is not buying an isolated OMS and then working out how to connect it to everything else.

The downside is obvious: this is a bigger system.

A small retailer processing a manageable number of online orders does not need enterprise-level infrastructure simply because it is available. NetSuite makes more sense when the underlying business operation is complex enough to justify it.

6. Sage 200

Sage 200 is still a good fit for a type of business that often gets missed in order management discussions: established UK wholesalers and distributors.

These businesses may not sell through five different online marketplaces. Orders can come from an account manager, a sales office or a customer at a trade counter. Once an order is placed, though, the same questions still need answering. Is the stock available? Does more need to be ordered? Has the right customer price been used? And will the order and invoice be reflected correctly in finance?

Sage 200 brings these areas together, which is one reason it remains relevant for this market.

There is also the question of what the business already uses. If finance and other teams are working with Sage, adding another system just to handle orders may not make much sense. It means another integration, another set of records to manage and another system for employees to learn. Explore also - Business Central vs Sage 200: Which ERP Is Better for UK Businesses?.

7. Veeqo

Veeqo is mainly aimed at retailers that have reached the point where handling orders across different channels is becoming a warehouse problem.

An order comes in from the website. Another comes through a marketplace. There may be several more waiting in the queue. Someone then has to check the stock, work out which warehouse should fulfil each order and get the right items picked and packed.

Veeqo brings these orders into one place and connects them with inventory, shipping and fulfilment. It also covers purchasing and returns, so the warehouse team does not have to piece together the order history from different systems.

The platform is fairly focused, though. It suits retail and e-commerce operations particularly well. A business that also needs manufacturing, full financial management or wider ERP processes may eventually need something with a broader scope.

8. Odoo

Odoo puts sales, purchasing, inventory and warehouse activity in the same system. This can work well for businesses that are tired of moving order information between different tools.

There is a catch, though. Odoo gives teams a lot of freedom to change how the system works.

During implementation, that can be tempting. A department wants another approval. Someone asks for a new order status. A particular customer needs a slightly different process. None of these changes seems like a big deal on its own.

The problems can show up later. Too many changes leave employees with extra steps to follow. Small exceptions can become part of the normal process, making even simple changes harder to sort out.

That is why it is better not to change everything just because Odoo allows it. If the standard workflow works well, leave it as it is. Make changes where they solve a real problem or reduce manual work.

A change made during setup can stay in the system for years. Keeping the main process simple makes it easier for people to use and manage over time.

9. Shopify

Shopify can be perfectly adequate for a small online retailer. If there is one store, manageable stock and a fairly simple fulfilment process, adding another order system may only give the team another application to look after.

Things get different as the business grows.

A second warehouse changes how stock is allocated. Wholesale customers may order differently from online shoppers. More products mean more purchasing and replenishment to keep on top of. Manufacturing brings another layer again.

At that stage, Shopify does not necessarily need to go. It can keep doing what it does well: running the online storefront. The operational work can sit elsewhere. A retailer, for example, could connect Shopify with Dynamics 365 Business Central or another platform that handles inventory and order management.

So the question is not simply whether Shopify can manage orders. It is whether the business around the store has become more complicated than Shopify is intended to handle on its own.

10. Salesforce Order Management

An order can stay relevant long after it has been paid for.

Think about a customer who buys online, has the order fulfilled from a store and then contacts customer service a few weeks later about a return. The sales team may need the original order. Support needs the same history. Fulfilment may need to check what was actually shipped. When those teams are working from different information, a fairly routine request can turn into a lot of checking.

Salesforce Order Management is built for this kind of environment. Order processing, fulfilment, inventory and returns can be connected with the wider Salesforce platform.

That makes it more interesting for retailers already using Salesforce across sales and customer service. A smaller retailer with straightforward orders probably has less reason to take on that level of software. If the main job is checking stock, processing orders and getting them shipped, a simpler OMS may be the more practical choice.

Which Order Management Software Should You Choose?

Start with the problem rather than the software.

There is another distinction worth making before comparing products.

Purchase order management software is not automatically the same thing as an OMS.

A business might have a perfectly good system for receiving customer orders but still struggle to raise, approve and track supplier orders. Another business might have the opposite problem: purchasing works well, but sales orders are scattered across several channels.

Work out where the breakdown actually occurs before choosing the system.

What Should You Look for in Software for Order Management?

Do not start with twenty features on a vendor website. Start with the order itself.

Where does it arrive? Who checks the stock? Who decides where it will be fulfilled? What happens when stock is missing? Who contacts the supplier? When does finance get involved? What happens when the customer returns something?

The software should support those decisions without forcing employees to recreate the process manually in another application.

There are still some areas worth checking closely:

• Order capture: Can the system receive orders from the channels you actually use?

• Inventory: Does it distinguish available, allocated and incoming stock?

• Fulfilment: Can orders be assigned to the appropriate warehouse or location?

• Purchasing: Can supplier orders be raised and tracked when stock needs replenishing?

• Partial fulfilment: Can part of an order be shipped without losing visibility of the remainder?

• Returns: Does the return remain connected to the original transaction?

• Integrations: Does it work with your actual accounting, ecommerce, warehouse and shipping systems?

The last point is easy to underestimate. A vendor might advertise hundreds of integrations, but that does not help much if the one system your warehouse relies on requires a custom connection.

How to Test an Order Management System

A standard product demo tells you what the software can do. It does not always show how it handles a difficult order.

Use a real example from the business instead.

Take an order where one item was out of stock, the customer wanted the available items straight away and the supplier delivered the missing stock a few days late. Ask the vendor to work through that order. Then test a return and an order from another sales channel.

Those tests will tell you more about the system than another hour of watching standard screens.

The people who will use the software should be involved too. A warehouse manager may have very different concerns from someone in finance or purchasing.

The system needs to work for the whole process, not just look good in a demo.

Order Management System vs ERP

An OMS mainly deals with orders and fulfilment. An ERP covers a much wider part of the business, including areas such as sales, purchasing, inventory, finance and warehousing.

The difference matters when the order process is tied to other operations.

A retailer selling through Shopify and Amazon may only need better coordination between orders and stock. A distributor may need a sales order to trigger purchasing, warehouse activity, invoicing and financial reporting.

In the second case, adding a specialist OMS may fix the order problem without fixing the wider process.

How Much Does Order Management Software Cost?

Order management software does not have one standard UK price.

Pricing can depend on users, order volumes, modules, sales channels or the size of the business. Enterprise platforms often require a tailored quote.

The licence is only part of the cost. Implementation, data migration, integrations, training and support can all add to the project.

There is also the cost of the current process. If staff are spending hours reconciling orders, fixing stock figures or chasing suppliers, that work is not free.

So rather than comparing monthly subscription prices alone, compare the total cost of the current process with the total cost of changing it.

Final Thoughts

The right order management software depends on where the business is struggling. A retailer may need better control across ecommerce channels, while a distributor may need sales, purchasing and inventory to work together.

Before choosing a system, test the orders that currently cause the most manual work. See how the software handles them without sending the team back to spreadsheets or separate systems.

For businesses considering Dynamics 365 Business Central, it also helps to map the current order process first. Where does the order come from? How is stock checked? When is purchasing involved? How does finance get the information?

Dynamics Square can help businesses review these processes and assess whether Business Central is the right fit for connecting sales, purchasing, inventory and finance.