Cosmetics · ERP
ERP for cosmetics distributors
Today
An order is ready to pick, but nobody can confirm which lot is allowed to ship until someone chases the supplier's certificate of analysis by email.
Generic distribution ERP tracks SKU, quantity and price. You're reselling other people's substances under obligations you didn't write: lot traceability, supplier documentation, market-specific labelling and customer-agreed specifications. None of that lives in a stock ledger.
With Worldover
Worldover ERP connects orders, stock and lot allocation to the supplier documents, quality status and customer requirements that decide whether a lot can actually be dispatched.
Orders are picked against stock that's cleared to ship, and the documents that go with it are already correct.
USED BY 250+ INDUSTRY LEADERS
The problem
Why generic ERP failscosmetics distributor teams.
Stock is tracked by SKU, not by lot and document status
A SKU can have five lots on the shelf with three different supplier certificates behind them, and the ERP treats them as interchangeable.
Allocation ignores customer-agreed requirements
A customer who requires a specific origin, certification or market listing gets whichever lot is picked next unless someone remembers to check.
Finance closes before documentation catches up
Invoices go out for shipments whose supporting documents are still being chased, so queries land after the money has moved.
A working day
An order against constrained stock
A repeat customer orders a raw material you distribute under an exclusive agreement.
Today: the warehouse picks the oldest lot by date, without checking whether that customer's contract specifies an origin or certification.
In Worldover: the order shows only lots that meet this customer's agreed requirements, with current supplier documents attached.
Picking is confined to eligible stock, and the pack list generates with the correct certificate and SDS version.
The invoice references the exact lot shipped, so a later query is answered from one record.
How it runs
How ERP worksinside Worldover.
01
Stock is held by lot, not just SKU
Quantity, origin, supplier batch reference and quality status are attributes of the lot, and orders allocate against them.
02
Customer requirements gate allocation
Origin, certification, market listing or specification agreements are checked automatically before a lot can be picked.
03
Documents travel with the shipment
The SDS, certificate of analysis and specification issued are the current versions on file, recorded against the order.
04
Finance sees what operations sees
Invoicing and margin reporting run against the same lot and document record, so nothing is billed ahead of what actually shipped.
What's in it
The detail behindERP.
ERP
General ledger, AP/AR, order management and financial reporting. 21 CFR Part 11 records.
General ledger
Double-entry ledger with a configurable chart of accounts, multi-currency and period-end close.
Accounts payable
Supplier invoice capture, approval workflows and payment runs linked to POs and goods receipts.
Accounts receivable
Customer invoicing, credit control and cash allocation linked to sales orders and dispatch.
Sales order management
Order entry through to dispatch and invoicing, linked to inventory and production.
Purchase order management
Financial POs linked to procurement, goods-in and payables.
Financial reporting
Profit and loss, balance sheet and cash position with drill-down to transaction level.
FP&A (Financial Planning & Analysis)
Budgets, forecasts, variance analysis, scenarios and financial dashboards.
Budget management
Annual and rolling budgets by cost centre, department or project, linked to actual platform spend.
Forecasting
Rolling forecasts from historical actuals, pipeline and configurable assumptions.
P&L reporting
Automated P&L with configurable hierarchies and drill-down by product, customer or region.
Variance analysis
Actuals against budget and forecast, with thresholds and commentary workflows.
Cost centre management
Cost centres linked to formulations, production orders, projects and customer accounts.
Scenario planning
Base, upside and downside scenarios with linked assumptions and automated reforecasting.
The difference
Why the substance recordmakes the difference.
You don't manufacture the substance, but you carry the liability of getting it right. Holding stock, lot, supplier documentation and customer requirement on one record is what lets you resell with confidence instead of hoping the paperwork matches.
Better together
What changes when ERPshares a record with the rest of your setup.
ERP + CRM
Customer accounts carry their specific requirements, so orders are checked against them automatically.
Explore CRMERP + Regulatory
SDS and specification versions issued at dispatch come from the current regulatory record, not a saved file.
Explore RegulatoryERP + QMS
Only lots with a valid release status are available for allocation.
Explore QMSWillow
What teams actually askonce the record is in one place.
- Which lots of this product meet the customer's agreed origin requirement?
- What did we actually ship against this order, and which documents went with it?
- Which orders this month used a lot that has since been placed on hold?
Willow doesn't replace expert judgment. It removes the searching, re-keying and chasing between the systems that hold your answers.
Request a demo
We'll walk through your current workflow, then show the same workflow running on one record.
Research
Compared with the alternatives
If you're still building a shortlist, these break the market down side by side.
- ShortlistBest cosmetics ERPs in 2026How the main cosmetics ERPs compare on formulation, batch and regulatory depth.Read it
- ComparisonWorldover vs SAPCost, timeline and fit against a tier-one ERP.Read it
- GuideWhat a cosmetics ERP implementation costsRealistic budget, timeline and internal effort.Read it