Optimise your processes from sales orders to stock, finance, pricing and eCommerce.
Architectural ironmongers, builders' merchants, and structural hardware distributors operate in a complex, fast-moving B2B environment. Managing thousands of technical stock-keeping units (SKUs), basic door scheduling, accommodating intricate finish variations, and handling multi-tiered trade pricing matrices across disjointed applications can lead to expensive order errors, bloated operational overheads, and lost profit margins.
Our business and inventory management software is designed to tackle the challenges faced by the Architectural and Ironmongery industry and supplies you with the tools you need to drive your business forward.
OGL Software will automate key business processes and enable you to exceed customer expectations. You'll be able to streamline your order management processes from initial customer enquiry to stock allocation, picking, dispatching and delivery. Our ERP software will give you full visibility of your inventory, even of components in kitting and assemblies and stock allocated for your eCommerce channels.
Our software supports your business in every way, giving you the flexible tools you need to grow and succeed.
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Our software is used by many members of the following Architectural Supplies buying group:
Yes, whether you're in the office, working from home or on a sales visit - you can access Profit4 from any location via your internet browser.
Our Profit4 ERP system is designed specifically to address these exact operational challenges. As a centralised, browser-based ERP solution, Profit4 unifies your warehouse, digital sales channels, finance department, and purchasing workflows into a single source of truth.
Discover how Profit4 streamlines complex ironmongery and architectural hardware processes, driving efficiency from estimation to final delivery.
B2B procurement in the architectural hardware industry is rarely a one-size-fits-all transaction. Main contractors, specialist locksmiths, and independent property developers all expect tailored trade pricing when logging into an online portal. A generic retail storefront simply cannot handle the nuances of contract-based commercial purchasing.
Profit4 bridges this gap by directly syncing your internal pricing architecture with a powerful integrated B2B eCommerce platform. ERP for architectural hardware means when trade customers log into your dedicated online portal, the system automatically pulls their specific trade discount tiers from the ERP database in a few minutes. Whether an enterprise contractor is entitled to a 15% discount on architectural levers or a bulk subcontractor receives volume-based price breaks on structural door closers, the correct figures are displayed instantaneously.
By automating your online sales order workflows, trade accounts can seamlessly check live stock availability, download previous VAT invoices, track ongoing shipments, and place complex bulk re-orders entirely via self-service. This eliminates the need for manual order processing via your sales desk, drastically accelerating order throughput while freeing your customer service team to focus on technical project work.
Beyond broad trade discount tiers, ironmongery merchants must often navigate highly specific customer price matrices. A customer may have an individually negotiated discount for a specific hinge series and net price at an individual product level for a specific hinges series, a group-wide discount on all brass-finished fasteners, and standard retail pricing on tools. Managing these granular rule sets manually across spreadsheets or disconnected accounting software creates administrative friction and leads to margin leakage.
Profit4’s advanced inventory control engine features a native customer pricing matrix designed to handle complex structural contracts. Within just a few clicks, your accounts team can configure bespoke rules down to individual SKU level, contract groups, or product classifications.
When a customer calls your trade counter, submits an estimation tender, or purchases via their portal, Profit4 instantly calculates the precise contract price based on their matrix profile. The software also displays real-time profit margin graphs for sales personnel, ensuring that manual overrides or promotional quotes never dip below specified minimum gross profit margins. This central pricing authority guarantees uniform consistency across your physical trade counter, field sales reps, and digital commerce channels.
Compiling a door schedule is one of the most labour-intensive and technically challenging tasks an architectural ironmonger faces. Specifiers must meticulously map out every lever handle, escutcheon, lockcase, cylinder, hinge, door closer, and kickplate required for every single opening on a commercial blueprint. If a single item is omitted or calculated incorrectly, the entire building site installation stalls.
Profit4 streamlines this complex architectural process through its integrated assemblies, kitting, and product configuration modules. Instead of relying on vulnerable offline spreadsheets, estimators can build complete, multi-component "door kits" directly within the ERP platform.
You can easily define master configurations for specific structural openings—such as an "FD60 Fire Door Kit" or a "Master Keyed Office Entry Pack"—and save them as reusable kitting templates.
When managing large commercial tenders, your team can pull these predefined assemblies into a single project quotation, adjust individual component quantities to match the building’s floor plan, and instantly calculate the exact structural cost. Once a project tender is won, Profit4 handles the bill of materials seamlessly, allocating structural components or generating automated purchase orders for missing hardware variants to ensure full project fulfilment.
An individual architectural lever handle layout rarely exists as a single SKU. It might be stocked in Satin Stainless Steel (SSS), Polished Stainless Steel (PSS), Antique Brass (AB), Matte Black (MB), or Satin Bronze (SB)—each requiring independent inventory tracking, distinct supplier lead times, and variable price points. Tracking these parameters as completely separate, unrelated items quickly clutters your inventory catalog and complicates filtering.
Profit4 stores Items as individual skus but there are filter searches in Profit4 and in eShop to make searching quick and easy.
This centralised architecture gives your sales team real-time visibility across all available variations from a single screen. Alternative products and 'upsell/cross-sell' options can be stored against individual skus to ensure you capture and make the most out of each sale.
In the modern construction landscape, supply chain compliance and safety traceability are non-negotiable. Builders' hardware used on certified fire doors—such as CE/UKCA marked hinges, panic exit hardware, and door closers—must be meticulously tracked to comply with local fire safety regulations.
If a product batch is recalled due to a structural manufacturing defect, distributors must be able to instantly identify exactly which batches were sold to which contractors.
Profit4 features robust, native batch tracking and full serial number traceability built directly into its core inventory framework. When compliant goods are received into your warehouse, the system prompts operators to log specific manufacturer batch numbers, production dates, and compliance certificates.
This tracking data follows the hardware throughout its entire lifecycle within your business. When items are picked, packed, and shipped, the precise batch metadata is automatically appended to dispatch notes and invoice records. In the event of an audit or product recall, Profit4's centralised analytics database allows you to run instant tracking reports, pinpointing every historical transaction containing that specific batch number in seconds.
Ironmongery distributors frequently purchase fixings, fastenings, and small hardware components in bulk boxes of 100 or 500 units from international manufacturers. However, trade counter walk-ins and local locksmiths frequently want to purchase these items as individual units or smaller trade packs.
Manually breaking down outer cartons while tracking loose stock quantities without an automated system almost always leads to severe stock discrepancies.
With Profit4’s automated stock control system, managing split-pack inventory and dynamic units of measure is effortless. The platform allows you to define complex structural relationships between parent bulk cases, intermediate trade cartons, and lose individual items within a single product profile. Read more on Units of Measure (UOM) here.
When an order is placed for a split-quantity item, Profit4 automatically handles the internal unit conversions behind the scenes, deducting the precise fractional quantity from your total stock pool. This ensures your live inventory counts remain accurate across your eCommerce storefront, trade counter, and warehouse floors, completely removing manual conversions and preventing over-selling.
Balancing optimal stock levels for thousands of architectural hardware items across dozens of global manufacturers is a constant challenge. Relying on manual warehouse checks or visual inspections leads to stock shortages on fast-moving items or capital tied up in slow-moving stock.
Profit4’s intelligent purchase order software removes the guesswork from stock replenishment by analysing historical sales data, seasonal trends, and current order pipelines.
The system automatically calculates optimal reorder points for every SKU in your catalogue and compiles automated replenishment suggestions based on live data.
Instead of manually drafting individual purchase orders for multiple hardware manufacturers, Profit4 automatically groups required items by supplier, matches them against minimum order values (MOQs), and drafts consolidated purchase orders for your procurement team to review and approve in a single click. Furthermore, purchase order lines can be linked to sales orders so there's full visibility of who the items have been ordered for through order This data-driven automation keeps your warehouse running efficiently while maximising your cash flow efficiency.
In a busy hardware warehouse, picking mistakes are costly. Small ironmongery components can look nearly identical to the untrained eye, making it easy for a picker to accidentally substitute a 76mm hinge for a 100mm variant. These picking errors lead to expensive reverse logistics costs, delayed projects, and frustrated trade clients.
Profit4 eliminates warehouse picking errors by transforming your physical space into an optimised, digitised fulfilment hub. The software maps out your exact bin locations and creates sequenced picking routes that guide your warehouse team along the most efficient physical path.
By integrating your operation with barcode scanning technology, warehouse pickers confirm every item's unique bin barcode during the collection process. If an operator attempts to scan an incorrect size, finish, or model variant, the system flags the error instantly on-screen, preventing the wrong item from ever reaching the packing bench. This barcode verification loop ensures your shipments are consistently accurate, protecting your hard-earned trade reputation and lowering total fulfilment overheads.
