ERP reseller partner: how to become one

What an ERP reseller partner is

An ERP reseller partner is an independent firm that sells, implements or supports a vendor's enterprise resource planning software for its own customers under a partner agreement. It matters because the partner, not the vendor, usually owns the customer relationship: it earns a share of the recurring subscription and, above all, the services revenue from implementation, data migration, training, localisation and support.

The model suits IT resellers, system integrators, ERP consultants, managed-service providers and accounting firms that already have the trust of small and mid-sized businesses. The vendor supplies the product, the platform and second-line support; the partner supplies local knowledge, language, project delivery and day-to-day help.

Where the revenue comes from

Partner income has two layers. The first is recurring: a margin or commission on the software subscription, paid for as long as the customer renews and the partner remains partner of record. The second is services: everything a customer pays the partner to make the software work in its business.

In many small and mid-sized ERP deals the services layer is larger in year one, and the recurring layer is what builds the value of the practice over time. A book of renewing customers gives predictable income and a practice that can one day be sold.

• Subscription or resale margin: recurring, tied to renewals and to partner-of-record status
• Implementation: discovery, configuration, chart of accounts, tax set-up, approval rules and user roles
• Data migration: extracting, cleansing, mapping and loading master data and opening balances
• Training: role-based sessions for sales, purchasing, warehouse, finance and management
• Localisation: tax codes, e-invoicing routes, statutory reports, languages and document layouts
• Support: first-line help desk, monthly retainers, health checks and new-module roll-outs

A worked example: first-year economics of one customer

Take a distribution company in Ireland with two branches and 15 users. The partner scopes a fixed-price project from its own day rate of EUR 800: discovery and design 3 days, configuration 6 days, data migration 4 days, training 3 days and go-live support 2 days. That is 18 days, or 18 × EUR 800 = EUR 14,400 of services.

After go-live the customer buys a support retainer of EUR 300 a month, or EUR 3,600 a year, and a half-day health check each quarter at EUR 400, which is another EUR 1,600. First-year services income is therefore EUR 14,400 + EUR 3,600 + EUR 1,600 = EUR 19,600, before any subscription margin.

The recurring layer depends on the vendor's terms. A useful measure is subscription value under management. If the partner builds a base of 25 such customers, each paying EUR 4,000 a year in subscriptions, it manages EUR 100,000 a year of renewing software, and every percentage point of margin on that base is worth EUR 1,000 a year for as long as the customers stay.

Two conclusions follow. Price services properly rather than giving implementation away to win the subscription, and treat retention as the real asset: a customer who leaves in year two takes its margin and its retainer with it.

Partner types and what each one does

Vendors name their tiers differently, but the same roles appear in almost every programme. A single firm can hold more than one, although most vendors recognise only one partner of record per customer.

Choose the role that matches the capabilities you already have: a firm with no project managers should not start as an implementer.

• Referral partner (introducer): makes a warm introduction and registers it; the vendor demonstrates, sells, bills and supports. Usually rewarded once or for the first year, with no authority to negotiate or sign for the vendor.
• Reseller or value-added reseller (VAR): finds, demonstrates and closes the customer, often bills it in local currency, owns the commercial relationship and gives first-line support. Usually earns a recurring margin.
• Implementation partner or system integrator: configures the system, migrates data, integrates other systems and trains users. Earns mainly from its own services fees, sometimes with a share of the subscriptions it sources.
• ERP consultant: advises on selection, process design and project assurance, and may implement directly or oversee another partner's work.
• Managed-service provider (MSP): adds the ERP to a monthly managed-IT contract covering users, devices, security and the help desk, and handles first-line support.
• Accounting and bookkeeping firm: standardises clients on one system, runs books or month-end on it, and sells advisory work built on the data (see our guide on ERP partner programmes for accounting firms).

What implementation actually involves

Customers buy an outcome, not a licence. For a small or mid-sized business an ERP project typically runs through the stages below, and each one is work that a partner must be able to scope, staff, price and deliver.

Data migration deserves its own line in every proposal. The work is not moving files; it is deciding what to bring across (open items and balances, or full history), removing duplicates, mapping old accounts to the new chart and proving that the opening trial balance in the new system equals the closing one in the old.

• Discovery: document the order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, stock and record-to-report processes as they really run, and agree what will change
• Design: chart of accounts, dimensions such as branches and cost centres, tax codes, numbering, approval limits and user roles
• Configuration and localisation: set up the company, branches, tax rates, invoice layouts, languages and statutory reports
• Data migration: customers, suppliers, products, open invoices and bills, stock on hand, fixed assets and general-ledger opening balances at the cut-over date
• Testing: run real transactions end to end and reconcile the resulting trial balance to the old system
• Training: short, role-based sessions using the customer's own data
• Go-live and early support: the first invoices, the first bank reconciliation and, above all, the first month-end close
• Handover: a written configuration record, a list of known workarounds and a named support contact

Localisation: the work that differs by country

Localisation is where local partners earn their place, because it depends on knowledge a vendor based in another country rarely has. Before proposing any ERP, confirm how it handles each of the following in the customer's country, and whether the answer is built in, available through a third-party service, or a manual step the partner must design and document.

E-invoicing obligations and dates change often, so check the tax authority's own guidance at the time of the proposal and write the chosen approach into the statement of work.

• European Union: VAT rules including the reverse charge and the One Stop Shop, and structured e-invoicing where a member state requires it, typically built on the EN 16931 standard and often exchanged over the Peppol network
• United Kingdom: Making Tax Digital for VAT, which requires digital records and VAT returns submitted through compatible software
• Canada: GST/HST, plus QST in Quebec and PST in some other provinces, and Quebec's French-language requirements for commercial documents
• Gulf: VAT where a state has introduced it, Saudi Arabia's ZATCA e-invoicing with its integration phase, and Arabic on invoices and reports
• Payroll: always country-specific; many ERPs run payroll for only a few countries, and elsewhere the totals from a local payroll provider are posted to the ledger
• Statutory reporting: local GAAP or IFRS, exports for auditors and, in several European countries, SAF-T files for the tax authority
• Language and layout: interface languages, bilingual account names and invoice templates

What a vendor partner programme must give you

A partner invests months of unpaid time before its first reward, so a programme is worth joining only if it gives that investment a fair chance of paying back. Ask for these elements in writing.

Treat vague answers as answers. If a vendor cannot say how deal registration works, who owns renewals or what happens to your customers if the agreement ends, assume those points will be decided in the vendor's favour when they matter.

• A demo environment: a not-for-resale workspace with realistic sample data, kept apart from any customer's data
• Training: product, implementation and sales material, plus a person who answers the questions documentation does not
• Deal registration: a written rule that protects an opportunity you found for a fixed period, so that neither the vendor nor another partner sells around you
• Leads: a clear policy on whether and how inbound enquiries from your region are passed to partners
• Co-marketing: permission to use the brand, co-branded material, joint webinars or events, and a directory listing
• Support escalation: who handles first-line and second-line support, with response times on both sides
• Commercial clarity: how margins, renewals, price changes and changes of partner of record work
• Honest product limits: a written list of what the product does not do, so that you never promise it

Deal registration and channel conflict

Deal registration is the mechanism that stops a partner's work being taken by someone else. The partner submits a named prospect with a contact, the need and a next step; the vendor approves or rejects it within a stated time; and for the protection period the vendor will not sell to that prospect directly or through another partner. Published guides differ on the length: one describes 30 to 90 days as typical, with longer windows for enterprise deals, and another puts SaaS protection at 90 to 180 days. Most allow an extension when the partner shows evidence of progress, such as a scheduled demo.

Most disputes come from four situations: the prospect was already talking to the vendor, two partners registered the same company, the customer asked to buy direct, or the vendor's own website or inside sales team quoted the prospect. A good programme answers each one in writing and timestamps registrations.

Renewals are the other half. Ask whether the partner of record keeps the renewal automatically, how a customer can move to another partner, and how much notice you receive.

How to evaluate an ERP before you resell it

Your reputation travels with the product, so evaluate it as a partner who will support it for years.

Then test it yourself. Run order-to-cash, procure-to-pay and a month-end close in a trial workspace, produce a trial balance and a balance sheet that balance, and try the imports with a real customer's spreadsheets.

• Functional fit: does it run your target customers' core processes, such as multi-branch stock, projects, assets or maintenance, without custom development?
• Localisation: tax, e-invoicing, payroll and statutory reports in each country you will sell into, with gaps named honestly
• Languages: the interface languages, bilingual master data and document templates your customers need
• Deployment options: cloud multi-tenant, single-tenant or on-premise, and which of them the vendor actually delivers today
• Data protection: where data is hosted, a data processing agreement, the sub-processor list and, for EU and UK customers, the transfer mechanism if data leaves those jurisdictions
• Integration: import tools and APIs, and which data they really cover, so you can plan bank, e-commerce and payroll connections
• Controls and audit: period locking, audit trails, approval workflows and exports an auditor can use
• Commercial model: local-currency pricing, who bills the customer, and whether invoicing works cleanly across borders

Contract points for Europe, the UK, Canada and the Gulf

The law around partner agreements differs by market, and local counsel should review any agreement that involves exclusivity or access to customer data.

• Agent or distributor: in the EU, Council Directive 86/653/EEC gives commercial agents who negotiate the sale of goods on a principal's behalf a right to an indemnity or compensation on termination, and in Great Britain the Commercial Agents (Council Directive) Regulations 1993 do the same. In case C-410/19 the Court of Justice held that software supplied electronically under a perpetual licence can be goods.
• Data protection: if you will access customer data, you need processor terms that meet Article 28 of the GDPR or the UK GDPR, both with the vendor and with each customer
• Exclusivity and territory: exclusive rights usually come with volume targets and can add legal obligations on both sides
• Gulf agency laws: several GCC states have commercial agency regimes that give registered agents strong protections, so appointments there deserve local advice
• Termination and customer continuity: what happens to your customers, their data and your margin if either side ends the agreement
• Compliance: anti-bribery law, sanctions, and marketing rules such as the e-privacy rules in the EU and UK and Canada's anti-spam legislation for any outreach you run

The Skyline Nexus ERP partner programme

Resellers, integrators, consultants and accounting firms can apply to become Skyline Nexus ERP partners; each application is reviewed and the partnership terms (partner type, territory, margins, support responsibilities) are agreed with the partner. To apply, use the enquiry form on this page and tell us which markets you serve, the customers you work with and the role you want to play.

Skyline Nexus ERP is a cloud, multi-tenant service in which modules are switched on per subscription package. Alongside sales, purchasing, multi-branch stock and a double-entry general ledger with period locks and an audit trail, it includes Treasury with bank reconciliation, Asset Management, CMMS maintenance and FMS facilities modules. Its import tools cover products, opening stock, contacts, sales, purchases, the chart of accounts, assets and employees, which is the raw material of a migration project. It is available in English and Arabic, with interface translations for many other languages, and ships starter chart-of-accounts templates for Saudi Arabia, the UAE and a generic layout.

Know the limits from the start, because a partner who over-promises loses the customer. Built-in e-invoicing covers Saudi Arabia's ZATCA Phase 2; where a European country requires another structured format, the partner plans how invoices will be issued in it, and in the UK the partner confirms how VAT returns will be filed under Making Tax Digital before proposing the ledger. Payroll is built for Saudi Arabia, so elsewhere a local payroll provider's totals are posted as a manual journal. Stock is costed on FIFO or LIFO, and FIFO is the IFRS-compatible choice. There are no direct bank feeds: statements are imported as CSV, TXT or Excel files.

Your first 90 days as a new ERP partner

Keep the investment small until the first customer is live, and measure three numbers from the start: customers live, services margin per project and renewal rate.

• Weeks 1-2: sign the agreement, get demo access and have one person learn the product end to end
• Weeks 3-4: build a demo around one industry you know, using that industry's documents and reports
• Weeks 5-6: write a fixed-scope implementation package with a price, a timeline and clear exclusions
• Weeks 7-10: approach existing clients and contacts first, and register every real opportunity
• Weeks 11-13: deliver the first project with the vendor's help, document every workaround and ask the customer to act as a reference