ERP for Trades and Crafts (Handwerk)
The German Handwerk — the regulated trades and crafts sector — spans plumbing-heating-air-conditioning (SHK), electrical contracting, carpentry, painting, roofing, automotive repair and around eighty further trade categories. Around one million Handwerk businesses operate in Germany, plus comparable scale in Austria and Switzerland. ERP for this segment must balance the operational reality of small-team field service with the regulatory framework of Handwerkskammer membership and Handwerksordnung obligations.
Trade-specific ERP requirements
- Job-cost accounting with project-by-project P&L visibility, material and labour tracking
- Mobile field service — technician app for on-site appointment management, time tracking, parts consumption, customer signature
- Maintenance contracts with recurring billing, service-level commitments and warranty tracking
- Quotation generation — structured quotes with VOB (German construction contract standard) line items, trade-specific allowances and contingency clauses
- Procurement via trade-specific wholesalers (Elektroland, GC, Sanitaer-Heinze, ZEDACH) with EDI-based catalogue and order placement
- VOB and HOAI billing — Verdingungsordnung fuer Bauleistungen (construction contract schedule of services), progress billing, retention amounts
- Workshop scheduling with capacity planning for the limited number of skilled technicians
- Master craftsman records — Handwerkskammer registration data, master craftsman certifications
Top ERP vendors for trades
SHK-specific: M-SOFT KWP-bn, Streit V.1, Sander & Doll, Microtech ERP for SHK, Label Software. Electrical-specific: pds, Hottgenroth Streit, TopKontor Handwerk. General trades: Sage 50 Handwerk, Lexware Handwerk, BlauData, easybusiness Handwerk, addisonOneClick Handwerk, blue|office. Larger trades operations (50+ employees, multi-site): Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with Handwerk add-ons from To-Increase or Trovarit-listed partners, Sage 100 with Handwerk industry pack, weclapp with service-module focus. SME entry tier: orgaMAX Handwerk, JTL-Wawi with handwerk add-ons, sevdesk-style lightweight tools. The Handwerk ERP market is highly fragmented with strong regional and trade-specific specialists, and partner relationships often matter more than product brand.
Mobile field service
The dominant cost driver in trades operations is technician productivity, and mobile field service apps deliver more measurable payback than any other ERP feature. A typical technician app covers: appointment dispatch with route optimisation, on-site time tracking, material consumption recording, photo-and-signature capture, immediate billing from the field. Implementation reduces administrative overhead by 30-50%, eliminates duplicate data entry (technician notes the work once, accounting sees it immediately), and accelerates invoicing by days. All major trades-ERP products provide a mobile app; standalone field-service tools (servicetrace, mobiletfields, Microsoft Field Service) integrate with broader ERP for larger operations.
Typical trades company profile
A typical mid-market German Handwerk business: 10-80 employees (of which 6-50 are technicians), 1-15 million EUR annual revenue, 50-90% project-based work and 10-50% service contracts, a master craftsman as managing director, mandatory Handwerkskammer membership and Berufsgenossenschaft accident insurance. The ERP runs Sage 50 Handwerk or a trade-specific specialist (M-SOFT for SHK, pds for electrical), with total annual ERP cost of 5,000-25,000 EUR. 5-year ERP TCO: 50,000-200,000 EUR including implementation, licences and ongoing support. Larger Handwerk operations (50+ employees, multi-site, growing into facility management or building automation) increasingly migrate to Business Central or Sage 100 for capabilities the trade-specific tools cannot match.
Related Topics
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are trade-specific ERP products so popular in DACH Handwerk?
Because they bundle the regulatory and operational specifics that generic ERP misses: VOB billing, Handwerkskammer reporting templates, integration with trade-specific wholesalers, master-craftsman record-keeping. Generic ERP can be customised to handle these, but the effort exceeds the price of an off-the-shelf trade-specific product for small-business operations.
When should a trades business upgrade from trade-specific to mid-market ERP?
Typical transition points: 30+ employees with mixed activities (project plus service plus light manufacturing), multiple sites or branches, growing into adjacent markets (facility management, building automation), or international expansion. Below 30 employees in a focused trade, the specialist ERP usually remains the better fit.
How does construction-trades ERP differ from manufacturing ERP?
Construction-trades work is project-driven with extensive on-site service. Manufacturing is production-line driven with inventory orchestration. The ERP focus shifts: job costing and mobile field service dominate in trades, BOM and APS scheduling dominate in manufacturing. Some businesses straddle both (sheet-metal manufacturers also installing on customer sites) and run ERP that covers both axes.