I'm trying to understand what type of software is available out there for SMB companies to manage everything from generatng estimates to balance accounting. For reference, the business is project based in the heating industry, so there isn't a ton of inventory on hand but still needs to be managed.

The following steps:

- Create customer order
- Generate estimate for customer
- Auto check against inventory for parts on hand
- Automatically create POs automatically for parts not on hand and based on vendor preference
- Send PO to supplier
- Track/confirm new parts are received
- Shipping (update inventory)
- Balance accounting

This might have to be done with multiple tools, but it would be ideal to have one tool to do it all. I imagine that some companies out there click one button once the customer approved the quote, and everything is automated in the back end.

We currently use:

- Salesforce for CRM, which is good for sales tracking but I'm not sure how good it will be for inventory and accounting.
- QuickBooks for accounting, but it's so slow and with a terrible user interface that I think it has to go.

I'm open to any solutions out there but haven't had much luck so far.

TIA!