Most steel traders evaluate software the way they are invited to: a feature list, a demo driven by the vendor, and a price revealed at the end. That process reliably selects for the best demo rather than the best fit, which is why so many yards are running their third system and still keeping the real numbers in a register.
A better process starts somewhere else entirely.
Start from where money leaves, not from a feature list
Before you look at any product, write down the three places your business actually loses money. In most steel yards they come from a short list: the gap between the weight ordered and the weight loaded; stock that is in the system but not in the yard; part-loads that were never billed correctly; and payments chased from memory.
Now judge every product only on those three. A system that fixes your top leak and does nothing else is worth more than one that scores well on forty features you will never open.
The questions that decide it
- Does it bill on the weight actually loaded? Not the ordered weight. Ask to see one order where the two differ, and watch which figure reaches the challan.
- Can one order go out on several lorries? Part-dispatch is normal in steel. Each lorry needs its own loading, challan and delivery status against the same order — not a new order each time.
- Is stock held per yard? One pooled figure is useless the day you open a second location, and retrofitting per-warehouse stock later is painful.
- Can it convert between units? You buy pipe by weight and sell it by piece, or plate by tonne and sell by sheet. If conversion is manual, it will be wrong.
- Does it handle your catalogue as you actually trade it? Brand, grade and size for TMT; class for GI pipe; sectional weights for structural. If brand is a note in a description field, that is a no.
- What exactly does the accounting integration do? “Tally integration” covers everything from a CSV export to a live authenticated link. Ask which documents cross, in which direction, and in what shape.
- Who can see and change what? A yard supervisor should not be able to edit a loaded weight after the fact without it being visible.
- Is the price published? An unpublished price usually means it is set by how much they think you can pay.
- What happens on the day you cancel? Ask specifically whether you get a full export of your own data, in what format, and how long it takes.
- Who answers when it breaks at 9am on a loading day? A named channel with a real response, or a ticket queue.
Red flags
- You cannot see it without a sales call. If the product is good, letting you open it is the cheapest sale they will ever make.
- The demo uses their data, not yours. Ask them to enter one of your real orders, with a part-load and a weight difference, while you watch.
- Every answer is yes. Software built for steel trading has edges. A vendor who claims every capability either misunderstood the question or is guessing.
- The price depends on how many challans you raise. Steel volumes swing with the market; a per-document price bills you most in the month a bad market already hurt you.
- Nobody will name a customer in your product line. Ask for a reference call with a trader who runs what you run.
How to run the trial properly
Two weeks is enough if you use them well. Do not ask your team to “have a look” — that produces an opinion, not evidence.
- Pick one real, awkward order from last month — mixed items, a part-load, a weight difference, a rate change midway.
- Run it end to end in the new system: inquiry, order, loading, challan, stock movement.
- Have the person who will actually use it do the typing, not the owner.
- Count the clicks and the workarounds. Workarounds in week one become permanent.
- Check the numbers that come out the other side against what actually happened.
If an order that took four minutes on paper takes fifteen in the software, your team will quietly go back to paper, whatever was signed.
The question most buyers forget
Ask who owns the data and where it lives. For a business whose stock, customers and rates are its entire commercial position, the answers matter: whether your records sit in a database of your own or pooled with other customers, where that database is hosted, whether there are backups and who can restore them, and what you receive if you leave.
A vendor who answers these precisely has thought about it. A vague answer is itself the answer.
Where to look next
We publish our side of this openly: what SteelERP costs is on the pricing page, how it compares with Tally, BUSY, Marg, Vyapar, ERPNext and Lighthouse is on the comparison pages — including where those products are the better choice — and who runs it today is on the customers page. The free weight calculators use the same sectional weights the software does, so you can check our arithmetic before trusting anything else.
Whatever you choose, choose it against your own three leaks. That is the only checklist that matters.