Many traders in agricultural commodities and food ingredients run two systems side by side. Qbil-Trade combines them in one platform: the trading side of a CTRM solution and the operational and administrative side of an ERP system.
Anyone trading dairy, grains, oils, or specialty ingredients will recognise the picture. Contracts and positions sit in one system or in Excel. Orders, stock, and invoices sit in another. In between, data is retyped, checked, and reconciled. Qbil-Trade is built to remove that double work.
Two types of software, two questions
ERP and CTRM answer different questions. An ERP system asks: what do we have, what needs to happen, and what does it cost? A CTRM system asks: what is our position in the market, and what risk do we run on it?
| ERP | CTRM |
Starting point | Standardising processes | Responding flexibly to the market |
Core | Orders, stock, invoicing, accounting | Contracts, positions, price risk |
Typical question | What needs to be delivered and invoiced today? | What is my open position and my profit and loss per contract? |
Weak spot for traders | Little insight into positions and market prices | Often limited in logistics and administration |
For a producer with a fixed production line, a standard ERP is often enough. A trader, however, buys and sells at different moments, at moving prices, with varying qualities and lots. That reality does not fit an ERP system alone. A standalone CTRM solution, in turn, often covers only part of the work that follows the trade.
Why Qbil-Trade combines both
Qbil-Trade is developed for traders in food, feed, agricultural ingredients, and specialty markets. That is why the system starts with the contract, not the order. A purchase or sales contract is the basis for everything that follows: the position, logistics, invoicing, and the result.
That is the CTRM side: contracts, lots, stock positions, hedges, and futures positions. The ERP side covers what comes next: origin orders and destination orders, transport, documents, invoices, and the link to accounting.
Because both sit in the same system, every department works with the same data. A change to a contract is immediately visible to logistics and finance. Traders see their position based on what has actually been delivered and invoiced, not on last week’s spreadsheet.
From contract to invoice in one system
Take a trader who buys milk powder in Ireland and sells it on to two customers in Southern Europe. In Qbil-Trade, it works like this:
- The trader enters the purchase contract and the two sales contracts. The stock position and expected result update immediately.
- Traders who cover price risk link a hedge or futures position to the same position.
- Logistics plans the transport in the Logistic Control Centre (LCC) and prepares the origin orders and destination orders.
- On receipt, the goods are registered as a lot, with quality data such as dry matter.
- Contracts, orders, and transport orders are sent directly from the corresponding screen in Qbil-Trade. An order, for example, goes out from the order screen.
- Sales invoices go out via Peppol, and bookings flow to the accounting package, for example Exact Online. Purchase invoices come in through the integration with Tungsten Invoice Agility. Paper, PDF, and e-invoices are captured automatically, checked against tax rules and internal workflows, and then processed in Qbil-Trade.
- The result per contract is visible as soon as costs and invoices are in, without separate reconciliation in Excel.
Companies that need to demonstrate where their raw materials come from also use the Mass Balance module. It builds on the same contracts and lots.
ERP or CTRM? For traders, it’s both
The question “do we need an ERP or a CTRM?” often leaves trading companies with two packages and an integration that needs maintenance. Qbil-Trade starts from a different question: what does a trader need from contract to invoice? The answer is a hybrid system, built around the way trade actually works.
Want to see what that looks like for your trade flows?