IT
MODERN TIMES CALL FOR MODERN MEASURES
BMJ learns why BSS, part of the Travis Perkins Group, has adopted Klipboard’s ERP system to meet the demands of today’s market.
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lumbing and heating merchant BSS has over 52 branches and two national distribution centres, supplying a wide range of specialist products to trade professionals across the UK.
Operating at this scale - with high-volume orders, complex pricing structures and critical customer timelines - demands clarity, control, and agility in back-end systems. But with customer expectations rising and the pace of change accelerating across the industry, the company felt that staying at the forefront of the market would require the right technology. BSS set out to replace its core business systems and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) with a solution that would future-proof the business and unlock new opportunities for growth. Graham Eccles, finance director for BSS, says that the company wanted a system that dealt with the specific challenges that builders merchants face daily.
ESP One
Klipboard’s ERP One (formerly known as K8) is a cloud-based, merchant-specific platform which provides commercial tools from purchasing and pricing through to inventory, sales, and finance - without the need for heavy customisation. With AI built directly into ERP workflows, ERP One is intended to redefine how businesses operate – helping teams move faster, reduce manual effort, and make quicker decisions.
achieved, in collaboration with the BSS roll-out team, a delivery that was both focused and successful, one of the most effective we’ve seen at Klipboard, enabling a smooth rollout across all 55 BSS sites, and their central distribution hubs. “With ERP One now at the heart of operations, BSS has a future-ready business management platform that provides them with a strong foundation for rapid innovation. It has unlocked the ability for BSS to scale effortlessly, and plug in new digital solutions, like Klipboard eReceipts, Klipboard Money and our other mobile apps, into their ecosystem as needed.” Julia Lovett, process and engagement lead for the ERP One project, says: “We are able to service customers more quickly at the trade counter because of ERP One’s intuitive UI and trade counter search features that make finding the right product much easier for our colleagues.”
The approach:
While much of the deployment was out-the-box, there were a number of pre-existing business critical systems that BSS had to integrate with the ERP One platform to ensure a successful deployment.
Eccles says: “We were having difficulty figuring out how to integrate so many other separate systems we use across the business. Klipboard gave us access to their webhooks platform and that enabled us to integrate to these platforms with ease. This enabled us to fully integrate and automate data exchanges from our existing platforms and workflows directly.”
BSS worked with Klipboard consultants to implement ERP One across all 52 locations and distribution centres in a single deployment. James Mitchell, Klipboard CEO for Europe, says: “This was an amazing project to be part of. The Klipboard implementation teams
She adds that the system improves the business’s ability to quickly onboard staff, saying “what would have previously taken months of training can now be achieved in days”. ERP One also significantly improves the way BSS processes Special Pricing Agreements (SPAs) and rebates, with the system now automatically applying rebates and pricing rules to purchase orders so teams can see their impact on margin before an invoice is generated.
The future
Product owner at BSS, Lisa Taylor adds: “The product will bring more value as time goes on. Now we have deployed the core ERP solution, we are excited to work with Klipboard to build out a suite of supporting products to further optimise our business operations”. This includes the impending deployment of eReceipts, a mobile app that instantly processes receipts from purchase orders into ERP One, as well as other mobile apps across warehouse management, delivery, transport management and more. BMJ
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June 2026
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