# Which ETO ERP has the strongest project-based costing and quoting tools for a custom manufacturer that lives and dies by accurate job cost estimates?

Job cost accuracy is the margin in a custom manufacturing business. Estimate wrong, and you find out after the job ships, which is the worst possible time. The ERP tools that actually help with this do not just store cost data. They track costs as work happens, surface variance while there is still time to do something about it, and connect the original quote to what was actually consumed.

Filtering the ETO ERP category specifically on costing and quoting use cases, the tools that came up most in relevant reviews are Total ETO, SAP ECC, and Kinetic.

Total ETO: Real-time job costing is one of the main things reviewers from custom machine builders point to. The ability to see where a job stands financially at any point during production, not just when it closes, changes how operations are managed day to day. One reviewer specifically described using historical job data stored in the system to accurately price components for future customers, which is how quoting actually improves over time.
SAP ECC: The financial integration across modules is described by reviewers as the platform's clearest strength. Reviewers trace transactions back through the full process from the original purchase order through goods receipt to the final financial posting. At scale or across multiple production facilities, the depth is genuine. Getting the costing configuration right for ETO workflows is where the implementation investment shows most clearly.
Kinetic (Epicor): Reviewers in the machine-building and manufacturing industries describe using the system to balance supply and demand, track jobs, and coordinate purchasing in a single place. The time-phase feature, which shows demand, customer orders, minimums, and safety stock together, is specifically mentioned as what improved planning and cost visibility.
Infor SyteLine: Offers actual specific costing alongside standard costing options. Reviewers describe pulling cost data together in a way that supports management decisions and end-of-job reconciliation at the level of detail ETO work requires.
IFS Cloud: Project-based manufacturing is a stated core capability. Reviewers describe financial visibility at the project level rather than in aggregate period reporting, which matters when each job carries its own cost structure.

For custom manufacturers who have had a cost overrun go undetected until the job shipped, was that an ERP data problem, a process problem, or both?

##### Post Metadata - Posted at: 28 days ago - Author title: Writer - Net upvotes: 1 ## Comments ### Comment 1 <p>The overruns on custom work almost never come from material, which you can quote off the BOM, they come from hours, and specifically the engineering and rework hours that are hardest to predict. The blind spot is capture, not calculation: shops book direct shop labor fine, but salaried design time and the "figuring it out" rework often never land on the job, so your historical costs look complete and are quietly missing the exact hours that sank the margin, and you under-quote the next one the same way.</p> ##### Comment Metadata - Posted at: 28 days ago - Author title: Tech Consultant ## Related discussions - [How well does Trello scale into a larger team?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/1-how-well-does-trello-scale-into-a-larger-team) - Posted at: over 13 years ago - Comments: 6 - [Can we please add a new section](https://www.g2.com/discussions/2-can-we-please-add-a-new-section) - Posted at: over 13 years ago - Comments: 0 - [Quantifiable benefits from implementing your CRM](https://www.g2.com/discussions/quantifiable-benefits-from-implementing-your-crm) - Posted at: about 13 years ago - Comments: 4