YourData Network is starting a partnership with Prilk Consulting, official Frappe partner in the Netherlands, to offer ERPNext to organisations that don’t want a single vendor deciding how they run their business. The first implementation at a pilot customer is already underway.
The ERP system usually stays out of sight
Companies that take digital independence seriously usually start with email, file storage and collaboration. The system that holds the core of the organisation is often left untouched. Yet that is exactly where the most sensitive information lives: customer data, pricing agreements, margins, stock, production data and personnel files. In an ERP they all come together, and that is where the processes run that grind to a halt the moment the system is unavailable.
It is also the system where the dependency is greatest. The licence is charged per user and gets more expensive every year. The change you need sits on someone else’s roadmap. And the moment you want to leave, you discover that years of business history are stored in a format you can’t do much with yourself.
That is not a technical inconvenience. That is a strategic risk that grows with every year you stay.
What ERPNext does differently
ERPNext is a full open source ERP suite with modules for finance, sales, purchasing, inventory, manufacturing, projects, HR and CRM. In practice that means:
- No licence fees and no per-user charges, so you don’t pay more as you grow
- The full source code is public, so changes don’t depend on a vendor’s planning
- Open source code does not mean open data: your data stays yours and can be exported, so leaving is a choice and not a negotiation
Implementation, hosting and management do of course cost money. Those are costs for work that is delivered, not for the right to use the software.
Who does what
Prilk handles the implementation, the migration and the maintenance. They know the platform inside out and are the official Frappe partner in the Netherlands.
YourData Network focuses on the layer beneath: where the system runs. For the first implementations that is still European infrastructure provided by the vendor. What we are working towards is that customers can run their ERP on infrastructure under their own control: on their own nodes, or on existing capacity within the decentralised network. That way it is not only the software that is free, but also the place where your business data lives.
The first implementation has started
The pilot is running at a Dutch industrial SME with its own engineering department and an international customer base. The company is moving away from the ERP system it has worked with for many years.
For this company it goes beyond cost savings. It is about keeping confidential customer data and business-critical process information in a system it controls itself.
“Our goal is for a company to be truly digitally independent and to keep full control over its business-critical data. For storage, documents and collaboration we already have that well covered with Nextcloud, and with the OwnPhone and Linux Mint on the devices themselves, all running on the customer’s own infrastructure on the decentralised internet. The ERP was a piece that was still missing, and that is exactly where the most valuable business information sits. With ERPNext we take an important step there and our offering for businesses becomes a lot more complete.”
Robert Jan Lamers, co-founder YourData Network
“Technically, ERPNext stopped being a compromise a long time ago; for us that is not up for debate. The market still too often sees open source as a risk, while for the entrepreneur it is exactly the opposite: control. You are not dependent on a single vendor that sets your roadmap and your pricing. You have to dare to take that freedom. It is a matter of courage, not recklessness. That is what this partnership is about.”
Peter-Jan van Ham, entrepreneur and business architect at Prilk Consulting
Who this is for
Any organisation that no longer wants its customer data, business data and intellectual property stored on third-party servers. In practice those are often American tech companies, where as a customer you have little say over what happens to that data, who has access to it and under which conditions that changes. More and more business owners want that control back and want to reduce their dependence on outside parties.
Legislation plays a role too. The Dutch Cyber Security Act (Cyberbeveiligingswet, the implementation of NIS2) sets requirements for the organisations that fall directly under it, but affects their suppliers and chain partners just as much. They too increasingly have to show how they handle data and access, and where that data is stored.
What happens next
In the course of 2026, ERPNext becomes a permanent part of the YourData Network offering. Until then we work with a limited number of projects, so the first implementations get the attention they deserve.
Want to be the first to hear when it becomes more widely available? Put yourself on the waiting list. If you already have a concrete question about ERPNext or about moving away from your current system, send a message to hello@yourdata.network. Then we’ll look together at whether this is a fit for you.