Talk to Your ERP Data in Plain English

It means anyone on your team can type or speak a plain-English question — like "What open orders over $50k ship this week for customer ACME?" — and get an accurate answer drawn from live ERP data in seconds. An AI agentic system translates the question into the right query against Epicor P21 or IFS, runs it through ESS's domain API, and returns the answer conversationally, with follow-up questions handled in context. No report builder, no SQL, no waiting on IT. Any question a power user could answer from the ERP, the assistant answers instantly — for sales, warehouse, finance and leadership alike — turning the ERP from a system you navigate into one you simply ask.

Live data. The assistant queries your ERP in real time through ESS's domain API layer, so every answer reflects the current state of orders, inventory, pricing and receivables — not last night's extract or a stale warehouse copy. If a sales order was created two minutes ago, whether by a CSR or by ESS's order entry automation, it shows up in the very next answer. That real-time link matters because it is the same integration layer that powers ESS's ERP document automation: the conversational assistant and the document pipelines read and write against one consistent, live source of truth in Epicor P21 or IFS.

Epicor Prophet 21 and IFS are supported out of the box, including on-premises P21 with no Epicor API module required — ESS maintains its own domain API layer over both platforms. Other ERP systems such as SAP and Infor can be connected through the same integration layer, so a mixed-ERP environment can still get one conversational front end for the whole business. Because the assistant sits on the same APIs that power ESS's AI document processing and AP automation for P21 and IFS, adding conversational access is not a separate integration project — the plumbing into your ERP already exists and is maintained by ESS.

Yes. Beyond read-only questions, the same platform can take action — creating a sales order from a document through AI document processing, feeding invoice processing automation, or surfacing exceptions for review — all with permission controls and a full audit trail so users only see and do what their role allows. Conversational access and ERP document automation share one engine: the chat interface your team uses to ask about orders is the same one reviewers use to confirm exceptions and post records into Epicor P21 or IFS. Questions today, sales order automation and touchless workflows tomorrow, without switching platforms or vendors.

Dashboards answer questions someone anticipated in advance; conversational access answers the question you have right now, in the moment, without building a new report. A BI dashboard is the right tool for recurring KPIs, but when a customer calls about one specific order, or a buyer needs on-hand and on-order for a single part across warehouses, nobody wants to file a report request and wait. The assistant queries live Epicor P21 or IFS data on demand through ESS's domain API and returns the answer in seconds, with follow-ups handled conversationally. It complements BI rather than replacing it — dashboards for the known questions, conversation for everything else.

Yes. The platform runs in your own Microsoft Azure or AWS tenant with role-based access, encryption and full audit logging, and your data is never used to train public AI models. Permission controls mean a warehouse user asking about stock cannot browse receivables, and every question and answer is logged, so conversational access is as governed as any other ERP client. For organizations with the strictest requirements, a fully self-hosted, air-gapped deployment is available — keeping the entire AI layer, conversational access and intelligent document processing alike, inside your own network. Security is the same architecture ESS applies across its ERP document automation platform.