Morsa publishes this guide. Morsa is software with an AI agent that works in your ERP, email and Teams and drafts quotes for an estimator to approve.
Quick answer
CNC plus sheet metal in one shop: Fulcrum or MIE Trak Pro, plus CAM seats for the programmers and nesting software for the laser or punch.
Mostly CNC, aerospace, defense or medical: ProShop.
Mostly CNC, commercial work, keeping QuickBooks: JobBOSS2.
Sheet metal only: Fulcrum or MIE Trak Pro, plus SigmaNEST, ProNest or Lantek for nesting.
Structural steel: Tekla PowerFab.
The schedule across departments is the hardest problem: Global Shop Solutions.
Cost: a 35-person shop pays about $13,500 a year in software on Cetec, the one ERP here with public prices (our estimate, below). The rest quote.
How we picked
Four tests, applied to what each vendor publishes:
Built for the work. The vendor names your shop type (machine shop, fabricator, structural) as its customer.
Outside work on the router. Plating, heat treat and paint sit on the job as operations with their own cost, so job cost is real.
Where the books live. It either syncs with QuickBooks or replaces it, and says which.
A price you can get in writing. Published, or quoted with users, modules and implementation named.
Size matters less than the work, but as a rule of thumb (ours): under 25 people leaving spreadsheets, start with an ERP that publishes its price, such as Cetec, covered on job shop ERP; 25 to about 100 people, the picks below; past 100 on make-to-order work, an Epicor-class ERP.
Best software for a shop that machines and fabricates
A shop with mills and lathes beside a laser and a press brake needs one ERP that routes a job through both departments and holds the nest and the CNC program against the same job.
Fulcrum names CNC machine shops, sheet metal fabricators and multi-process job shops as its customers. It has operation-level routings, a machine schedule that updates itself, and takes nesting output into the bill of materials (BOM) and remnant stock. It is priced by company size and scope, not per user, and has no general ledger, so your accounting system stays [4].
MIE Trak Pro is a quote-first ERP for job shops and metal fabricators. The quote carries material, labor, routing and outside services into the job, scheduling runs in APS (advanced planning and scheduling) or four other modes, and accounting is part of the system [8].
Global Shop Solutions is the pick over those two when the schedule is the bottleneck. Its published scheduling list is the longest of the three: finite (scheduling to what each machine can actually run) and infinite, forward and backward, what-if, and limits by employee skill [13]. It licenses concurrent users and shop floor screens for an upfront fee plus a quarterly cost, so year one is the expensive year [15].
Either way, add CAM and nesting from the two sections below.
Best software for a CNC machine shop
The ERP for machine shops comes first; CAM and quoting from the model sit beside it.
Need | Pick and why |
|---|---|
ERP, regulated work | ProShop: ERP, quality system and shop floor tracking in one; AS9100 aerospace and ITAR (US defense export) workflows; sends tool data to Mastercam and connects to Net-Inspect for AS9102 first articles [1][2] |
ERP, commercial work | JobBOSS2: built for job shops; estimates from preset rates for overhead, setup, run time and outside services, and one click turns the estimate into a quote [3] |
Quoting from the 3D model | Paperless Parts: reads the CAD file for setups and machined features; connects to JobBOSS2, E2, Epicor, Fulcrum, Infor Visual and MIE [5][6] |
CAM | Mastercam, which takes tool data straight from ProShop [2], or Autodesk Fusion |
Aerospace shops: our AS9102 first article inspection guide covers the forms and the software that fills them.
Best metal fabrication software: sheet metal, structural and weld shops
Sheet metal (laser, punch, press brake). The metal fabrication ERP plans and costs the job; the nesting software lays parts onto the sheet to cut scrap and drives the cutting machine. You need both.
Need | Pick and why |
|---|---|
ERP | Fulcrum or MIE Trak Pro, as above; Fulcrum also tracks material and remnants [4][8] |
Nesting | SigmaNEST: drives laser, plasma, oxyfuel, waterjet, punch and router; nests onto leftover sheet (remnants) and tracks the mill heat number of each sheet; sends sheet counts to your ERP [9] |
Nesting | ProNest: Hypertherm’s nesting for plasma, laser, waterjet and oxyfuel; ProNest LT is the lighter tier [10] |
Nesting plus ERP and MES from one vendor | Lantek: Expert for nesting, its own ERP for quoting, orders and purchasing, and MES (shop floor control and data capture) modules, for sheet, tube and profile [11] |
Structural steel. Tekla PowerFab holds estimating, schedules, drawing control, change orders, purchasing, production control and a cut-list optimizer in one system [12]. Drawing revisions and change orders live next to the job, where a general job shop ERP has no place for them.
Weld and assembly shops. Welding, fitting and paint run as routing operations in the fab ERP above.
What happens to QuickBooks
The ERP takes over quotes, jobs, routings, purchasing and job cost. Whether QuickBooks stays for the books depends on the ERP:
ERP | QuickBooks |
|---|---|
JobBOSS2 | Stays; syncs with QuickBooks Desktop and Online [3] |
ProShop | Stays; ProShop sends invoices and purchase orders to QuickBooks or Sage 50 [2] |
Fulcrum | Stays; Fulcrum has no general ledger [4] |
Cetec, MIE Trak Pro | Retires; accounting is inside the ERP [14][8] |
Plan for 3 to 6 months, ECI’s own figure for a JobBOSS2 rollout [3]. Load open jobs, active part routings, customers and suppliers; leave closed jobs in the old files. Close one month-end in both systems before you switch the books. If you are leaving QuickBooks altogether, read outgrowing QuickBooks.
What job shop software costs for a 35-person shop
Our estimate on Cetec, the one that publishes: 10 office users who quote, buy, schedule and invoice at $50, plus 25 floor users who clock jobs at $25, is $1,125 a month, or $13,500 a year, with self-serve support [14]. Cetec’s sample implementation for a company leaving QuickBooks and spreadsheets is $26,000 to $40,000 with an ERP-savvy person on staff, or $55,000 to $77,000 without one [16].
For the quote-only ERPs, ask each vendor to price the same 10 office plus 25 floor split for three years, with implementation by module. Prices brand by brand are on shop ERP pricing and alternatives.
Outside the ERP:
Software | Published price |
|---|---|
Autodesk Fusion (CAM) | About $680 a seat a year, as reported by Activepieces; Autodesk’s page blocked our reader [7] |
Paperless Parts | Pricing tiers, no figures [6] |
SigmaNEST, ProNest, Lantek, Tekla PowerFab | Quote only [9][10][11][12] |
Outside processing and material certs
Put each outside operation on the router with its own PO, so the job shows “at plating since Tuesday”, not “in process”.
In every demo, ask the vendor to send a job to a plater and bring it back, with the plating cost landing on the job. Our material cert packet checklist covers the certs the customer needs at shipment.
Quoting an RFQ without retyping it
An RFQ for 200 anodized aluminum brackets lands in the estimator’s inbox with a drawing and a STEP file. Morsa works next to whichever ERP you run: JobBOSS2, ProShop, Global Shop, Fulcrum or MIE Trak Pro.
It reads the drawing, finds the closest past jobs in the ERP, and pulls their routings, run times, machine rates and today’s bar price.
It drafts a price request to your anodizer. The estimator approves that kind of request once; after that, Morsa sends it from the estimator’s mailbox on each new RFQ and reads the reply. Nothing else goes out on its own.
It drafts the quote in your format with the landed cost. The customer sees it only after the estimator approves it.
To see it on your own RFQs, book a 30-minute walkthrough.
What to do this week
Write down your shop type from the Quick answer and pick the two ERPs it names.
Send both vendors one real RFQ with an outside operation, and your 10 office plus 25 floor user split, and ask for a three-year written price.
Decide now whether QuickBooks stays, using the table above.
Sources
ProShop ERP, homepage: https://proshoperp.com/ (read 8 November 2026)
ProShop ERP, Integrations: https://proshoperp.com/product/integrations/ (read 8 November 2026)
ECI Software Solutions, JobBOSS2 product page and FAQ: https://www.ecisolutions.com/products/jobboss2/ and estimating and quoting: https://www.ecisolutions.com/products/jobboss2/features/quotes/ (read 8 November 2026)
Fulcrum, FAQ: https://fulcrumpro.com/faq (read 8 November 2026)
Paperless Parts, homepage: https://www.paperlessparts.com/ (read 8 November 2026)
Paperless Parts, Paperless Parts x JobBOSS2 integration: https://www.paperlessparts.com/resources/paperless-parts-x-jobboss%C2%B2-integration-2 and Pricing: https://www.paperlessparts.com/pricing/ (read 8 November 2026)
Activepieces, Autodesk Fusion 360 pricing 2026 (5 November 2026; cites Autodesk’s pricing page, which blocked our reader): https://www.activepieces.com/blog/autodesk-fusion-360-pricing-2026-what-it-costs-a-month (read 8 November 2026)
MIE Solutions, MIE Trak Pro: https://mie-solutions.com/ (read 8 November 2026)
SigmaTEK Systems, SigmaNEST features: https://www.sigmateksystems.com/features (read 8 November 2026)
Hypertherm, Which nesting software is right for you?: https://www.hypertherm.com/learn/about-our-products/pronest-nesting-software/ (read 8 November 2026)
Lantek, homepage: https://www.lantek.com/us/ (read 8 November 2026)
Trimble, Tekla PowerFab: https://www.tekla.com/products/tekla-powerfab (read 8 November 2026)
Global Shop Solutions, Planning and scheduling software: https://www.globalshopsolutions.com/planning-and-scheduling-software-for-manufacturing (read 8 November 2026)
Cetec ERP, Pricing: https://www.cetecerp.com/pricing (read 8 November 2026)
Global Shop Solutions, ERP software pricing: https://www.globalshopsolutions.com/pricing (read 8 November 2026)
Cetec ERP, Implementation and launch pricing: https://cetecerp.com/implementation-pricing/ (read 8 November 2026)
