What is an Order Management System (OMS)?

An Order Management System (OMS) is a system whose sole purpose is to receive orders from various channels and standardize them before they are processed further. An online store, Allegro, Amazon, and any other marketplace transmit orders in different formats, with different sets of fields and different status logic. The OMS standardizes them into a single format.

With a single sales channel, such a layer is unnecessary, because the store can communicate directly with the ERP. The need arises as the number of platforms increases: without an OMS, each integration adds its own rules to a system that was never designed for multichannel operations, and every new marketplace requires changes in the same place.

OMS is sometimes confused with two related systems, and it's important to draw a clear line between them. ERP handles the company's finances, purchasing, and accounting. WMS manages physical warehouse operations, including storage locations and order fulfillment. OMS sits between them both and ensures only that orders from every channel look the same before either of these systems sees them.