Automating tasks with old custom ERP: Claude or Power Automate?

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It can. Not necessarily the best solution here but yes, it can. https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/agents-and-tools/tool-use/computer-use-tool

Start by finding the safest seam into the ERP, not by picking Claude versus Power Automate. Ask whoever maintains it whether it can take CSV or EDI imports, scheduled files, ODBC, or a staging table. Old systems with no modern API often still have one of those. I’d stage the extracted order first, validate customer, SKU, quantity, and tax against the master data, then only send clean records through. Anything ambiguous goes to a human queue. Screen automation should be the last resort, tested on a clone and logged transaction by transaction. Also sample 100 recent invoices and orders before building anything so you know the variants and current error rate. Since the box is Server 2012, isolate it, use a least-privilege service account, and verify the backup and restore path before connecting automation.

This. I run a software shop and we see this a lot with older systems. The challenge you're describing isn't really about Claude or Power Automate, though both have limits here. It's that your ERP has no API, so you can't easily automate the data entry without either building a connector or using UI automation (which I would definitly not recommend : it's fragile and slow). My take would be building a connector as mentionned by u/sparkignitefire. The solution depends on how you can connect to your ERP's database, so you can input your invoices and orders automatically from what sits upstream. 2 questions : - What's the ERP's name and version ? - How do you recieve or make invoices and client orders ? If you have to input them manually in your system, it means that they've been created somehow already before, so you have a double entry problem.

You would probably be better off posting r/ERP as it's more pertinent to that field, not so much this sub.

You can use claude with playwright

What database engine does your ERP use? If you need any help may be I can help you.

This is actually very solvable even without an API it's a common setup for legacy ERPs from that era. Two pieces working together any LLM reads your messy invoices/orders and pulls out the structured data, then an RPA tool like UiPath or Power Automate Desktop types it into your ERP's UI exactly like your assistant does, no API needed. We've actually built this exact kind of pipeline before for a similarly old system, doesn't touch the ERP itself so zero migration risk, and it frees up your assistant for higher value work instead of data entry all day.

Will add that Server 2012 has been end of life since October 2023 with no security patches. Also there are ways to have your work done in the Cloud without needing to open up a risk in your network of remoting into the server. If it ever gets hit, your whole operation is down and your cyber insurance may not pay. Worth getting it isolated or migrated before you build automation on top of it.

Claude cannot click buttons on your desktop app.

i work for agentui, what we have done with some clients with the same case, is that they connect to thier database directly and read from the database, in most cases writing directly is not possible due to the ERP's internal proceses

One thing to watch if you go the direct-SQL-write route (which is otherwise the right instinct over UI automation): on a lot of legacy ERPs from that era, validation and business rules live in the application layer, not the database. The UI won't let your assistant save an order with a bad customer code or a negative quantity, but a direct INSERT into the underlying table might, because that check simply isn't enforced at the database level. So writing directly to SQL Server needs the same staging/validation step people are already telling you to build for the extraction side, just applied going the other direction too - validate against your own copy of the business rules before you write, don't assume the database will catch what the UI normally catches. Worth an afternoon with whoever built or has maintained the ERP to find out what's actually enforced where before anything writes to it automatically.