Disclosure: Mercura publishes this comparison. Information about Esker comes solely from its public website and its public product documentation (as of October 28, 2026, sources listed at the end of the article). Found an error? Write to us via /contact; we review and correct within 5 business days.

Highlight Summary

• For distributors and manufacturers that want BoQs, orders and supplier price requests matched against their catalog in one system and written into the ERP, Mercura is the better fit.

• Both document order entry from email and PDF, line matching against the item master with a confidence value, duplicate order detection, SAP S/4HANA and ECC, ISO 27001, hosting in Europe and a multilingual interface.

• Esker is the better fit if you also want accounts receivable, cash application, a customer portal with punchout or a customer-facing AI agent.

What is Mercura, what is Esker?

Mercura is AI software for quote and order automation in technical sales. It reads requests, bills of quantities (BoQs), tenders and orders, including German GAEB files, matches every line item to your own item master, requests supplier prices for missing lines and writes the approved quote or order into your ERP. Inside sales approves every one. How that connection works is described in our article on ERP integration.

Esker describes itself as “AI & Solutions Automation for the Office of the CFO”, with Source-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash solutions. Its part comparable to Mercura is Esker Order Management, “built for complex order environments — from email and EDI to portals, punchout, mobile and ERP-connected workflows”.

Comparison at a glance

Legend: ✅ documented · ◐ partly (reason in brackets) · – not mentioned = not mentioned on Esker’s website or in its product documentation, as of October 28, 2026; this does not mean it is missing. ✗ not offered, per vendor = the vendor’s own pages say so. Mercura column: standard features, as of October 2026.

Can Esker build quotes from BoQs and tenders?

Esker’s website and product documentation do not mention GAEB import, GAEB X84 export or a PDF quote with technical attributes. Esker Order Management does handle customer quote requests: according to its documentation, customer service creates quotes in the ERP from the order form, and since October 2026 quote requests can be posted to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Mercura reads GAEB files (X83, D83, P83, X81), detects optional and contingency items and returns the quote as GAEB X84, as a PDF with technical attributes or into the ERP. More on quotes and tenders.

Example (illustrative): In a 180-line BoQ for a school, Mercura flags three contingency items and one line where pipe size and pressure rating don’t match. Inside sales exports the quote.

Can Esker create supplier price requests straight from a BoQ?

Esker’s website and documentation do not mention supplier price requests from a BoQ or customer request. For purchasing, Esker documents a separate tool, Esker Quote Request: buyers create a quote request from a purchase requisition or from the sourcing or procurement dashboards, and suppliers answer in a supplier portal. For BoQ lines you don’t stock, Mercura creates the request from the BoQ as GAEB P93 or Excel, sends it from your mailbox and files the replies, so request, reply and quote stay on one record.

Example (illustrative): Twelve fittings you don’t carry in a civil-engineering BoQ go out as one request to two manufacturers; inside sales picks the lower price.

How do Mercura and Esker match line items to your catalog?

Esker says it uses AI “to extract order data at header and line level, then verify it against ERP information such as products, pricing, quantities and delivery details”. Its documentation describes how the AI takes a free-text product description, searches the material table for the most relevant matching material and suggests it when an order has no material numbers. For each field it shows where the value came from and “the confidence level of the retrieved value” as a percentage. Esker learns from user corrections and shows the original order next to the extracted data. Item data comes from the ERP, for example as imported CSV files. Its website and documentation do not mention accessories, variants, competitor substitutes, or BMEcat and DATANORM.

Mercura matches every line, including long text, shows reason, source passage and confidence, adds accessories with multipliers, selects variants, uses ETIM attributes and proposes substitutes for competitor products. Its average match rate is 92%; it varies by customer and catalog.

At building-services manufacturer REHAU, Mercura suggests products for up to 98% of BoQ lines, with a hit rate of up to 90% and up to 60% time saved on quotes. Read the full REHAU success story.

Where are Esker and Mercura on par?

Both vendors describe order entry, SAP, security and languages on their websites. Esker captures orders from email, EDI and portals and creates validated orders in the ERP. It names “pre-built integration with SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA”, “ISO 27001 certification for all cloud platform activities”, 11 data centers including France, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands, and an interface “in nine languages”. Its documentation also describes duplicate order detection per customer, Outlook or Microsoft 365 rules that route a customer service mailbox into Esker, and orders whose ERP creation failed going back to customer service for correction and approval. Its customer stories include a North American chemical and ingredient distributor that uses Esker Order Management. How EDI and AI processing of email orders complement each other is covered in our article on EDI vs. AI for orders.

Mercura is ISO/IEC 27001 certified and hosted in Europe with a separate tenant per customer. Its ERP connections are listed in the FAQ and described under order processing and integrations.

Choose Esker if …

• you want enterprise-wide order-to-cash, with Credit, Claims, Cash Application, Deductions and Collections Management, and Source-to-Pay with supplier quote requests for purchasing.

• your customers should order through a portal, punchout or mobile app.

• your customers should get “instant, 24/7 AI support” for order questions and status checks.

• you want EDI and non-EDI orders in one environment.

• you run SAP S/4HANA Cloud and expect a certified integration, including customer quote requests posted to the ERP.

Choose Mercura if …

• you quote BoQs and tenders from your catalog as X84, PDF or into the ERP, for example in building materials distribution, as a building products manufacturer or in plumbing and HVAC wholesale.

• you want supplier price requests straight from the BoQ.

• your lines need accessories, variants or an equivalent from your own range for a competitor product named in the request.

• you maintain item data via BMEcat or DATANORM.

• you want to test on your own data, usually within 2 working days.

Methodology

Sources: Esker’s public website and its public online product documentation, retrieved October 27, 2026 and re-checked in full on October 28, 2026 (including press releases and release notes), without login, forms or downloads. Status legend: see the table. Mercura information: standard features, as of October 2026. Reviewed quarterly; corrections via /contact within 5 business days. All comparisons: Mercura vs. competitors.

FAQ

Is Mercura an Esker alternative?

For order entry in technical sales, yes, and also for quotes from BoQs and supplier price requests. For receivables, cash application or customer portals, it is not; Esker documents these. How request, quote, follow-up and order come together in one flow is described in our article on quote-to-order automation.

What do Esker and Mercura cost?

Neither publishes prices. Esker’s pages offer a demo and contact. Mercura pricing: via /contact.

Which ERP systems do Mercura and Esker connect to?

Mercura: SAP S/4HANA, ECC and Business One, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce, proALPHA, UniTrade; others via API or SFTP. Esker connects to SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and other ERPs. Which SAP interfaces suit sales orders is compared in our article on SAP order entry integration.

Who is Esker a better fit for?

Companies that want order entry and receivables in one order-to-cash platform.

Sources

• Esker website, home page: self-description as a provider for the “Office of the CFO” with Source-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash. Retrieved October 27, 2026.

• Esker website, page “Order Management” (Solutions section): information on order capture, routing, checks against ERP data, customer portal, AI agent and nine languages. Retrieved October 27, 2026.

• Esker website, page “Order Management” (Order-to-Cash section, customer service): information on the shared customer service inbox and on price and availability checks. Retrieved October 27, 2026.

• Esker website, page “Order Data Capture” (Order Management section): information on text recognition, learning from corrections and review next to the original document. Retrieved October 27, 2026.

• Esker website, page “Order-to-Cash” (Solutions section): information on credit, claims, collections and cash application modules. Retrieved October 27, 2026.

• Esker website, page “Esker & SAP” (ERP integration section): information on integration with SAP ECC, S/4HANA and S/4HANA Cloud. Retrieved October 27, 2026.

• Esker website, page “EDI Integration” (Technology section): list of ERP formats, including SAP Business One, and transfer methods. Retrieved October 27, 2026.

• Esker website, page “ERP Integration & Connectivity Suite” (Capabilities section): information on REST APIs and file exchange. Retrieved October 27, 2026.

• Esker website, page “Customer Trust & Data Security” (Company section, ESG): information on ISO 27001 certification. Retrieved October 27, 2026.

• Esker website, page “Cloud Platform” (Technology section): information on data centers, hosting and single sign-on. Retrieved October 27, 2026.

• Esker website, page “Customer Industries” (Customers section): list of industries, including building materials manufacturers. Retrieved October 27, 2026.

• Esker online product documentation (Order Management help), pages on submission methods, Microsoft 365 mail routing, field value retrieval, duplicate orders, ERP integration settings and CSV table import: mailbox routing, origin and confidence level per field, duplicate detection, failed ERP creation, item data from CSV. Retrieved October 28, 2026.

• Esker online product documentation, release notes “What’s new” for Order Management: material suggestions from free-text descriptions, quotes created in the ERP from the order form, quote requests posted to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Retrieved October 28, 2026.

• Esker online product documentation, overview of Quote Request (Source-to-Pay): quote requests created from purchase requisitions or dashboards and answered by suppliers in a supplier portal. Retrieved October 28, 2026.

• Esker website, press release on the launch of Esker Quote Request (March 2026): automated RFQ process for tail and non-strategic spend. Retrieved October 28, 2026.

• Esker website, customer story on a North American specialty chemical and ingredient distributor (May 2026): a distributor using Customer Inquiry Management, Order Management and Collections Management. Retrieved October 28, 2026.

• Esker website, all pages listed in the site’s sitemap, press releases and the table of contents of its online product documentation (checked for the “not mentioned” rows). Retrieved October 28, 2026.

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