What Are Your Roles And Responsibilities During An ERP Implementation?

If you are unfamiliar with the ERP implementation process, the process will start once you finalize the ERP product and select the ERP consultant. Depending on your processes’ complexity and automation goals, the ERP implementation project effort could take weeks or months. While your overarching role is to own the ERP project and make critical business decisions, your team will still share 50 percent of the project’s responsibilities.

Requirements Phase

You should gather the details needed to set up the ERP system during requirement workshops. This exercise will require discussions with your internal team to accommodate their current and future needs.

For example, your AP team might use six different payment terms in the old ERP system, especially if you had disconnected processes. In contrast, your Account Receivable team may use four of them. When you finalize these details, you need to develop a standard solution after discussing it with each relevant stakeholder.

If some of your processes were paper-based, you might need to gather these details by looking at previous invoices and orders. This comprehensive research will ensure that the new system will handle all your business scenarios.

Suppose your old system is a smaller accounting system, such as QuickBooks, without enough relational controls built to ensure data consistency. In that case, you may need to cleanse your data before your ERP consultant can import it.

Construction And Testing Phase

Once the system has enough data to perform transactions, they expect you to write test cases with their support. You will then test the system and report any issues. After they fix the problems, you will need to try again to ensure the resolution of the fixes. You might also need to test for each user role to ensure that they have appropriate privileges.

Data Load And Go-Live Phase

You may want to choose a train-the-trainer approach to keep the consulting costs low. This approach assumes that you will train your users while the ERP consultant helps you or a couple of crucial users from your side.

This method ensures you get an immersive experience with the product before going live on the new ERP system. It will also guarantee that the new ERP system’s knowledge doesn’t hinder running your business.

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