What is an ERP solution?
ERP solutions cover all necessary processes to enable effective management within your organisation. But what are the different parts of effective management?
- To have a clear view of your accounting processes, you have to start by covering the basics and automating financial processes by using scan tools and e-invoicing together with CODA files for financial transactions.
- Adding information such as employees, subcontractors or machine hours combined with the follow-up of your production and inventory to the system enables you to plan and intervene when you need additional resources.
- Another element of effective management is making sure important contracts are renewed on time and following up on the maintenance of your company cars and machinery.
- Every production, service or lead should have a good follow-up in the CRM part to make sure offers are converted into orders and no order is left behind for invoicing after performing.
By gathering all these data in a solid database, you can instantly analyse where you can get a quick win or where something might go wrong.
Why should SMEs and scale-ups use an ERP system?
Small and medium-sized enterprises and scale-ups tend to attach more importance to their day-to-day business than to their administrative flows and processes. Most of them rely on their local accountancy firm for their accounting processes without connecting these to the follow-up of the business.
This “disconnection” between their business and their administrative processes causes them to lose sight of important cash drains such as unusable stock, excessively purchasing certain products or bad follow-up. Whereas effectively managed administrative processes linked to the day-to-day business and automating certain tasks can save you time and resources and help you find important documents in just a few clicks.
A well-integrated system where financial information from your accounting processes is part of the bigger picture ensures you have a good view of your profit and loss situation and helps you run your entire business.
Is an ERP solution not too big for an SME or a scale-up?
Studies show that SMEs and scale-ups use their available funds mainly to finance their growth. They often have no established back-office existing of a finance manager, an IT director or a controller. Nevertheless, they need the same data and information as a big company if they wish to manage their business efficiently and effectively.
Big ERP systems need a lot of knowledge, resources and time to get implemented. Next to that, they tend to be more expensive than an average SME or scale-up is willing to pay. For these types of companies, a smaller ERP system, tailored to their business, can be implemented in a shorter period and with a leaner budget.
How can SMEs or scale-ups implement ERP systems?
Through different phases and workshops, BDO’s Smart Business Solutions discovers together with you which ERP solutions are fit for your needs.
Our track for implementing the ERP solution for your business contains 4 blocks:
- Discovery = Managed Services Discovery
- Design = Design Service Delivery Model
- Transitions = Implement Service Delivery Solution
- Run = Services Delivery Initiated
During the discovery phase, we formalise your key objectives, discover your value drivers and define your definition of success. In this phase, we confirm the scope of the services and we gather current state information on your operating- and technology model. Besides this, the necessary reporting requirements and transactional accounting processes are validated to eventually develop a transition timeline. These types of projects, mostly done by an IT director in a large company, are tackled by us in cooperation with you and key persons in your company.
During the design phase, we develop the process flows and support you with technological configurations such as a common chart of accounts and a document management solution. We define which technology enablers are possible (such as integration tools and interfaces), if you need any training necessities and help you with communicating the pending changes to your employees.
During the transition phase, we plan various meetings or conference calls to make sure everything is getting implemented as you pictured it. We implement the interfaces and develop a cut-over plan.
After testing the system readiness and conducting the training, you’re ready for the final step: running the program. Once the program is up and running, we keep it on monitoring for a certain period and address possible start-up issues to refine the processes, policies and procedures.
As we hand over our documentation for all custom-made settings, you have the necessary information to train new employees or to build new modules as your business evolves.
A possible timeline for this service can be as follows:
What information should be included in the ERP solution for SMEs and scale-ups?
An ERP solution is implemented using the basic processes each type of business knows:
- Order-to-cash process (sales)
- Procure-to-pay process (purchase)
- Production
- Service/maintenance management
The order-to-cash process includes which type of information you have about your customers and how you follow up on your leads, so you’ll get more insight into the offers that are sent out and how your payments are registered. Integrating this into 1 system, enables you to have a good follow-up without having to hire additional people, which creates more time and resources for you. Depending on the content, we can split this flow into multiple workshops, each handling different topics.
In the procure-to-pay process, we check whether we can automate your order processes or add approval flows to make sure you only order necessary items at the best prices. Using purchase orders also automates the accounting process for the purchase invoices and adds a second check so only the ordered items are paid. With good standards to handle deviations on the purchase invoices, you make sure the right people are alarmed if something goes wrong and only the assigned people can approve the payment. This again enables to automate the payment process.No more manual payments using your banking platform, no more chances for errors when typing the amount and bank account. All this information flows directly from the ERP solution to a payment instruction.
The production cycle is explored to make sure you can order spare parts in due time or (when you render services) that you even the work between the employees, can hire in due time or you know when a client can expect their order. With the help of workflows, business processes can be designed and executed (approvals, notifications and process automation).
By implementing services or maintenance management, you can register service and repair requests and obtain a complete history of your service orders. You can manage your service prices and set up price groups for services, manage available parts or spare parts and enter service contracts with monitoring of working hours, discounts etc.
Is this not too complicated or extensive for my SME or scale-up?
The possibilities are endless. For SMEs and scale-ups, it’s all about the readiness to grow. If you have an ERP system in place, the risks of losing time or incurring additional costs by switching from one system to another decrease. Even if growth is not your key strategy, using the right ERP solutions can gain you time or insights and make your business more profitable.
For which types of ERP solutions can we rely on Smart Business Solutions?
Smart Business Solutions not only implements the software used by its accountants such as Business Central and Exact Online, but it also works together with reliable partners for implementing any software which best suits your needs. In the latter case, we come in as a hands-on consultant translating your needs into IT language and making sure all necessary tests are performed before the implementing party hands over the program.
I don’t know anything about financial processes and/or I don’t have an IT director at hand, how should I proceed?
In general SMEs and scale-ups are established by one to five people who have a good idea that they want to elaborate into a profitable business. As mentioned before, Smart Business Solutions discovers the necessary processes together with the key persons within your company using the following steps:
- Workshops
- Visits to your company
- Analysing current processes in place
- ...
Together with the multidisciplinary expertise available at BDO with experts in Strategy & Transformation, change management, Accountancy & Reporting etc., we make sure the processes and systems implemented meet your needs while your employees are being assisted during this transition. This way, you make sure you win time, knowledge and control over your business processes without losing the talent that makes your company thrive!
Not convinced yet? Still having some questions?
Don’t hesitate to contact us and plan a casual conversation with one of our colleagues to discover the strengths of a good ERP solution and the possible wins for your business.