Most companies start looking for an ERP when something breaks: month-end takes three weeks, stock never matches the books, or the owner cannot get a straight answer to “how much did we make last month?”. That is the right moment to look, but it is also when it is easiest to buy the wrong thing. Settle the questions below first and every demo you sit through becomes easier to judge.
1. Which problems must it solve in the first six months?
Write down the three to five problems that cost you the most money or time today. Be specific: “we cannot see stock per branch”, not “better visibility”. These become the test for every system you look at, and the scope of your first phase.
2. Who will use it, and where?
Count the people who will log in, not your total staff, and list your locations: shops, warehouses, sites and offices. Note which ones have unreliable internet. This drives licence cost, hosting and whether you need tills or apps that keep working offline.
3. What must it connect to?
List the systems money and data pass through: banks, mobile money, tax e-invoicing, payroll, online shops, weighbridges or biometric clocks. An ERP that cannot connect to these leaves your team retyping, which is exactly what you are paying to stop.
4. How much will it cost over five years, not just to buy?
- Licence or subscription fees per user, and how they grow as you hire
- Implementation: setup, data migration and training
- Hosting, backups and upgrades
- Support after go-live
- The cost of changes as your business changes
Open source systems such as ERPNext remove the per-user licence fee, which matters a great deal as you add branches and staff.
5. Can it be shaped to how you work?
Every business has its own approvals, documents and reports. Ask how forms, workflows and reports are changed, who can change them, and whether those changes survive upgrades.
6. Who will implement and support it?
The software is half of the result. The other half is the team that maps your processes, moves your data and trains your people. Ask to meet the people who would run your project, ask what happens after go-live, and ask for a written blueprint before anything is built.
7. Who owns your data?
You should be able to export all of your data, in usable formats, at any time, and move to another supplier if you need to. If a vendor is vague about this, treat it as a warning.
Warning signs in a demo
- The demo uses no example from your industry
- Every question is answered with “that is a customisation”
- Nobody asks how your business works before showing screens
- The price is given before the scope is understood