Know what your ERP has to do before vendors tell you.

The general ledger is the system of record for the company. Multi-entity structures, currency handling and a fast close decide whether finance trusts the system or rebuilds it in spreadsheets.

1. Multi-entity general ledgerSeparate books for each legal entity with intercompany eliminations and a consolidated view, without a separate consolidation tool.
2. Multi-currencyTransactions, balances and reporting in multiple currencies, with configurable exchange rates and automatic revaluation of open balances.
3. Accounts payable automationInvoice capture, three-way matching to purchase orders and receipts, approval routing and scheduled payment runs.
4. Accounts receivable and collectionsCustomer invoicing, cash application, aging and dunning workflows with collector notes and promise-to-pay tracking.
5. Period close managementA close checklist with task owners, dependencies and status, and the ability to post to a prior period under controlled permissions.
6. Budgeting and forecastingBudget versions by department and account, actual-to-budget variance in the ledger, and rolling forecasts without exporting to a spreadsheet.
7. Fixed assetsAsset register with acquisition, depreciation schedules by book, transfers, impairments and disposals posted to the ledger.

Operations is where an ERP earns its keep or gets worked around. Inventory accuracy, procurement controls and order flow across locations decide whether the business runs from the system or beside it.

1. Multi-location inventoryStock levels, transfers and reorder points by warehouse, store or site, with a company-wide available-to-promise view.
2. Lot, serial and expiry trackingTraceability of lots and serial numbers from receipt to shipment, with expiry dates and recall reporting.
3. Procurement workflowRequisition to purchase order with approval thresholds by amount and category, preferred suppliers and contract pricing.
4. Order managementSales orders from quote to fulfillment, with backorders, partial shipments, drop-ship and returns handled in one flow.
5. Demand planningForecast-driven replenishment suggestions using sales history, lead times and safety stock, reviewable before release.
6. Production or project costingCosting of work orders or projects, with labor, material and overhead captured against the job and variance to standard.
7. Barcode and mobile operationsReceiving, picking, counting and transfers from a handheld or mobile device with barcode scanning.

Every executive question ends up as a report request. Self-service reporting on live data, with drill-down to the transaction, is what keeps finance out of the extract-and-pivot cycle.

1. Financial statementsBalance sheet, income statement and cash flow by entity, consolidated and comparative, generated from the ledger without manual adjustment.
2. Self-service report builderBusiness users build and share reports from a governed data model without developer involvement or SQL.
3. Drill-down to sourceAny reported figure drills to the underlying transactions and documents.
4. Role-based dashboardsConfigurable dashboards with KPIs by role, refreshed from live data.
5. Scheduled distributionReports run on a schedule and are delivered by email or to a shared location, in the recipient's chosen format.
6. Operational analyticsInventory turns, fill rate, on-time delivery, supplier performance and margin by product or customer, available as standard.
7. Data warehouse accessGoverned, documented access to the data for an external BI or warehouse tool, including change-data feeds.

An ERP never runs alone. Payroll, CRM, e-commerce, banking and the tools each department already uses have to exchange data with it, reliably and without a developer in the middle of every change.

1. Documented APIsPublic REST or equivalent APIs covering every major object, with versioning, rate limits and sandbox access documented.
2. Pre-built connectorsMaintained connectors for common payroll, CRM, e-commerce, expense and banking systems, with the list and support status published.
3. Bank connectivityAutomated bank statement import and reconciliation, and payment file generation in the formats your banks accept.
4. Data import and migration toolsTemplates and validation for loading opening balances, master data and open transactions at go-live.
5. Event and webhook supportNotifications on record changes so other systems can react without polling.
6. Integration monitoringA view of integration runs, failures and retries that an administrator can act on without vendor support.
7. Spreadsheet connectivityGoverned two-way connection to spreadsheets for analysis and controlled bulk updates.

Finance data is audited. Segregation of duties, an audit trail and control over who can post what are not features to add later; they shape how the system is configured from day one.

1. Role-based access controlPermissions by role down to the field and action, with segregation-of-duties rules that flag conflicting assignments.
2. Audit trailA tamper-evident log of who changed what and when, on transactions, master data and configuration, retained for the audit period.
3. Single sign-on and MFASSO through your identity provider and multi-factor authentication enforced for every user.
4. Approval workflowsConfigurable approvals on journals, payments, purchase orders and master-data changes, with delegation and escalation.
5. Data residency and encryptionData stored in a stated region, encrypted at rest and in transit, with the vendor's certifications current and shared.
6. Environment managementSandbox and test environments refreshed from production on request, so changes are tested before release.
7. Data retention and exportRetention policies you control and a complete export of your data in open formats at any time, including at contract end.

Most ERP disappointment is implementation, not software. The partner, the method, the training and the support model after go-live belong in the evaluation alongside the features.

1. Implementation methodologyA documented phased approach with deliverables, decision points and a realistic timeline for a company your size.
2. Named implementation teamThe people who will run the implementation named in the proposal, with references from comparable projects.
3. Data migration servicesResponsibility for mapping, cleansing and loading legacy data defined, with a dry run before go-live.
4. TrainingRole-based training for end users and administrators, with materials you can reuse for new hires.
5. Support modelSupport hours, channels, response targets by severity and escalation path in writing, with the account team named.
6. Release managementA published release schedule, release notes in advance and the ability to test updates before they reach production.
7. Total cost transparencyFive-year cost including licenses, implementation, integrations, training, support and expected growth, with the pricing model explained.