Most failed ERP projects fail on process, not software: unclear scope, dirty data, nobody owning the decisions. This checklist follows the four steps we use at Big Beam — discover, configure, build, go live — and applies to any implementation.
1. Discover
- Map how a job flows today: quotation, order, purchase, delivery, invoice, payment.
- List every document you issue and who approves it.
- Name one decision-maker for the project — someone who can say yes.
- Decide which modules go live first. Fewer, finished modules beat everything half-done.
- Flag every item that is not standard: devices, integrations, unusual approvals, regulatory formats. These become your custom scope — and should be agreed in writing before work starts.
2. Configure
- Company profile, tax registrations, bank accounts, letterhead and signatures.
- Document numbering — decide prefixes and where each sequence continues from.
- Roles and permissions: who can view, add, edit and delete in each module.
- Approval lines — usually the organisation chart, not a long list of administrators.
- Print formats for the documents customers and auditors see.
3. Build and migrate
- Build only the custom-scope items agreed in discovery.
- Clean your data before loading: duplicate customers, vendors with no tax number, SKUs with three spellings.
- Load in dependency order — customers and vendors, then employees, then catalogue, then opening balances.
- Run a trial import. Read the error log. Fix and repeat until it loads clean.
4. Go live
- Train each role on the modules it will use, not the whole system.
- Run a few real transactions end to end with the team before switching over.
- Set a cut-over date and stop issuing documents in the old tools from that date.
- Agree who handles questions in the first weeks, and how issues reach the vendor.
After go-live
Review in the first month: which modules are being used, which workarounds have appeared, and what to switch on next. Read how Big Beam’s implementation and managed hosting work, or talk to us about your project.