Most of what decides whether an ERP project goes well happens before anyone configures anything. A business that arrives with clean data and clear decisions gets a system that fits. One that arrives expecting the software to sort things out gets its old problems, faster.
1. One owner inside the business
Someone on your side who can make decisions, answer questions within a day, and knows how the work actually happens. Not the most senior person — the most involved one.
2. Clean master data
Customers, suppliers, products and the chart of accounts, each in one list without duplicates. This is tedious work, and it is the work that pays back most.
3. Opening balances you trust
Pick a start date and agree the balances on that date: stock, receivables, payables, bank. A system started on doubtful balances carries the doubt forward forever.
4. How you want to work, written down
Not a long document. A page per process: who does what, who approves, what happens when something goes wrong. It turns the workshops from discovery into decisions.
5. Time for your team
People learn a system by using it on their own work. Plan time for training and for a period when the old and the new run side by side.
The software is the easy part. The preparation is the project.