Is your business ready for an ERP? A 10-question self-check

The ten questions

Answer each yes or no. Each no is something to fix before, or as the first phase of, any system.

1. Can you draw how an order moves, from enquiry to payment, with who does what at each step? If not, that map is the first piece of work; a system built on the wrong picture makes the workarounds faster.
2. Does each process have one owner who can say how it should work? Without one, the system inherits every disagreement.
3. Are your masters clean? One record per customer, supplier and item, with GSTINs and HSN codes that are right. Duplicates in Tally become duplicates in the ERP.
4. Do you know your stock to the level you pick and ship (a reel, a box, a plate), or only as totals? If only totals, plan a stock count before go-live.
5. Is there one place for each number? If the same figure lives in Tally, a spreadsheet and someone's notebook, decide now which one is the truth.
6. Will people record work where it happens, on a phone on the floor or at site, rather than at a desk at day end?
7. Will the owner decide when sales and production disagree about how something should work? Systems fail more often from undecided questions than from code.
8. Do you know which compliance rules apply? Turnover decides e-invoicing and its 30-day limit; being a company decides the audit trail. See compliance requirements.
9. Have you decided about Tally? Keep it as the books, or move the books into the new system. See moving from Tally.
10. Can you name the first thing the system must get right? The records that must be right come first; everything else is a later phase.

Scoring it

• 8 to 10 yes: ready. Write your requirements with the builder and start talking to vendors.
• 5 to 7: ready if the first phase is mapping the business and cleaning masters, not building screens.
• Under 5: start with the map. Buying a system before the processes are decided is how ERP projects stall.

Why this order

Ahrom Labs starts every engagement with a short modeling phase that answers most of these questions: what exists, who owns it, which records must be right, and what each phase delivers. You keep the model and the plan whether or not you continue. See how an engagement runs and the requirements checklist.