How an ERP Implementation Checklist Can Help You Prepare for Kickoff
An ERP implementation checklist isn’t just something to use once the project begins. Some of the most important implementation work should happen before your kickoff meeting.
Before configuration, data migration, testing, and training begin, your team should understand why you’re implementing an ERP, what isn’t working today, what needs to change, and who needs to be involved.
Taking time to prepare upfront can help your organization make better decisions throughout the project and avoid carrying unnecessary processes, data, and workarounds into the new system.
Before you kick off an ERP implementation, focus your preparation in four areas:
- Align
- Understand
- Decide
- Prepare
The following 10 steps break these areas into practical actions your team can take before the project begins.
ERP Implementation Checklist Breakdown
Align the Business
1. Define Why You’re Implementing an ERP
“We need a new ERP” isn’t enough to guide an implementation. Start by identifying the business problems the new ERP needs to solve.
These might include:
- Supporting business growth
- Improving visibility across the organization
- Reducing manual processes
- Replacing outdated technology
- Improving financial or operational reporting
- Connecting disconnected systems
Your team should be able to clearly explain why the change is necessary and what success should look like. These objectives can help guide decisions when competing requirements arise during the ERP project.
2. Establish Your Priorities and Must-Haves
Not everything needs to happen on Day 1.
Before the project begins, identify the capabilities and processes that absolutely need to work at go-live and distinguish them from improvements that can wait until a later phase.
Day 1 priorities might include core financial processes, critical sales and purchasing processes, essential integrations, and reporting the business relies on to operate.
Document future requirements too, but don’t let every potential improvement become a Day 1 requirement. Clear priorities can help keep the implementation focused.
3. Identify the Process You Need to Improve
As ERP implementation best practice, you shouldn’t simply recreate the way your business operates today.
Talk to the people who use your current processes every day to identify areas where employees are relying on manual workarounds, entering information multiple times, waiting on approvals, or struggling to access information.
Focus on the processes with the biggest inefficiencies or opportunities for improvement rather than trying to document every possible requirement before the project begins.
Understand What You’re Starting With
4. Document Your Biggest Pain Points
The people who use your current systems every day can often identify problems that aren’t obvious to leadership or IT.
Look for issues such as:
- Manual processes
- Spreadsheet workarounds
- Duplicate data entry
- Reporting challenges
- Approval bottlenecks
- Data inconsistencies
- Disconnected systems
Understanding these pain points gives your ERP implementation team important context and helps distinguish between problems the ERP should solve and processes that simply need to change.
5. Inventory Your Systems and Integrations
Before implementation begins, make a list of every system that touches your business, from CRM and e-commerce to banking, payroll, warehouse management, manufacturing, and spreadsheets performing system-like functions.
For each system, document its purpose, the information it exchanges, and who owns it.
This is also an opportunity to evaluate the technology landscape rather than automatically carrying everything forward. Some applications may be redundant, some integrations may no longer be necessary, and some functionality may be better handled within the new ERP.
6. Start Cleaning Up Your Data
Don’t wait until migration to discover data problems. Start identifying duplicate, outdated, incomplete, or inconsistent data before the project begins. This could include customer and vendor information, item data, financial data, inventory, open transactions, and historical records.
Also determine what actually needs to be migrated. Some information may need to move into the new ERP, while other data may be better archived or left behind.
Your ERP implementation partner can help with migration, but your organization owns the accuracy of its data.
Decide What You’re Taking Forward
7. Identify What You Don’t Want to Carry Forward
An ERP implementation checklist gives you an opportunity to leave things behind.
Your current environment may contain:
- Outdated processes
- Unnecessary data
- Redundant software
- Manual workarounds
- Legacy customizations
- Unused reports
Not everything in the current environment needs to be recreated in the new ERP. Some processes should be improved, some data can be archived, and some systems or workarounds can be eliminated entirely.
8. Identify the Reports Your Business Actually Uses
Reporting requirements are easy to underestimate. Talk to leadership and business users about the information they actually rely on to run the business.
Pay particular attention to reports that:
- Combine information from multiple systems
- Require manual spreadsheet work
- Support critical financial or operational decisions
- Are regularly used by leadership
Organizations sometimes discover late in an implementation that an important management report depends on data being manually exported and combined from several systems. Identifying those requirements early can prevent reporting surprises later.
Prepare Your Organization
9. Identify the Right Internal People
Identify the people who understand your key processes and can help make decisions throughout the project.
This includes:
- Executive sponsor
- Project manager
- Business process owners
- Subject-matter experts
- IT representatives
- Key users
Smooth ERP implementations require employees to review processes, make decisions, validate data, test the system, and participate in training. Establish those expectations before the project starts.
10. Prepare Employees for Change
An ERP implementation can change how employees perform their jobs and how departments work together.
Start communicating change before implementation begins and determine key change management strategies. Employees should understand:
- Why the organization is implementing a new ERP
- What problems the project is intended to solve
- Which processes may change
- How they will be involved
- What training and support will be available
Employees don’t need every detail figured out before kickoff. But they should understand that change is part of the project.
A Successful ERP Implementation Starts Before Kickoff
Effective ERP implementation planning starts before the project officially begins. By aligning on objectives, understanding your current environment, identifying what needs to change, deciding what you don’t want to carry forward, and preparing your people, your team can enter the implementation with greater clarity and fewer surprises.
A comprehensive ERP implementation checklist can help you keep track of the decisions, requirements, and activities that need to happen throughout the project. All leading to a successful ERP implementation project.
Ready to move beyond preparation? Our team of experts put together an ERP implementation checklist to help you get started.
Download Terillium’s ERP Implementation Checklist for a step-by-step guide covering the key tasks and considerations from initial planning through go-live and ongoing optimization.
At Terillium, we’ve helped organizations implement and optimize ERP systems for more than 30 years. Our our team of ERP experts work with businesses to turn complex requirements into practical solutions and provide support well beyond go-live.
