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Diagnosis · Engineering · fewer than 10 people

Before changing the ERP, look at what is in it

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1 in 7

working hours did not count towards the cost of any project.

Audit delivered. Implementation in progress until May 2027.

The process, before and after

  1. Site visit without a checklist, memory
  2. Number assigned by hand, shared list
  3. Look for a similar proposal, old proposals
  4. Ask for prices, email, phone
  5. Wait for software timings
  6. Do the maths, Excel
  7. Exclusions from memory, Excel
  8. Revisions with no history, Excel
  9. Send to the client
  10. Bill of materials, Excel
  11. Order items one by one, ERP
  12. Ask whether it arrived, phone
  13. Tell someone to invoice, email
  14. Issue the invoice, invoicing
  1. Site visit with a checklist, ERP, planned
  2. Automatic number, ERP, planned
  3. Start from a template, ERP, planned
  4. Maths in Excel, Excel, stays as is, the client decided
  5. Prices with a date, ERP, planned
  6. Import validated prices, ERP, maybe in phase 2
  7. Mandatory exclusions, ERP, planned
  8. Revisions with history, ERP, planned
  9. Reason for loss, ERP, planned
  10. Materials per item, ERP, planned
  11. Order with cost, ERP, planned
  12. Pending orders in view, ERP, planned
  13. Requests from the site, field app, waiting on the supplier
  14. Mark instalment ready, ERP, planned
  15. Issue the invoice, invoicing, unchanged
  16. Cost alert, ERP, planned
See all the steps

Before: 14 steps, 13 outside the ERP, 1 in the ERP. After: 16 steps, 3 outside the ERP, 13 in the ERP. The after has more steps because it records things that nobody records today.

Before

  1. Site visit without a checklistmemory
  2. Number assigned by handshared list
  3. Look for a similar proposalold proposals
  4. Ask for pricesemail, phone
  5. Wait for software timings
  6. Do the mathsExcel
  7. Exclusions from memoryExcel
  8. Revisions with no historyExcel
  9. Send to the client
  10. Bill of materialsExcel
  11. Order items one by oneERP
  12. Ask whether it arrivedphone
  13. Tell someone to invoiceemail
  14. Issue the invoiceinvoicing

After

  1. Site visit with a checklistERP, planned
  2. Automatic numberERP, planned
  3. Start from a templateERP, planned
  4. Maths in ExcelExcel, stays as is, the client decided
  5. Prices with a dateERP, planned
  6. Import validated pricesERP, maybe in phase 2
  7. Mandatory exclusionsERP, planned
  8. Revisions with historyERP, planned
  9. Reason for lossERP, planned
  10. Materials per itemERP, planned
  11. Order with costERP, planned
  12. Pending orders in viewERP, planned
  13. Requests from the sitefield app, waiting on the supplier
  14. Mark instalment readyERP, planned
  15. Issue the invoiceinvoicing, unchanged
  16. Cost alertERP, planned

The problem

A quote takes a month. The company was about to invest in an ERP it partly had already, without knowing what was set up well and what was not.

What we did

Diagnosis

We audited the ERP in read-only mode, without changing a single record. That produced five findings and three decisions set out for management.

Tidy up

The plan started from what the system already has. The quoting spreadsheet stayed, because that is where the person who prices the work does the sums. The ERP will keep the proposals, their status and the history.

Build

The implementation goes in phases and starts with the warehouse.

Train

Testing is done with real work, such as a real proposal or a real bill of materials, so the time spent testing also counts as work done.

The result

  • 1 in 7 working hours did not count towards the cost of any project, so margins looked better than they were.
  • On one project, the hours delivered were more than eight times the hours sold, because of a configuration error.
  • Fewer than 1 in 10 projects had a sales order.

The company knew all this before investing. In the plan, the quoting steps outside the ERP go from 13 to 3, and the client’s goal is a quote in two weeks on large projects and two days on small ones, instead of a month.

Tell us where your team loses time.

30 minutes with Marta Matos, founder. The first conversation is free.

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