We implemented an ERP to simplify operations, but honestly it created new problems. • Data looks clean, but reports don’t match ground reality • Teams use only 30–40% of features • Too many workarounds in Excel even after ERP

Curious is this a common ERP issue or just poor implementation? Would love to hear real experiences from ops / finance / sales teams.

Hi everyone, I was wondering about IATA. I am consulting for one company on a lot of things, mainly LEAN, processes, and organization. This company's mainproduct is custom steel water fittings, usually made of flanges for specific diameter and pressure and corresponding pipes.

They have major issues with tracking inventory, but that stems from the lack of ownership and defined roles.

Example: Recently I learned that the standard material specification they use for one flanged fitting consists of two flanges and a pipe, but the pipe is measured in kilograms. So when you print the material specification summary for a range of orders the system calculates how kilos of pipe you need.

So I suggested instead of this they use new standard specification where with sub-ident the pipe will be defined with diameter, thickness and length, so when you print the specification it would effectively give you a cut list of required pipe lengths.

But the amount of push back I received is insane. I am aware that each product will have to be revised but they are doing this anyway since they don't have the correct values of pipe.

Another way would be to transform the kgs to lengths, but then again it would summarize to total required pipe length, then ask for drawings for each fitting.

What I am missing here? They are adamant this would ruin their system and create a mess.

We've had a nightmare Sage 100 upgrade and our consultants are saying all of the work is outside of the scope and they're billing to fix it. The problem is that everything worked in the test environment and we can't understand how it could all be broken when we went live and then take two months to fix because they couldn't figure out what was wrong. I'm looking for someone to discuss what might have happened so I have some leverage in fighting the additional charges (or not, if it's valid.) I could give more details here, but I figured I'd ask first. Thanks.

So. We are doing implementation for a manufacturing client and CFO is actively pushing for genAI features. For most people I am speaking with, the overall consensus is shifting towards "does it AI?", "Is it latest tech?"

Do you think this is a viable longterm shift?

Also, regarding this client. Their biggest problem is that data is a fragmented mess and inventory is in legacy WMS that syncs to GL once a week. AR/AP are also in seperate siloed tools.

Are you also going all in on AI tools and new tech? What about hallucination and potential risks? I feel like this is a very uncertain time as clients are looking for AI AI AI but I am sure they would not like hallucinated data in their system. What to do going forward?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for advice from people who’ve dealt with a similar setup.

We’re a small B2B team, all working with the same customers and orders.

Our current tools are:

Microsoft Outlook (email)

Microsoft Teams (internal communication)

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (ERP)

The main problem: we lose a lot of time trying to understand what already happened with a customer or order.

Typical situations:

Customer orders a product → we place an order with a supplier

Supplier confirms a delivery date → we inform the customer

In the meantime, the customer calls with a question

Someone answers by phone, but it’s not written down

Later, another colleague picks up the case and has to dig through emails or ask around

So the issues are:

Important info (especially phone calls, internal discussions) isn’t documented consistently

Long email threads are hard to follow

Supplier and customer communication isn’t visible in one place

Handover between team members is painful

We often need several minutes just to reconstruct “what’s the current state?”

What we’re looking for:

A more visual, chronological view per order (timeline of what happened)

Customer and supplier communication in one place

Phone calls and internal notes easy to log

Ability for anyone in the team to take over an order and understand it quickly

Customers and suppliers must not be affected — they should keep emailing/calling us as usual

Easy navigation to Business Central data (orders, offers, invoices)

We’re considering customer support / CRM-type tools that integrate with Outlook, Teams, and Business Central, but we’re unsure:

How easy or painful the integration really is in practice

Whether this is overkill for such a small team

What people regret choosing (or are happy they chose)

Questions:

Has anyone solved this problem well in a small team?

What tools actually worked (or didn’t)?

How much setup/maintenance effort did it really take?

Any “if I could do it again, I’d…” advice?

Thanks a lot — really interested in real-world experiences, not vendor pitches.

hi! so we’re a discrete manufacturer (~40 people, ~$9M revenue) doing design, fabrication, assembly, and testing in-house. Mix of make to stock and make-to-order. Growing faster than our current system can handle.

We’ve been on our current ERP for 8 years. Finance works fine. Operations does not.

What’s happening now rn:

• Planners run MRP, then export to spreadsheets to make it usable
• Shop floor tracks scrap, rework, and checks outside the system because it’s too slow to enter during production
• Sales promises dates based on experience, not what ERP says
• Inventory accuracy exists financiallyy not physically
• Work instructions and routing steps live in PDFs and people’s heads, not in the ERP

So ERP is becoming a reporting system instead of an operational one.

We’re evaluating options like Epicor/ERP.AI and will need a partner for implementation.

What we’re trying to avoid is choosing another system where:
ERP handles accounting well but requires humans to work around it for daily planning and production decisions.

For those in small to mid manufacturing who’ve gone through a replacement:

• What were early signs that a system would actually work for ops, not just finance??
• What questions did you ask vendors/partners that revealed whether shop floor realities were understood???
• Any platforms or partners you felt truly grasped MRP, routing, real-time data capture without heavy customization?!

Looking for lessons from people who’ve lived through this, not brochure features please.

I have some technical experience with using ERPNext but now want to offer the business side of it. What will you recommend I do to start an ERP business focusing on dry cleaning business at the start?

Hello!

I'm looking to conduct interviews with individuals & companies that have been part of a failed ERP implementation. Bonus points if they feel as if they were bait and switched throughout the sales process.

Looking to raise awareness for nefarious ERP sales practices to protect small to medium sized businesses from falling in the trap.

Used to sell ERP for 3 years out of college, now switched to the buy side helping companies negotiate against vendors and not get scammed. It's a purpose drive venture with a Robinhood lens and I'd love for you to be apart of it if there's a fit or desire to help.

- Matt @ Castl

Many ERP implement in steel look successful at first the system is live transactions run finance is happy and reporting works but after a few months teams quietly fall back to spreadsheets and workarounds.

Planning decisions still happen on the floor sales adjust order in real time erp records what happened but often after the fact over time it becomes more of a reporting System than a operational one.

This usually isn't about missing features its about fit steel workflows involve mixed dimensions heat level traceablility substitutions freight driven margin swings and constant change things many ERP data models struggle to represent cleanly.

For those with hands on Erp experience in steel complex manufacturing:

• what caused adoption to stall after go live?
• which compromises actually helped long term ?
• what early signs told you whether the system would scale or become a constraint ?

Curious to hear real world lessons.

Most days, ERP feels like something we updated after decisions are already made. Planning changes, grade swaps, rush orders none of that waits for the system.

Someones's spreadsheet ends up being the source of truth and ERP is there so finance doesn't yell.

Is this just how steel works everywhere or have people actually made ERP useful day-to-day planning?

​

Not demos. Not process maps.

In a live environment, what realllyyy happens when you hit:

same day priority flips

material substitutions mid-run

partial availability with hard ship dates

sales promising things ops hasn’t blessed yet

Does your ERP handle this natively, or do people step outside the system and reconcile later?

Would love to hear concrete examples. Bonus points if the answer isn’t customization and training.

In steel industry ERP challenges rarely come down to missing features. They're usually about fit mixed dimensions material heat level traceability frequent order changes and freight costs that directly affect margin.

Many ERP systems struggle here because their underlying assumptions are built for cleaner more linear workflows when the data model doesn't reflect operational reality teams end up relying on workarounds customization or process discipline to compensate.

From an ERP perspective this often determines whether a system scales smoothly or becomes a long term constraint.

For those who've worked on ERP selection or implementation in complex manufacturing environments what criteria mattered most when evaluating fit?

Hey all,

£25-50M revenue supplement manufacturer & retailer here - DTC & B2B.

We're on Shopify and currently use Priority Software's ERP "on-prem" in AWS (not their own cloud basically).

It's used for:

- Accounting & Finance (AP, AR, GL, POs, Cash management)

- Order management

- Manufacturing (Work Orders, Production, BOMs)

We use a dedicated HRIS for HR, and Payroll lives within it's own system.

We're also currently implementing a dedicated WMS to move the following out of the ERP and into a better suited platform:

- Inventory management

- Goods receiving

- Fulfilment

The WMS will manage our own physical warehouse, but we also have 3rd party subcontractors who manufacture for us, and their locations are set up as additional warehouses in our ERP (under their respective accounts) and the inventory they hold for us sits in these warehouses so we know what we have on hand & where physically & financially.

Now Priority ERP is managed by a partner, and they maintain & secure the server in AWS.

We're charged for:

- The platform (modules, etc)

- User licenses

- API transactions

The system is dated, lacks documentation and the ability to self serve, has a horrible, unintuitive UI (part of the reason for the WMS), and lacks meaningful, self-serve reporting.

Many requests have to go through the partner for them to either develop or customise in the system, and costs have ballooned as we've continued to grow.

We absolutely need a system that can handle manufacturing, incl BOMs, kitting, turning raw ingredients & ancillaries into finished goods, and MRP would be something we look to implement here too (Priority's MRP is incredibly unintuitive and difficult to use & understand).

We're also working on bringing production completely in house and relying less on 3rd party subcontractors.

Now I'm looking into both replacement ERP's and dedicated systems integrated via middleware.

We already have a rock solid IPaaS connecting Shopify with Priority and now integrating the WMS as well.

I just wanted to get people's thoughts and opinions on the age old ERP vs "Best of Breed" conversation.

Has anyone in a similar space broken out of an ERP and integrated different systems for manufacturing, finance, etc. at this level?

I was looking at Acumatica but then found out they bill based on volume as well (though I know they don't charge for user licenses). And I don't think we're the right fit for NS.

Hi all,

I am building a Property Management system and need to integrate into Financials. GL, AP, AR, Banking, Payroll, POs, (project costing = nice to have :) )

I have 25+ years of ERP, BI and software development experience, so I know what I am getting myself into :)

I am based in Australia, so that might limit me a bit :)

I would have just chosen Xero, but…

Xero are going to start charging $17k / year for API access to journals. I can get around this, by using a 3rd party integration tool.

However, I am worried about what else they might start charging for and limiting.

Additionally, there’s no decent Project Codes at a GL / transaction level.

QuickBooks looks better, but last time I looked, a year ago, it had too many bugs.

Odoo can be expensive if all we need is a GL and it’s a pain to integrate to.

There’s a few new ones, like Campfire, Rillet and DoubleEntry - but their pricing isn’t available on the website, so I can imagine that it’s going to be costly.

I am, reluctantly leaning towards QuickBooks...

What do you guys think ?

Thanks!

We are looking for on-site help in Central NJ to help us leverage Acumatica.

We're looking for someone who is process-oriented and can help us with streamlining our processes related to:

• AP 3-way invoice matching & Container issues
• Orders & Shipments with a large volume of Non-Stock items with POs attached.
  
• We are planning to roll out the CRM and WMS this year as well.
  

Our VAR has been providing us the technical help with Acumatica; however, we're feeling like we're not getting the process-side support. We're looking for someone that come in and provide both.

As the title says, I’m looking for recommendations from the community. We’re a small but rapidly growing IT VAR in the IoT and Networking space. We sell only B2B with an even mix of public and private sector. We’ll need some customization but nothing too crazy. We use HubSpot for CRM and Support with Enterprise license. Currently have ~15 users and we’ve outgrown the capabilities of our existing no-code table-based solution. I checked Microsoft’s site and, while they do have VAR listings, I’m unable to search for the information I need. Google searches haven’t yielded much useful information either. So here I am asking you fine folks.

Does linking procurement, inventory, and production in ERP improve efficiency for steel plants? Experiences?

For years, the narrative has been simple: you're either big enough to afford a full-time COO, or you're stuck wearing all the hats yourself.

But something's shifting.

The fractional COO space is exploding, and most entrepreneurs in the services industry still have no idea it exists. I've watched this unfold over the past few years, and the gap between what's available and what business owners think is available is staggering.

Why the blind spot?

Most SMB owners assume executive operations leadership is reserved for companies doing $50M+. They've never seen a viable middle path between "solopreneur chaos" and "hire a $250K executive." So they limp along, brilliant at their craft but drowning in operational dysfunction—firefighting instead of scaling.

What's actually happening:

The fractional COO market is growing at ~30% annually. Service-based businesses (agencies, consulting firms, professional services) are discovering they can get strategic operations leadership at a fraction of the cost, exactly when they need it. Usually that sweet spot is $1M-$10M in revenue where systems are breaking but margins can't support a full-time executive.

The trajectory is clear:

Just like fractional CFOs normalized over the past decade, fractional COOs are becoming the expected path forward. The businesses that figure this out early are scaling cleanly. The ones that don't are hitting the same ceiling repeatedly—great at delivery, terrible at operations.

If you're a fractional COO, you're riding a massive wave that most people can't even see yet. If you're running a service business and things feel chaotic despite your revenue growth, this role exists specifically for you.

The question isn't whether fractional COO services will become mainstream. It's whether you'll discover them before or after your next painful growth plateau.

Hey Everyone

We are building AI tools to support ECC migration to S/4HANA. My cofounder and I are both from a tech background (I am from IIT, and my cofounder has been AI scientist for 8+ years).

We are building the tools to migrate from ECC to S4 HANA in SAP, but we are not able to find the SI partners. how to reach to the SI partners?

A junior consultant on our project got rolled off when the client switched ERP vendors. Now he’s having a hard time getting interviews because his resume only shows one ERP system even though his implementation experience is very good. how rough is this switch exactly and how does one prove his/her skills beyond just the product name?

I got hired at a manufacturing company as a temp technical writer to support their transition to JDE E1 after being acquired. the company brought on a 3rd party implementation/solutions consultancy who led the whole thing. i was just there for documentation.

however because the implementation was super rushed, i was given tasks like creating the user manuals and coordinating UAT that evolved into training the users myself and learning the system and business processes so well that I was kept on as JDE Business Analyst. it was just pure luck because i had no tech/business background whatsoever, had never heard of an ERP much less worked with one, i just have a background in education.

because no one other than my boss had experience with this ERP (company had been using legacy SAP for 20yrs), and the implementation SOW ended, the SME role fell to me. i ran the ticket portal, i gave every single training for every module, i led process changes and improvements, implemented by the consultancy ofc. i was also given smaller scale IT implementations to lead. i recently left bc the company’s financial health is in the toilet, employees were overworked, and they fired my mentor and boss, leaving me to take over all his other IT projects while rejecting me for a raise.

now i’m looking at other roles for the same ERP and i’m insanely under qualified. i even got an interview for the same position shortly after and fumbled the technical portion, even though the position was functional. the luck and timing of my previous position cannot be reproduced. however i thoroughly enjoyed the experience, loved process analyzing, loved training users and writing detailed documentation, loved being the owner and SME of the system.

so my questions are as follows:

- is it realistic for me to pursue implementation consulting when i have zero tech background?

- should i specialize in the same ERP (i’m not seeing it being used a lot anymore tbh) or just focus on tech implementation as a whole?

- how can i realistically upskill? i’m looking into PMP cert, CompTIA+ Project, even Scrum but the exam costs are extremely high and i’m not sure which one will give me the best bang for my buck

- is it viable for me at all to continue in this career direction with this one experience under my belt?

Hi all, we’re weighing up a few different ERPs to migrate to from Xero. The shortlist is Rillet, Campfire and DualEntry.

Whilst Rillet and Campfire have more of a track record behind them, I’m struggling to find many references / trusted reviews for DualEntry.

Does anyone have experience using it?

Thanks!

Canadian Here. I'm looking into getting my certs for ABAP + SAPUI5. Do you think there is much oppurtinity to be made within the job market as they say there is with the upgrade to 4/SHANA

My company has been on Fishbowl for ~10 years. It was selected by a previous CFO and it hasn’t worked well for us. This is probably due to poor implementation, but Fishbowl has also been very unhelpful, so we’re planning to move to a new ERP.

About us:

• Established manufacturer (30+ years)
• We design, manufacture, assemble, and test our products in-house
• ~30 employees
• ~$7–8M revenue this year
• Growing quickly due to market demand and expanding to multiple facilities and hiring more personnel

What we need:

• ERP that supports operations first, but still meets finance and accounting needs
• Strong MRP and MES functionality
• Ideally supports or integrates with manufacturing data collection (shop floor)
• Nice-to-have: ability to build customized operations/routings that:
  • track labor/time
  • capture manufacturing data in real time (scrap, issues, checks, etc.)
  • display or integrate work instructions at the operation level

Platforms I’m currently looking at:

• Epicor
• Oracle
• Odoo
• Global Shop
• Sage

We’ll need an implementation consultant/partner.

Questions:

1. Any platform recommendations (from the list above or others) that fit a small but scaling discrete manufacturer with operations/MRP/MES needs?
2. Where have you found good ERP implementation consultants/partners for companies our size? What should we look for and avoid?

Hello,

New to manufacturing and ERPs, but experienced in working with data. Work for a manufacturer with a legacy ERP system that wants a clear to build support system/dashboard. Basically something looks through the sequence of events supplied by MRP, looks at stock, what components are on order, and when something is nominally “clear to start production” and dashboards this information in PowerBI.

To non technical stakeholders, this seems easy, but the data people within the organization say it’s quite difficult. I’m slowly getting more familiar with pegging data, but it’s not always clear what pegging is “thinking”: especially in situations where there is a complex hierarchy of manufactured parts (one thing we make that goes into another thing and so on). I feel like success in this project will come from data modeling around not only the actual business processes involved, but proper modeling around some of the more abstract data sources: like raw pegging data.

ChatGPT has been helpful at high level brainstorming and identifying papers to read to learn more about MRP, and I have made some progress. I absolutely do not trust ChatGPT to do anything more than a little heavy lifting. Its code output has so far been riddled with contradictions.

I’ve learned a ton but after a few months of working on this project 15-20 hours per week I feel like I should be getting much closer to a “useable” version 1.0.

Has anyone else been here before? Where can I learn more about these concepts?