The ERPodcast

What happens when companies don't engage with ProfitFromERP - well, here's three stories. One spent half a million dollars on a $200,000 project. One spent all their budget and completely failed and one Project Leader lost his job betting on a big name.

. BREAKING NEWS - In this week’s episode of the ERPodcast, we examine a QuickBooks system that ultimately cost the State Department $657-thousand dollars. We’re reporting on a source document -  a May 1 Department Of Justice Press Release, and additional reporting -  links are attached below. Upfront Summary – many accounting teams choose QuickBooks, but lack of security features are an incredible risk, plus the unseen costs mean QuickBooks is ultimately more expensive than entry-level ERP software – examples to follow. So QuickBooks cost the US State Department $657-thousand dollars. And wait, you’re saying, QuickBooks software was available at Costco for like $300 just a year or two ago – QuickBooks is now mostly deployed Online, and the licensing price is around $120 a month, plus users. That’s the price. But Then there’s the Cost! Two different things. We talk about it today. I’m Gene Hammons, Founder and Managing Director of an ERP Consulting team called ProfitFromERP. Here’s the news We first started tracking this story after Fox News Evening Anchor Elizabeth MacDonald broke a Sunday a week ago about a US State Department Budget Analyst who embezzled over $657-thousand dollars in a two-year period. We confirmed the reporting through a half dozen sources, including the source document, a DOJ Press release - links below. According to all the reports, Senior Budget Analyst Levita Ferrer, pled guilty and admitted writing 63 checks to herself over a two year period March of 2022 to April of 2024.  The checks totaled  $657-thousand, three hundred fourty seven dollars and fifty cents. She did it with signature authority and standard access on the QuickBooks system used to issue State Department checks. Her particular M.O. was reported as her writing checks to herself, depositing them in her account, then going back into QuickBooks and changing the payee name on the check screen – deleting her name in this case – changing that to one of the State Departments’ regular vendors. And who would be the wiser. Hey – it’s another check paid to our regular vendors. It worked, for over 2 years. QuickBooks has long been known for allowing users to simply edit information. It’s built in as a feature, making it easy to use. No adjusting entries. Just highlight, delete, revise, change, - no audit trail, go wild. Apparently, Levita did. As we hear in the news these days, Government spending is wide open, oversight is lax, and everyone is playing very loose with government funds.  According to Capital Hill News, there’s over 2,000 QuickBooks instances in use across different departments of the federal government. 2,000 situations where users can simply delete information they don’t want anyone to see. 2,000 situations where you can’t segregate duties what financial analysts can access – everybody has access to everything. But why would anybody use a QuickBooks system where fraud and deleting evidence is so easy? The truth is, millions of US small to midsized companies use QuickBooks because of it’s low purchase price, but they don’t realize the true cost. This isn’t the first ERPodcast to highlight some of the risks of Quickbooks, we’ve been talking about it for years. See, it can be a rational decision to pick Quickbooks, easy, simple, dirt cheap. ERP software starts at 50K, then there are implementation services, consultants charging $250 an hour. And we’ve seen some really stellar CFO’s say all they need is QuickBooks and spreadsheets, or Power BI or other outside tools to run a $50m corporation. And they’re right. They can make it work But the reality is, while there’s prices you can see, there are hidden costs to QuickBooks. A lot of hidden costs. In this case, it cost $657k. But that’s only ONE of the costs. When your software can’t run a P&L (a profit and loss report)  on each of your customers, you know you make money at the end of the month, but some customers you make money, some customers you’re losing money – you don’t have the reporting granularity to be able to analyze the business – with customers, or inventory or operations or anything else. But back to the security losses, In real life, using any one of hundreds of ERP systems on the market, say using a simple Microsoft Dynamics system for $70 or $80k, this all could have been avoided. But $80k is more than QuickBooks $120 a month. Yes, the price is lower, the costs however, are much greater – even without embezzlement, theft and chicanery. Then there’s our client companies – the first one, a $30m company on QuickBooks, 13 people in the accounting office, to run the books and all the spreadsheets they needed for reporting -  and they had no idea where their million-dollar oilfield machines were that they leased out – they had no idea where any of it was. Millions of dollars’ worth of industrial equipment. Contrast this with our second $30m NetSuite-run company. They had the original 6 people in the accounting office that were there back when it was a $7m company. And they knew exactly where each and every server they had sold,  placed in thousands of customer companies all across the country – they could search by brand, configuration, warranty outdating, anything. Two $30 million dollar companies. Now do the math on 13 people in accounting versus 6. There’s your cost of QuickBooks right there – a cost that if you avoided it, it would pay for NetSuite year one alone – but instead, keep going on QuickBooks with 7 extra people year after year it starts to add up. And then there’s the market conditions – A recent CFO survey of mid-market financial staffing said most respondents say they need an about extra day and a half every week just to get their current job done.  First of all, no software can give you extra days – but it can decrease workload so you can get more done in the days you do have. Also, when we realize most companies are growing, the time crunch only going to get worse. One of the single biggest issues our new clients face is the massive amount of paperwork required to make up for lack of functionality in their current accounting systems. They’re also tired, burned out, maxed out and overworked. Turnover in accounting is also a big risk. Why anyone would leave a cush job where you just drudgeingly input data all day long, we don’t know. Sadly, they’re avoiding higher-priced ERP systems but ignoring the true and actual cost of QuickBooks. And it’s not just always QuickBooks – but outdated accounting systems in general. We were working with a client moving off of Microsoft Dynamics GP – a version of accounting software being discontinued by Microsoft.  As we toured the office the first day, we noticed one thing – paper everywhere. Filing cabinet walls lined the office. Filing cabinets were the cubicle walls. Filing cabinets in storage rooms. Historically, accounting WAS paper, a backward looking  historic look at what had already happened, financially, at a company. The firm gathered receipts, reports, bills, invoices, - all these paper records of transactions that had happened or needed to happen – and entered them by hand into accounting software. Then they worked to close the monthly books and give managers reports two weeks later to approve spending that happened up to 7 weeks prior to the approval. I’m not saying that happened to me, I’m just saying I have no idea what my staff in those days was doing the previous week, much less a month prior when I was asked to approve a client lunch expense. Worst of all, this reliance on paper turns the accounting team into a manual data entry staff. Huge waste of a talented team. Today, with ERP we’re so far ahead of that. Customers are entering their own orders online. Vendors are sending invoices to payment portals. Barcodes are scanning orders leaving the warehouse. All of these transactions occur in real-time, automatically updating the ERP system and tracking the transaction from its source. All without a single piece of paper. Now our accounting staff is using their brains instead of their fingers. Analyzing spend instead of spending all their time data-entering historic spend. And the key point is, we’re eliminating labor costs, error rates and automating the process with greater clarity, granularity, reportability and efficiency. When you actually analyze your business, your workflows, your processes and track the actual costs of how you’re doing business, you’ll see the three new hires you have budgeted for next year – hires that you’ll no longer need with a new ERP process, you’ll see immediate payback…. But more importantly, you’ll get the security and risk avoidance you need. So your software doesn’t end up accidentally costing you $657-thousand dollars. The State Department story was news breaking – but sadly, it’s not uncommon. Being in the business for 25+ years, I remember when QuickBooks first came into the market – it was advertised as Bookkeeping Software for people who don’t know Accounting. It was a great option for solo business startups, mom and pop businesses, as long as mom could trust pop. And segregation of roles, so mom has to create the vendor and pop has to write the check – that’s ERP functionality, not QuickBooks bookkeeping. I mean, if you don’t know accounting, not being able to change something in the books is a real pain. If you’re an accountant, you know you don’t go in to the books willy nilly and just erase things, if a transaction needs to be changed, you enter a reversing entry, a credit memo, and now you have a record of the original transaction, the correcting transaction, who did it, when and for how much. You can track it, audit it, and everyone has transparency as to what went on. If some of this sounds familiar, we’ve been saying the same thing over multiple podcasts – this is just the first time we’ve seen something as big as

It's not another Top Ten ERP list, not a Top Five, not a shootout or comparison, but the Best ERP for Your Business.

E31 SuiteWorld 2023 Timestamp Subject 5:36 Sponsored by Acura MDX 15:45 Apple Never Introduced a Category Killer 20:15 NetSuite Keynote Coverage 22:43 The Hype that is AI 26:01:00 Suite Up 31:30:00 NetSuite New Releases 35:08:00 AI Becomes Real 38:00:00 Peak Outliers in ERP Marketing 42:00:00 Importance of ERP Development Links of note Keynote SuiteWorld 2023 Evan Goldberg, CEO Details on New NetSuite offerings, Gary Wiessinger's Keynote Global Smartphone Market Share PFE Open/PFE MFX up and Under October 2023. NetSuite is hosting SuiteWorld, the annual gathering of users, partners, developers, consultants, and anyone else affiliated with the NetSuite universe. It’s been a busy year in ERP in general, NetSuite in particular. There are now over 37,000 companies running on NetSuite – phenomenal growth. Around 2019? They had just broken the 18,000 companies on NetSuite mark – so the user community has doubled in 4 years, or 3 years plus a Covid timeout. Anyway – SuiteWorld attendance is critically important for top performing NetSuite-using Companies. Even more important for companies not yet using NetSuite. Why is that you ask? Why would you go to a users conference if you’re not a user. Here’s the story. New to ERP, clients are looking at ERP, considering which ones to select. User conferences in general are a great idea. I mean, everyone wants references – demos are really great, but not great reality. You want to see real-life examples. Well, there’s about 3,000 users at NetSuite you could talk to. Does NetSuite really work as advertised? You’re going to see lots of companies, who, at one time were exactly where you are. How does this work? And the answer is two-fold – it doesn’t work like you think it would, and two, if you follow the process, just like these 3,000 folks did, you too will get there. Is it worth it? The majority of the folks at SuiteWorld will tell you they wished they’d started sooner. The rest got into NetSuite as a startup – mostly because they’d used it at a former employer already. Another critical thing we’ve learned from past clients. About a third of ERP failures can be attributed to implementation fatigue – and we’re talking the entire system up and running but features they expected and wanted, well, doesn’t really work.  Truth is, It gets hard at the very end of an implementation and it’s been a long haul to get there, and the internal team often quits at the 5 yard line – says something like ‘well, the software really doesn’t work like it did in the demos’. When the issue is, yes, it does work, but not the way YOU’RE trying to do it. So having the opportunity to actually see the intended functionality working for other companies – your internal team will realize that yes, we can do this if they did it – there is a way. And they take the ball from the 5 and push it over the goal line. If you’re already running NetSuite, then it’s even more important to get to SuiteWorld. You’ll find out first-hand all about the new developments being released this year. Even get a chance to see demonstrations and some hands-on labs working with new features. Plus there’s the best-in-class Presentations. Other companies who use NetSuite, who have seen tremendous results, telling you exactly how they did it. You can ask them questions, take notes, get handouts, follow up with the product leaders from NetSuite – why they designed it that way, how it works best. Then there’s everything else. All the affiliated software products, apps, programs, platforms, portals – everything that works with and around NetSuite. Might not be something you’re doing this year, but you learn about it and next year, when Management tells you your department needs to improve by 5%, you know about an app that has bumped productivity by 20% for other users. Tell them if they want 5% internal improvement we need to add this to the capital budget. If you’ve been to SuiteWorld before, you know. If you’ve never been to SuiteWorld , you need to go. Now – you may say, we’re happily using not-NetSuite for our company software. Fine – the underlying ERP best practice theory we’re defining here, is the User Group – why User Groups are important, how and why our research shows the best performing companies participate heavily in User Groups, and we can be talking about any business software user group - you really should be attending the SuperBizProMax ERP annual user conference – if of course, you’re the kind of company using SuperBizProMax for your ERP. Research shows, it’s the easiest way to getting more from your ERP and other business software and based on what we’ve learned, it’s a no brainer every year – Here’s my ERPodcast actual demonstration – switch over to my mobile microphone Mike shuffle SFX Walk out of the Cave Creek Arizona -  Rolling Thunder Studio into the garage Garage Door opens SFX Get in the car Carstart/Rumble SFX And we are ready to pull out… But first we should mention today’s demo travelling episode is being brought to you by the 2011 Acura MDX  - this one has just under 150,000 miles and lots of features you won’t find anywhere else, my favorite being zero down and zero monthly payment at a zero interest rate for zero months because it was paid off years ago. The story starts a few years back, I was flying with my Dad in his 4 seater Piper single engine airplane and I asked him ‘Hey Dad when was this plane manufactured’ – he said 1954 – which was a question I wished I’d waited until after landing to ask– kidding - of course aircraft maintenance is very different than what the average auto owner neglects to do – but it got me thinking…Later on, when we pioneered ERP for  a couple  clients in the aviation maintenance sector, so I thought, why not take a few tips from those guys and just drive this Acura for 20 years – we’re over halfway there so far – which is working out great. A new MDX would be average $750 monthly payment for 5 years or more, and when you’re not dropping $750 every month,  when you do spend money on your vehicle, you get to do it exactly how you want – new high performance front end suspension components better than stock – going all digital/bluetooth instead of the CD stereo – yes that’s an outboard amp driving the subwoofer, even had the seats re-done in fine Corinthian leather – whatever I want – it’s kind of cool – and I realized - -  our consulting practice, ProfitFromERP is based on learning new things from every client project – we’ve had major or minor in over 400 ERP projects both big and small – and along the way, like I said, we work to learn something from all of them. I’m not just talking about applying aircraft maintenance standards to make a car last over a decade and beyond – even though that worked pretty well. Our consulting is derived from learning from every ERP implementation – and the thing is, we’ve found, with the right approach from the internal team, the right group of users can actually make even bad software work well – and even better when improving the software selection process itself – so why not break that methodology down into repeatable actions using great software. – the internal process, how the internal team and users approach the software project and deploy the ERP – that’s what makes the real difference – so we’ve studied the best companies approach and distilled it down to ten different steps or stages that we’ve observed That’s how we came up with the ProfitFromERP methodologies – and one of the things we noticed was our top performing companies would ask early on ‘Is there an active user group for this new software’ – which at first I thought, that is really geeky and sounds pretty lame…software user groups? That was back when I already knew everything, before I learned I didn’t. Watching the internal teams we were consulting with come back from SuiteWorld and our list of active ERP projects would just explode based on new requests – they’d seen new things and new ways to work with existing modules, and we realized we could not continue to let our customers tell us how to consult – so we started going to software conferences. Anyway – the end result is, top performing companies get much greater value out of the software they already have by participating in user conferences – they get payback in no time. So are you finally convinced to head off to SuiteWorld? We’re headed that way now and we’ll be reporting back on this Episode 31 of the ERPodcast, the official podcast of ProfitFromERP – our consulting firm dedicated to helping clients select the best business software, implement using best practices and continue supporting internal teams to drive efficiencies, increase revenues and achieve, Profit From ERP. Got the green light, lay on some highway tunes MFX Doobie Bros And We’re off to Vegas. PFE Open #3 OK, here we are…NetSuite’s SuiteWorld conference – we’re out here in the concourse – and things are starting to heat up. Normally there are some 2 to 3 day training classes prior to the  the actual conference starting - - -  but like us, most people start arriving the afternoon before keynotes – and already lots is happening – there are several thousand attendees already checked in. There are hundreds of NetSuite Partners and software vendors from all types of Apps and related programs that work with NetSuite. Outside developers, folks who’ve written a program specifically for their organization using the NetSuite development toolkit  - often, it works so well they take it to market to sell to other NetSuite users - – if enough people buy the app to make it profitable, well, sometimes Oracle NetSuite buys the company and brings the app inside to offe

E30 CFO Leadership Conference West 2023  E30 CFO Leadership Conference West 2023 ERPodcast Episode 30.2 Intro MFX This week in ERP….(or at least my week in ERP) Hey Folks – Gene Hammons, Director of ProfitFromERP with Episode 30 of the ERPodcast… Interesting week however you look at it - locally, here in AZ, Tempe to be specific, the CFO Leadership Council held CFO Leadership Conference West 2023 - thanks to my friends at Oracle NetSuite and Avalera (the tax guys) they were able to sneak me into the Networking Event held poolside at one of the local mountainside Marriott Resorts. And fortunately, fall came to the desert three days prior to the event and it was a great evening under the stars. A week earlier and it would have been 103 degrees with the smell of roasted CFO’s wafting across the desert. Got to talk to a lot of different CFO’s from lots of different companies all across the country. I’d say attendance was in the 200-400 range, but that’s a guess on my part. A lot of the sessions were on technology for finance, using automation in driving better data and how data driven organizations had clearer and faster reads on how their specific company was performing in a wildly fluctuating market. It goes without saying that we’re dealing with challenging market conditions these days. Makes me wonder if it goes without saying, why do I keep saying it. We’re beginning to see real functionality with AI in finance software – more on that next week – Many CFO’s report their staff spending more time on accuracy than analysis, and the focus here was using automation to drive the accuracy, AI to report anomalies and staff can concentrate on analysis to provide real service to the rest of the organization. Many of the CFO’s were with companies already using NetSuite - and the new numbers are out, NetSuite is now over 37,000 companies using the Suite. I remember 2019, not that long ago, when they were ecstatic at breaking the 18,000 companies mark. The conventional wisdom at the time was NetSuite had seen 30% growth year after year but driving 30% increases of a 10k customer base is a lot easier to achieve than pulling off 30% growth on a base of 18,000 customers - so surely there was a ceiling coming soon. Execpt it didn’t….and here’s a few reasons why The Oracle Boost – I don’t know if you know the NetSuite history, initially, Larry Ellison Oracle Founder and CEO, provided once Oracle employee now NetSuite Founder CEO Evan Goldberg with initial funding to start a cloud based business software – so Larry owned a good deal of the stock in NetSuite. Oracle, for reasons we’ll cover other places, wasn’t a big player in cloud technology, but as NetSuite grew, Oracle could shortcut it’s way into cloud technology by acquiring NetSuite – which turned out to be really great in many areas. Going Global 2019 I also was at a NetSuite Suite Success Training in Denver . We heard that Oracle, was driving huge development dollars into the NetSuite platform.  I first saw NetSuite really take off in our customer base around 2014, back then, NetSuite was a US market product. As I met my fellow Suite Success team members in Denver, I met other students from Japan, Indonesia, Australia, Ireland, London, Paris, Germany, Thailand-I think, India, Sri Lanka - and that’s the ones I remember. That kind of illustrated the global impact NetSuite was starting to have in foreign ERP providers and global markets with Oracle-backed development rolling out NetSuite versions specific to other countries, localized to tax and legal issues of those particular markets - that was part of the new development Oracle was providing - driving new markets globally, so NetSuite could replicate the tremendous success they’ve had stateside and start serving a worldwide market. And that’s just some of the huge expansion of NetSuite capabilities and functionalites Actually that turned out to be pretty fortuitous on my part The ERPodcast, our fun little slice of technology reporting, since it’s hosted on global platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts - it turns out your never know who’s listening. I’m told we’re considered a top-10 business podcast in the Middle East - actually I was looking for coverage in the midwest US, but ok. In the odd chance I hear from a company in Qatar, Belgium or Indonesia that’s looking for ERP help, I can always go back to my Suite Success classmates and make introductions - which is kind of nice. NetSuite represents a good portion of the cloud business that’s driving Oracle’s stock price these days - so it’s been it’s been in Oracles best interest to drive more development into the platform – We talked about the globalization, but there’s also sizeable new featuresets coming in every update, and those updates happen every 6 months -so it’s huge. And there’s growth in both in development and in acquisition. I’m sure you heard last week that NetSuite had acquired Next Technik - the Next Service field service guys. What that means is Next developed their product as a native NetSuite add on, using the NetSuite toolkit, and a super tight integration. That will be transformed into an actual fully integrated module within the NetSuite Suite of products - in a few months, you won’t be able to tell if you’re in Next Service or NetSuite, it will just be another tab on the homepage. Before that it was Verenia CPQ. That’s Configure Price Quote - let’s you design all the options to a product and create a quote based on the amount of materials and manufacturing costs needed to build it. And the two of these acquisitions lead us into the world of custom manufacturing - or at least the custom manufacturing clients I’ve been working with the last 18 months. Custom manufacturing - companies that make one of a customizable by size, form, function, product and maybe make three, five or six of these custom designed items to sell to a single customer. Often, they’re sending out a crew to install or service the product - which is the field service aspect. So that’s CPQ to help design or a sometimes a cad system (good for product specs and design but sucks at pricing and quotes), Then NetSuite to handle the financial buy and sell, as well as supply chain and manufacturing. Finally, Field Service to manage the teams and days to install the finished product. It just so happens that I’m working with or working on working with about 4 different custom manufacturing companies - keep hearing the same thing, issues with reporting from custom segments, understanding the different cost profiles of a particular custom manufactured product, as well as managing the project, say, if a customer is buying several Items at once - you can lose a little money on the big assembly if you make it up on the four smaller ones - that sort of thing. I did spend some time with NetSuite upper management and install teams of NetSuite at the CFO Conference  - and we got into how these custom manufacturers can manage these particular issues - now don’t get me wrong, these clients already love NetSuite, they’ve been using it a while, they just seem to be asking for a bit of optimization, make reporting smoother, that sort of thing. The conference has all other kinds of related software vendors, so I discussed the issues with FP&A guys, people like Prophix, Anaplan, Planful - and got their take on the best way to approach the matter. Oracle, on their part, is dedicated to this market - which is why they’re acquiring Next and Verenia and I’m not supposed to say what else they’re planning. Like the way I phrased that? 'Not supposed to say' - which could mean I don’t know anything more or it could be  I’ve got some inside scoop that I’m not supposed to reveal, Actually,  means I’ve been around the ERP software industry long enough to figure out if their buying some tires, they probably have a car or truck or are planning to roll one out  soon. Those four clients? The custom manufacturing guys? It will be interesting to see what we come up with to help them out - and given some time to sort through each of the options, as well as looking at core setups and potential configuration solutions or customized application of what’s already there in NetSuite - is it going to be the Projects module, advanced reporting from FP&A, a little Saved Search magic? - hey - never go in thinking you know everything - but go in digging into the questions and work until the answers reveal themselves. But to close out on the CFO Conference – I did get to talk to a dozen or so attendees – CFO’s from all types of companies. Some were NetSuite users, others were considering NetSuite along with the Microsoft Dynamics offerings, Sage and Acumatica. I also met with implementation teams from several enterprise financial software providers – When introducing ourselves as a selection and implementation consulting team, we heard over and over again how having an internal project manager or system admin as part of your internal team can really help make the whole process smoother and more successful – I don’t have actual numbers, but here’s what I do know – with so much growth in the NetSuite user base – as well as other ERP products, when covid really showed the limitations of older, lumbering ERP systems, there are more companies realizing they need to up their technology game – good enough isn’t good enough anymore. And like we said with the growth in NetSuite, 18k companies pre covid to 37k companies today – good implementation talent is stretched very thin. The consulting ranks haven’t kept up with that level of growth.  So if you can source the best people, which ProfitFromERP provides guidance there – these folks are so busy – and they’re going from account to account – what we’re finding is, details get dropped. For example, we had a client who did custom manufacturing. Their customer payment model was 50% deposit to place the order,...

ERPodcast Episode 29 The Perfect Time for ERP MFX/Intro Welcome to the ERPodcast Episode #29 – The Perfect Time for ERP – that’s the title and theme of today’s examination of just that - when should a growing company undertake an ERP project? And it’s not a simple question. Any ERP project is massive, whether you’re a $12m annual revenue company going from Quickbooks to Sage Intacct or a $200m company replacing DynamicsGP with a new cloud-based ERP. ERP is an intensive project, needs a ‘all hands on deck’ approach and the stakes are high. There’s legendary stories of Hershey’s Chocolate almost losing the company when a failed SAP effort meant they couldn’t ship product in the middle of the peak Halloween to Christmas season – not good – and there’s also scores of those types of stories from lesser known and more private companies. So when is, The Perfect Time for ERP? We’ll talk about 3 real world examples of recent ProfitFromERP clients and the drivers behind those examples. There’s also a world of opinion in the world of startups – do you do the ERP project Pre-IPO to show potential investors solid financial controls and operational efficiency? Do you wait until the next round of funding to be able to afford the higher end ERP’s with related SEC reporting tools to make sure of compliance needed by a public company? Then there’s the staffing balance – we’ll have more people on board next year so we can spread the ERP implementation workload across more resources….but if we had ERP already installed we’d need to hire fewer people for the same size operation. Here’s the conundrum – most of us don’t hire for excess capacity. It’s more like we’re not really sure of the data, it’s coming from disparate spreadsheets, running late, last minute– but the staff is working overtime and Saturdays – if we just had one more person to chase down the data… which is a good solution, but by definition, a growing company continues to grow and we keep adding one more person just to keep up, pretty soon there’s 22 desks in the business office and we’re looking for more space because everyone’s working overtime and Saturdays. Putting things off til some magical ‘some day’ only gets us from complexity to mass complexity. Then one day we wake up and we realize ‘WOW - it would have been a lot easier to implement ERP when the business was simpler and we could have managed growth in a lot more systematic method’. Plus, instead of rolling out training to 50 people all at once, we comprehensively train the first 10 and teach each onboarding employee the exact steps using the new software specifically for their job duties. And maybe even start hiring people who’ve already been using the same ERP we just implemented. So what’s The Perfect Time for ERP?  Let’s look at some real-world examples. Stories of companies that took a leap at different stages and how that all turned out. I’m your host, Gene Hammons, Director of ProfitFromERP,  our business consulting firm helping clients actually create Profit, From their ERP projects. Right back after this! Stinger out. Hey – a word about sponsors. Putting together the ERPodcast is a labor of love, it’s often our first introduction to new clients, we also think it’s about giving back to the community, sharing stories of real world ERP projects, how the market works, things we’ve experienced over the years and so on. . As long as there are still ERP projects that fail or have huge cost overruns or don’t do what the demo looked like it did – as long as there’s a bad project out there, we’ll keep pushing out the know-how to avoid those situations But – running a growing company ProfitFromERP – just like any other emerging company, there’s a lot to do. Time is critical. And if we’re going to allocate the time to the ERPodcast – well, we need to do it as more than a net loss leader – so we have sponsors. The easiest way to get podcast sponsors for a podcast is through placement brokers – you can tell the brokers where your breaks are, say at 2:17 into the podcast – and they’ll pop some ad in there. Next thing you know, the podcast has a My Pillow ad or it’s Toyotathon again right in the middle of an ERP implementation discussion. But you, the listener, your time is valuable too. So we’re not doing that. What we are doing is spotlighting some of the very many related products in and around the world of ERP and business, software and technology. In other words, give you something of value – knowledge about a product or service that could be vital to the ongoing success of your business. Just like the ERPodcast topics, not every ad is going to be of direct interest to you. But as we create the ads, we’re focusing on what our listeners would find advantageous. and you might pick up some ideas on how to integrate something else that is a direct advantage for your company. Like I say, your time is valuable. And that’s todays sponsor message about sponsors on the ERPodcast. You can also help us out by mentioning how you found out about a particular sponsor – or – get in touch with us at Info @ ProfitFromERP and we’ll make a formal introduction to get you to the right place with any of our sponsoring firms. Of course if the My Pillow Guy calls, all bets are off. Welcome back to the ERPodcast – today we’re going to look at three companies – an emerging pharma manufacturer who’s promising compound just finished the research and development phase and got fastracked FDA approval to go to market. The company is moving from 4 people to a staff of 125, and replacing QuickBooks – all within the first 6 months. A growing Audio Visual dealer, installer of auditorium, stadium, and amphitheater systems. And we’ll look at a Oilfield support firm, who can’t track where their million dollar equipment is, even with QuickBooks and a staff of 13. Before we get into today’s stories – It’s the ERP Planning Calendar update. If you’re looking for the Perfect Time to Implement ERP – the ERP Planning Calendar helps you get an overall estimate of average project timing. Our mainline client base is companies who are evaluating and implementing ERP.  The release date for this podcast is late August of ’23.  For smaller companies replacing QuickBooks, if you were to call ProfitFromERP today, count on putting the project together and the time to evaluate and compare different software – give yourself about 4 months til a purchasing decision, but with the holidays, making a decision and going to contract by 12/31/23 from a late August start is a pretty tight schedule. Then comes the implementation - If you select one of the made-for-cloud options it's possible to get financials live by Q2 next year and related modules operational in the April/May time period – but that’s aggressive. For midsized corporate projects, 6 months minimum for selection and 6 months for implementation, so you could see a Q4 of ‘24 launch – more likely Jan 1 2025. So if you’re looking to move faster than Jan 2025, we’d recommend some urgency on the front end – contact us tomorrow at [email protected] Of course, there are untold millions of elements that could either accelerate or delay these estimates, but averages being what they are – just something to keep in mind as we talk about the Perfect Time for ERP. Stinger Story #1. The Pharma company. As you probably know, getting a new drug to market takes years of research, testing, clinical trials, FDA approval – and it’s not just the huge pharma companies. Sometimes it’s a small, independent R&D team, even sometimes a single research scientist comes up with a promising compound. They can then hire Contract Research companies to run the clinical trials, testing and FDA submissions. In many cases, the entire early stage company consists of a scientist or two, a money guy slash angel stage investor, and usually a part time bookkeeper to pay the bills and keep the books in order. Super small staff. The FDA recently created a fast-track approval process which was designed to get promising drugs to market in a shortened timeframe. What this meant for our Pharma startup is that after years of limited activity, they suddenly have approval to go to commercial and the company needs to expand from 4 people to a business plan estimate of 125 people. New CEO’s and CFO’s Supply chain, national sales, Quality, packaging and labelling, general staffing, on and on. In this case, the former part-time QuickBooks Bookkeeper was tasked to select and implement ERP.  But this wasn’t the only software project – the FP&A that’s Financial Planning and Analysis department was implementing advanced financial planning and SEC Reporting software.  There was a stock option software managing project. A quality system, a lab management package,  HR software, expense management and AP, as well as a medical CRM package. Millions of dollars of software investments none of which were coordinated with one another – often, the person who would eventually be in charge of some of these systems wasn’t even hired or identified yet. We were leading the ERP evaluation only and from the start it was mayhem. We’d narrowed the field down to two products that were being used at our other Pharma manufacturing clients, Microsoft Dynamics AX and NetSuite. Almost weekly, the QuickBooks Bookkeeper would call and say ‘what about Super Biz Pro – she’d say ‘we just hired a new supply chain manager and his former company used Super Biz Pro and he loves it.’ Not having heard of Super Biz Pro, we’d do some checking and find a fledging ERP publisher with 25 East Coast companies – not really a competitor of Dynamics AX’s 20-year international record in pharma manufacturing with thousands of industry references. Nor anywhere near NetSuite’s cutting edge made for cloud technology. But if the guy in supply chain likes it…. And remember, the company is going from 4 people to 125,...

It's Crazy Out There! We can't control the outside world, but as Uncertainty reigns externally, Business Equilibrium results when we create better data certainty within our businesses. See how other leading companies have managed the raging seas of uncertainty in the boat of Cloud ERP  ERPodcast - Ranked #3 in Top 15 ERP Podcasts!   Recently - Feedspot.com a digital content aggregator assymbled a Top 15 ERP podcasts list - and the ERPodcast came in at #3 - Unfortunately, we dropped in the recent rankings and today's episode contains the original recording we posted on LinkedIn when the original rankings came out - apologies for any confusion! About today's ERPodcast MIsaligned incentives - budget shortfalls - tight implementation timelines - How do you conquer the most common pitfalls leading to a failed ERP implementation? The ProfitFromERP methodology bakes in best practices so you end up watching company goals and, like we say, ProfitFromERP, our clients make ERP PAY! E28c ERPodcast - Certainty in an Uncertain World   MFX up and under (but louder than last time)     It’s the ERPodcast Episode 28 – The official podcast of ProfitFromERP.com and I’m the Director, Gene Hammons, Over the past 18 months, we’ve helped about a dozen companies get through challenges we never thought any of us would face.   If you’ve listened to earlier ERPodcast Episodes, you know what a huge advantage digital companies had dealing with a world gone virtual. The #1 Issue? Uncertainty. The country, the workforce, supply chains, inflation, is covid up or down? Opening up or locking down? - - There’s a world of uncertainty out there  - - - if we’re going to maintain the right business equilibrium we need to create more certainty within the four walls of our businesses.  We can’t control outside uncertainties but we can surely affect the internal workings That’s Our ability to respond. That’s response – ability – and here’s how some of our clients define business responsibility today.   One big uncertainty is in today’s workforce. How do we deal with the changes, what are the technology issues that can even stop top talent from joining your firm? So let’s talk about how can technology help us get more done with the fewer people we actually do have on staff We’ll examine that.   Supply Chain issues? Overseas shipments are bringing back the old phrase Slow Boat from China – which many of you didn’t even know was a phrase – tech can’t help get your boat unloaded. But we can use demand planning to anticipate shortages long before your ship is just offshore with the parts, raw materials and goods your customers are already waiting for – never mind the trucking     Creating certainty in an uncertain world comes down to the Information in Information Technology – just in case you forgot what IT stood for.  Is your information good enough, timely enough, informative enough? You may be running a traditional ERP system that wasn’t ever giving you the reports you need. Or you may have a great baseline ERP but operationally, there’s no accurate way to gather data. Or FP&A modeling – can you project your profit margins when gas goes to $5 a gallon? Sometimes it’s modular additions to your technology stack – Sometimes it’s a complete Digital Transformation – a total software overhaul of your company.   Here’s what real world ProfitFromERP clients are doing to create certainty for savvy CFO’s and operational teams.   Item One – having a hard time finding enough people?  Maybe your old technology is keeping today’s workforce away  - - Item Two It’s the end of JIT, as Supply Chain complexity looms - manufacturers react, and Item Three using ERP to add Certainty to an Uncertain world. Any one of those topics can torpedo your business – let’s find out who’s doing what and how you can make the smart decisions going forward.     And that’s what we’re talking about today – on Episode 28 of the ERPodcast. Right back after this:       Endorsement – Feedspot   So there’s this website called Feedspot, it’s an aggregator of sorts, actually a super-aggregator that becomes a custom Content Reader. You click on Feedspot and select all of your favorite websites, podcasts, news feeds, RSS subscriptions – imagine all the websites you check out on a regular basis, now imagine them combined and presented from a single platform – it’s a cool concept and they offer a lot more, like companies can keep tabs on what millions of websites are saying about their brand, tracking bloggers and influencers. Nice concept that Feedspot. But in their aggregation of content – they group certain similar topics together – and give you a choice of following say, the Top 15 ERP related Podcasts – which they recently released a new Top 15 for ERP related Podcasts lists – and the one you’re listening to, the ERPodcast was rated #3. Which was very nice of them to do. There were some big names on that top 15 list, like Podcasts from Microsoft, SAP – even one of the largest software selection services, Panorama Consulting Group – ranked #8, #9, #13.  Now of course if they were ranking us by revenue, well, ProfitFromERP isn’t exactly Microsoft…but we have a higher rated podcast – We’re #3! In the country – heck in the world – probably the universe, but even Google can’t search Mars – yet -  never mind the outer galaxies – but we’re #3 and on our way to #1 – so you’re in good company subscribing to the ERPodcast at Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts – and you’re always welcome to peruse the ProfitFromERP website where the latest episodes are posted first. The ERPodcast – ranked #3 ERP Related Podcast by Feedspot – so after today’s show, go check out Feedspot.com. They have particularly good taste in ERP related Podcasts – it’s a great start. #3.           So back to today’s Episode of the ERPodcast Couple of things about our consultancy, ProfitFromERP.  Some critics of the ERPodcast have spouted off about how all the business cases we present end up recommending companies implement new ERP software -which they then label as ‘self serving’. OK, a fair, if completely backwards assessment. Here’s the deal, our clients, the people we work with and work for are in the process or have recently finished implementing ERP to solve real business issues – that’s why they came to ProfitFromERP in the first place – and all these solved business issues, they’re  driven by the same market you’re currently in, so you may face the same or a similar problem. Now you may well have an ERP system, it could be a wonderful system but perhaps it was implemented a few years back, so you’re not set up to address todays issues – great – get some consultants in and tweak whatever it is you need to deal with the issues others are tackling today. The point of the ERPodcast is not what ERP you use or whether you change your ERP – it’s pushing forward the ERP knowledge base. Now, when you do get ready to replace your 1980’s spaghetti code client server ERP package, we’re hoping you’ll be convinced that turning a ProfitFromERP is a good idea and perhaps you’ll remember our website www.ProfitFromERP.com  and you’ll bring us in to save yourself serious dollars, increase efficiencies, drive productivities and all around ProfitFromERP instead of our competitiors website www.SpendBigOnERP.com , we’re hoping that happens. But here’s the thing. Change is constant. The reasons companies devote capital expenditures and company effort on ERP change. Today it’s Finance teams needing better FP&A to better plan how to move into new markets and react to changing customer habits. It’s Manufacturers looking for redundant vendor sources and increasing raw materials on hand to escape supply chain constraints. Anyway – when more than one client starts driving projects in the same direction, it’s time for us to take notice, to figure out why they’re going this direction and if this direction is a fad, a trend or something we need to focus on for all future clients. And we’ll tackle three of those trends today.   Number One – JIT Just In Time inventory is Dead. Is it really? Of course JIT – means your vendors deliver raw materials for manufacture just as they’re being needed on the manufacturing production line. We even have an earlier podcast of how Dell Computers in the late 90’s revolutionized computer manufacturing by taking the very first online orders where customers selected how much memory, drive space, RAM – and then ordered the chips and drives from suppliers to build the next day’s orders – and Austin, home of Dell soon had factories building up all over Central Texas, AMD, Intel, IBM and dozens of others so they could deliver tomorrow’s production sub assymblies today.    JIT cut inventory carrying costs for manufacturers  - of course not all manufacturers are Dell and not all suppliers are queueing up to build a plant next to your manufacturing operation. In fact, sub assemblies are just as likely to be made in China.  We had initial shutdowns during Covid-stop the surge phase. Followed by drastic changes in market demand – for example, the Ping wedges I recently ordered from Karsten Golf, local here to the Phoenix market – were having to promise a 6 week delivery –Ping’s traditional business model was to deliver custom fit clubs within a week after a custom fitting. While Ping’s main facility is in Arizona, where the customizations and assemblies take place, many of the heads, shafts and grips come from China. ...

What don't they tell you about ERP? Unaligned incentives, unseen success factors, the things you don't know you can't control. But success is possible - yes, even ProfitFromERP

It’s the CEO/CFO Report 2021 - on the Top 10 Top 10 Lists for 2021. Two things – one, as you may know, when we do a CEO/CFO Report we topload the info – listen to the first 90 seconds of the podcast and you’ll be exposed to all content – with the detail to follow. Also, as a busy C-level exec, you can find links on the ProfitFromERP website to learn more. And secondly, saving you even more time, every year end and the start of every new year, you get lists - Top 10 things that happened, Top 10 Trends for the new year…– so we’ve waded through all of the year end/year start lists and pulled out the best when it comes to business, business software, business efficiency, business productivity – we read through it all so you don’t have to - the best information when it comes to ProfitFromERP.

E25 – Nice Link Part Two Jay Carlson Believe it or not, it’s Episode 25 of the ERPodcast MFX up and under Today’s episode is Part Two of our conversation with Jay Carlson, President of Nice Link Home Furnishings – if you caught Episode 24 you’ll remember Nice Link implemented and launched Acumatica, the Cloud ERP in June, right in the middle of a certain pandemic you may have heard something about – and as is with all ERP, especially critical during times of market disruption, Nice Link automated, so they didn’t need so much labor and so many spreadsheets. The connected digitally with their customers, so they’re taking sales orders that someone else is paying to input instead of hiring more folks internally. They got control over 7 national warehouses with a pretty complex sales model. They expanded eCommerce, with items appearing on other eTailers websites opening new channels and new market shares. Did all this just happen by ERP magic, No – it’s hard work and you need help from implementation partners such as Nice Link’s go-to, a firm called Net At Work – who if you know ERP you’ve heard of Net At Work over the years as a leading ERP implementation partner – of course ERP is something most companies pay attention to once or maybe twice every decade – but take my word for it, Net At Work is a major player – Jay will speak about them on today’s Episode. Nice Link Home Furnishings was at the right place at the right time when home furnishings kind of took off. Home offices needed refurbs when home suddenly became a full-time locale during the initial lockdown. Kids needed a space to connect to remote learning. Increased time at home, no one could spend money on travel or in some cases restaurants – so for many, disposable income went up, time at home went up – and the furniture stores were locked down too – so online they went. Wayfair had record months. We all know about Amazon. But Nice Link found themselves in Overstock.com, Macy’s, Costco and others.   Is this just a story of right-place right-time in the Home Furnishings space? Answer, Yes and No. But it’s more than just home furnishings • It’s a story of ERP technology cutting overhead internal costs • It’s a story of distribution efficiencies • It’s a story of being able to instantly understand inventory across 7 US warehouses • It’s a story of becoming easier to work with for your customers • It’s a story of digital transformation • It’s a story of decreased cost and increased revenues • It’s a story for the new covidian economy. It’s a great story – so let’s join Jay Carlson, President of Nice Link Home Furnishings for Part Two of the interview – Coming up right after the break, here on the ERPodcast Insert Net At Work sponsorship 2.0 Intro to Interview in process. Ad Lib - Insert Part Two, Jay Carlson Interview Interview Notes 10:00 - When to make the move to ERP 11:30 - 11:50 - Capacity to Promise - Still learning that - growing capacity - 15:26 - one of the last things to come up - growth - 16:20 Lean Staffing not having to have 10 people in the department 16:41 - live inventory information always - needed in eCom 17:31 Two future accountant hires avoided 17:39 Net at Work - CPA level help 20:19 You can only get so far with what you had 21:36 - Selling to new retailers in new channels - value is created oppportunities not available previously 22:40 - Macy’s - line extension 24:06 - limitations of traditional software - even when future of business is up in the air 25:16 - Net at Work - flexibility and relationship good partners - ready for Costco Excellent story – and specifically how ERP, in this case Acumatica ERP really helped a company thrive in challenging times. Here’s the thing, it’s not a one-off. If you undertake ERP correctly – build the business case, choose the right software, work with the right implementation partner – if you follow the methodology we’ve developed at Profit From ERP, developed from observation of best case methodology and seeing the pitfalls companies sometimes step in – when you do it right, you too can achieve the goals you set out to attain. We’ve tracked stories of dozens of companies and how they’ve used technology to survive the past few months. What do we see in the next few months? Listening to the news, it looks like we’re headed for more lockdowns in one form or another. Covid Close Montage But there’s beginning to be a lot of resistance to further lockdowns – and some actual science showing lockdowns aren’t the answer – but regardless the days of the downtown office are very likely over. A combination of the incredible waste of time for people spending an hour commuting both ways. Combined with, whether we really like Zoom or not, the fact is, digital connection means I can be face to face with a co-worker in a web meeting quicker than when I worked down the hall. And on top of it all, companies are realizing the cost efficiencies of not leasing class A office space. So where does this leave you, the mid-sized business? Well for one, cloud ERP connects your workers better, regardless of where they’re located. Two, cloud ERP, being built for the internet era, offers better interconnectivity with staff, vendors and customers. Three, cloud ERP gives you flexibility and resilience – because while we’re seeing a stabilization in the pre-vaccine covidian economy – the world is rapidly changing and there’s probably a couple of generations of market change to anticipate over the next 3-5 years. In any case, we need to sit down and discuss the specifics of your situation. [email protected] - drop us a line and we’ll set up time with the right consultant – these days there’s a lot of companies moving to cloud ERP - I’m doing a lot of Zoom meetings myself – but regardless of what industry or situation, we can help you find the right consulting team to help you put together that business case, shortlist the right vendors with key software to approach your business. ERP, which by the way, is an umbrella term containing BI, AI, WMS, Supply Chain, HR, FP&A - all were at one time, modules of ERP - so whatever enterprise software – we’ll connect you with the right people, products and process to Profit, From ERP. For the ERPodcast and ProfitFromERP, I’m your host, Gene Hammons, reminding you, at ProfitFromERP, our clients make ERP Pay.