4 Reasons to implement an Enterprise Resource Planning system

Productivity

Manual tasks that require the transmission of information between systems often slows the whole end to end process down and decreases the productivity of employees, who spend time managing data as opposed to more productive work. There is always an element of human error with this approach.

Cash flow cycle

Having a complete view of the billing cycle to the point when the customer pays for the service enables cashflow control to be optimised without depending on a separate system to track actuals. This minimises human error, prevents incorrect entries from a separate system and reduces inefficiency.

Compliance and Governance

Matching your operational transactions to your bank and petty cash statements should be a standard process to ensure that good control is put in place within your business.
The reconciliation process should automatically highlight any errors with manual entries and serve as a checkpoint to prevent any incorrectly booked activities.
The separation of duties, functions and access levels users have has been considered with an Enterprise Resource Planning system to ensure the right levels of controls between departments exist.

Management Reporting

How many companies can confirm that the true management report they are looking at from the excel sheet from accounts matches their true trading situation.
Manual journals from off system calculations destroy confidence in the numbers. An ERP system MUST have all the correct operational numbers within the system to breed confidence with the management team that they can plan the business progression based on true and credible figures.
CEO and CFO's must be able to confirm that the figures they are looking at are reliably backed by true operational transactions which they can view instantly.