Most small businesses do not fail at choosing an ERP because the software is bad. They fail because the software does not match how they actually work. Before you book a single demo, run every option through these five questions.
1. Does it connect to where you sell?
If you sell on Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada or your own website, orders from every channel need to land in one place. If staff re-type orders into the ERP, you have bought a very expensive spreadsheet.
2. Is accounting part of the system, or bolted on?
When a sale, a purchase and a salary all post to the same ledger automatically, month-end stops being a week of reconciling. Ask to see a sale turn into an accounting entry without anyone touching it.
3. Can your team use it without training courses?
Ask the vendor to let a real staff member, not the sales engineer, complete a task live. If it takes more than a couple of minutes to find where to click, expect low adoption.
4. What does it cost when you grow?
- •Per-user pricing: costs rise with every hire
- •Per-module pricing: you pay again to switch features on
- •Usage-based pricing: harder to predict, easy to scale down
None of these is wrong, but you should know which one you are signing up for and what your bill looks like at twice your current size.
5. Where does your data live, and can you take it with you?
Ask where data is stored, how it is backed up, and whether you can export everything to Excel or CSV if you leave. A vendor confident in their product will answer this easily.