Systems & Assurance
Choosing a system, putting one in, or moving off the one you have — advised by a practice that does not sell the software and earns nothing from whichever vendor wins.
What we are usually called about
None of these is unusual and none of them is a failing. They are what happens when a business grows faster than the records, the systems and the filings that describe it.
Selection usually begins with demonstrations from suppliers who each earn from the answer. What is missing is a written brief: what the business needs the system to do, and how competing answers will be compared against it.
Outlet count, product range or a new line of business outgrowing the software the company started on. It shows up as workarounds in spreadsheets and a month-end that takes longer every quarter.
Go-live dates that move, data that will not reconcile, and a project where nobody can say who signs off that a module is finished.
Opening balances, stock, price lists and history moving from one system to another. What survives the move, what is reconciled afterwards, and what is deliberately left behind.
Who can change a price, approve a purchase or post to a closed period is decided by settings inside the software rather than by policy. Nobody notices until something is posted that should not have been.
How the system records a supply is what the return will eventually say. That is a configuration decision long before it becomes a tax one.
How the work runs
Scope and fees are agreed in advance and in writing, before any of this starts. Where a step turns out not to be needed, it is dropped rather than billed.
The requirement is written down before anything is demonstrated: what the business does, what the system has to handle, and what a good answer would look like.
Candidate systems are compared against that brief on the same criteria, including the criteria that argue against a system rather than for it.
A written recommendation with the reasoning behind it, the risks that come with it, and what would have to be true for it to be wrong.
Working alongside the chosen supplier on configuration, controls, data and acceptance — from the client's side of the table.
Reviewing what was configured against what was agreed, and testing that the controls inside the system actually hold.
Scope
A list of what the work can include, not a package. What is actually needed is settled after the first conversation and written into the engagement letter.
The practice does not resell ERP or accounting software licences and takes no vendor commission, referral fee or paid placement. Implementation and migration work is paid for by the client, for the work done — so a recommendation against a system costs us nothing to make.
Who this is for
Chains running an ERP and a point of sale, where stock, margin and every invoice are now reported in real time.
Manufacture and distribution sold through a trade that settles half its margin outside the invoice — in bonus stock, credit terms, discounts and credit notes.
Alongside this
One practice handles all of it, so nobody is coordinating between a systems consultant, a tax adviser and a bookkeeper.
Systems & Assurance
Risk-based programmes and board-level reporting
Tax
Federal — FBR
Compliance & Outsourcing
Bookkeeping, payroll, returns and month-end close
