In a modern, busy professional service organisation it can be a challenge to ensure that each department is working as efficiently as possible. There is a mountain of invoices to prepare, send and track; end of month reports to collate; client projects to plan, execute and assess; and a mass of information that needs to be shared across different teams.

The question is; how can this be achieved in an accurate, productive way that will keep clients happy and revenue streams healthy? 

Well, using an ERP system could be a good place to start... 

What is ERP? ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. It is the process of integrating each part of a business as a way of improving it and making it more profitable and aligned. Through automation and data management capabilities, an ERP system helps businesses make more accurate, better informed decisions, faster. ERP benefits firms in many ways - we've listed the top 5 below.

1. Is Your Business Data Rich, But Knowledge Poor?

Many organisations are data rich yet knowledge poor. In other words, there is a lot of information available but no wisdom to make use of it. An ERP system will provide this wisdom so that working practices can be improved and better insight can be gained across all areas of the business.

2. Are Your Finance Procedures Costing You Money Due To Drawn Out Month End And Invoicing Processes?

Profitability can be maximised by being able to do more with the same team. This can be achieved by:

• Putting more efficient finance department processes in place using insight and best practice workflows from the ERP system that will save a great deal of time.
• Using one back office system across the organisation so that a finance team has access to the real-time data from other departments to manage payroll, payments and other tasks. This could significantly improve cashflow.
• Ensuring the system covers all aspects of the budget. This includes the basics such as expenditure and income, but also the bigger picture items such as profitability, which can only be established when taking into account each element of the project.

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3. Are You Finding It Difficult To Analyse Staff Costs Against Project Cost?

Effectively managing staff in a project-centric organisation is an important factor when looking to drive profitability. An ERP system can help you understand how much members of staff are costing you for each bit of work they are doing. This information is particularly crucial if a project requires a large team or if it is a long term project.

For a professional service organisation, your people are your most valuable asset. Focused strongly on the personnel within the company, project-based ERP looks at utilisation at a per-employee level, and can integrate key factors such as billable rate and bandwidth, to ensure the right people are working on the right areas of the project and are doing so within key parameters for profitability.

4. Are You Over-Reliant On Silos Of Information And Excel?

Recent research shows 88% of Excel spreadsheets include errors – don’t take the risk of running the everyday operations and making business-critical decisions for your growing firm on the basis of inaccurate and untimely information.

5. Do You Lack The Capability To Manage Projects Successfully From Inception To Evaluation?

This can be achieved with ERP:

• Identifying potential pitfalls. Anything which can give a business a prior warning of a project going awry can only be a good thing. Building in factors and red lights to watch out for can mean that alarms don’t only ring when the customer is walking out of the door, and the necessary remedial action can be taken in order to solidify the project instead.
• Monitoring successful activity. If a business is able to see which projects are having a better success rate with new business growth, it can introduce such measures into other areas of the company and improve greatly as a result.
• Working on one system that provides access to the entire project. ERP delivers a solution to this problem that will save time and money.

Take The Next Step

Find out more about ERP benefits by downloading our Project-Based ERP for Dummies eBook.