How tribal CFOs can lead a successful ERP upgrade process
- Tribal government or gaming organizations upgrade to a modern ERP to automate slow manual accounting processes, integrate data from peripheral systems, simplify audit readiness and give leaders clearer visibility.
- To kick off a successful ERP upgrade process, take steps like assessing your current systems and processes, generating organizational buy-in, communicating with your team and leaning on an outside advisor to help you choose the right ERP platform.
- An effective upgrade process will include setting clear KPIs and a realistic timeline, focusing on high-value changes and ensuring you have effective change leaders and project management systems to maintain momentum.
Tribal governments, gaming organizations and businesses are increasingly eager to move beyond sunsetting, legacy accounting systems. Upgrading to a modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform can allow your organization to operate more efficiently and effectively while abandoning time-consuming manual processes.
But how do you successfully transition to a modern ERP like Sage Intacct or Microsoft Dynamics 365? Keep reading for an overview of how to start the upgrade process, along with suggestions for how you can make yours an organizational win.
Why do tribal governments or gaming organizations need to upgrade their accounting systems?
Tribal governments, their casinos or other tribal enterprises are often held back by legacy accounting systems that were built for an earlier iteration of their organizations. These accounting systems typically rely on slow manual processes. Some may even be heavily paper-based, which means even a routine task like approving a purchase order could take days.
Upgrading to a modern, cloud-based ERP allows tribal entities to:
- Avoid wasting labor hours on cumbersome manual processes.
- Automate data collection from peripheral systems for faster reporting.
- More easily maintain audit readiness, compliance and grant management requirements.
- Redeploy finance team members to higher-value tasks like financial forecasting.
- Give leaders clearer organizational visibility to make more proactive decisions.
- Strengthen their cybersecurity and risk mitigation capabilities.
- Attract the next generation of talent, many of whom are often unwilling to work with legacy, outdated systems.
A modern ERP essentially serves as a foundation for your operations, allowing you to move faster with greater accountability and a clearer understanding of what’s happening. But how do you actually kick off the upgrade process?
How do you start a successful tribal ERP system upgrade?
Tribal CFOs leading an accounting system upgrade will benefit from a thoughtful, deliberate upgrade process. This includes finding an ERP that fits your specific business needs, involving your team and creating buy-in that sets the table for long-term success. You’ll also usually benefit by engaging a third-party advisor to help you choose and implement the right ERP system.
Key steps to kicking off your upgrade process include:
1. Assess your current state
Take a good look at your existing accounting and financial processes and systems. Talk to people throughout your organization who conduct these processes or use these systems to figure out what is working well and what needs to change.
2. Involve key stakeholders
Begin building support inside your organization for an upgrade. Decide who on your team will be involved in the upgrade effort and bring them into the process.
3. Identify pain points
Look at specific pain points like slow manual processes, compliance challenges or difficulty pulling data from peripheral systems that you want to solve with a new ERP. This can help you start building an ROI-based case for a change.
4. Evaluate your business needs
Consider how a new ERP platform will help improve your overall business. What are specific areas where you could use an ERP to improve your processes and outcomes?
5. Check compatibility
Start evaluating different ERP options. But don’t do this in a vacuum. Look at what systems, practices and processes your peer organizations are using to get a sense of what could be the right fit.
6. Determine budget
Think about what your organization can afford to invest in a new ERP system. Look at this not just in terms of cost, but from the perspective of the ROI that a new ERP can deliver. How can you generate the most value?
If you are comparing alternative proposals, take into account the value provided by each component of a proposal, rather than just the bottom line number on the last page.
7. Communicate
Throughout this process and as you move into implementing a new system, keep open lines of communication with your team. This should include gathering ideas and feedback from both executives and frontline employees, as well as ongoing dialogue to support the change management aspect of an upgrade.
8. Lean on advisory support
A third-party advisor can help you assess different ERP options. Your advisor can also help your team think about how best to implement a new ERP in a way that improves your core processes.
Look for an advisory firm that knows both technology and the specific needs of tribal governments and businesses, including from a compliance and regulatory standpoint.
4 elements to help make your ERP upgrade process more effective
As you begin your ERP upgrade process, lean on these four elements to make that process more effective:
Intentional transformation
Don’t try to boil the ocean here. You can’t do everything at once, so focus on your top priorities or where you can make the most impact.
Organizational impact
The more organizational buy-in you can create, the better your upgrade process will usually go. Everyone on your team needs to understand what is happening, why and how they can offer feedback or perspectives. Make it easy for everyone to communicate.
Project management
An ERP upgrade is a large, 6-12 month undertaking. If you don’t devote enough hours and bandwidth, it will probably fail. Keep the process organized and make sure you have leaders responsible for driving it forward.
Outcome goals
You need to know what a successful ERP upgrade process looks like. Your CFO should establish clear KPIs and goals to define success so your team has specific markers to work towards.
How do you choose the right ERP for your tribe’s needs?
To choose the right ERP vendor to fit your tribal organization’s specific needs, consider factors like scalability, accessibility, audit readiness, reporting and integrations. You want a financial system that integrates with your peripheral systems like payroll, front-of-house or grant management systems rather than leaving your data siloed.
Don’t focus too much on hyper-specific requirements, as an ERP that’s a good overall fit is likely flexible enough to suit you. Making a decision based on cost alone is also typically not a recipe for success, to the point where some tribal organizations have even had to go back and re-implement an upgrade with a better provider.
As a general rule, you typically want to choose an ERP that other tribal organizations have used before.
How Wipfli can help
We advise tribal governments and gaming organizations on areas like technology, compliance, strengthening performance and growth. Let’s talk about how new tools like a cloud-based ERP system can help your tribal organization thrive. Start a conversation.
Let’s give your tribe a stronger digital foundation
