4 MIN READ · PRACTICAL GUIDE
An ERP purchase should begin with a difficult working day, not a polished product demonstration. Pick the order that arrives late, the invoice that needs correcting and the month-end report that nobody trusts. A useful system must handle those situations as well as the easy ones.
This guide offers an editorial procurement framework for small and medium-sized European businesses. It is not a ranking of products, a supplier quotation or advice on country-specific compliance.
Start with three end-to-end workflows
Choose a small set of representative journeys: order to cash, purchase to payment and month-end reporting. Write down who does the work, which information changes hands and where somebody currently uses a spreadsheet to repair the process. An implementation can fail even when every individual feature appears on a product checklist, because the hand-offs between features remain unclear.
For an illustrative distributor selling in Germany and the Netherlands, a demo script might begin with an order in one currency, a partially available item and a customer-specific delivery instruction. Continue through shipment, invoicing, a return and the reporting entry. Ask the demonstrator to explain each manual intervention. Record whether the task is standard, requires configuration, needs an extension or requires bespoke code.
Keep local obligations separate from attractive features
Different countries, business models and transactions create different requirements. Do not treat a label such as “European compliance” as evidence. List the countries in which each legal entity operates and ask your accountant or adviser to identify the requirements that actually apply. Then ask the supplier to demonstrate those requirements in the relevant product version.
For example, an electronic-invoice export, a connection to a transmission service and a complete compliant invoicing workflow are three different things. Ask who maintains the localisation, what happens when the format changes and whether the feature is included in the quoted licence. This article does not establish any country’s mandate dates.
Use a scorecard that rewards evidence
A scorecard is useful only if the participants agree on what a score means. The following weighting is an illustrative starting point, not an industry benchmark. Adjust it before vendors present, and keep mandatory requirements as pass/fail gates.
| Criterion | Example weight | Evidence to request |
|---|---|---|
| Core workflows | 30% | Your scenario completed with sample records |
| Country and entity requirements | 20% | Applicable localisation and adviser-reviewed outputs |
| Integration and reporting | 20% | Documented APIs and a reconciled report |
| Implementation and support | 20% | Named responsibilities, testing and support scope |
| Exit and portability | 10% | Usable exports and a written handover process |
Score a demonstrated result above an unsupported promise. A feature planned for a future release should not receive the same score as a feature available in the contracted version. Keep a decision log so that a persuasive final presentation does not erase unresolved issues.
Prove the migration before setting a firm go-live date
Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 implementation guidance distinguishes configuration data, such as currencies and tax codes, from migration data, such as customers and open transactions. It recommends planning and testing both. That distinction is useful when designing any ERP evaluation, although implementation details remain product-specific.
For your own rehearsal, select a representative sample with duplicates, inactive suppliers, open credits and incomplete addresses. Agree which records will be corrected, which will be archived and who signs off the totals. A successful file upload is not proof that the business can trade correctly.
Define acceptance criteria in business terms: opening balances reconcile, open invoices retain the correct amounts, authorised staff can complete the sample order, and restricted users cannot perform prohibited actions. Assign a business owner to each criterion. Keep a rollback decision point before the old system is switched off.
Compare the operating model, not just the licence
Ask for a three-year cost view covering implementation, integration, training, support, recurring extensions and internal time. Model growth in users and transactions separately. See our SaaS total-cost guide for a worked example and our cloud exit planning guide for portability questions.
The most convincing proposal explains what will remain outside the system and why. A phased implementation with explicit limits can be more credible than a promise to automate every process at once.
Questions buyers often ask
Should every existing process be replicated?
No. First decide whether the process is necessary. Customising an inefficient workaround can make it harder to change later. Preserve essential controls and improve avoidable complexity.
Is one supplier always better than several?
There is no universal answer. One supplier can simplify accountability, while specialist tools may fit particular workflows better. Compare the integration and support responsibilities, not just the number of vendors.
Next step
Prepare one real workflow script and ask every shortlisted supplier to run it. The differences you observe will produce better questions than a long list of ticked feature boxes.
Source and scope
Primary source checked 14 November 2026: Microsoft Learn: configuration and migration data. The scorecard and buying examples above are our illustrative editorial framework, not Microsoft’s recommendations.