ERP System Requirements Checklist: Master Your Implementation Like a Pro

Did you know that nearly 75% of ERP projects fail to meet their objectives, with poor requirements planning cited as the leading cause? Implementing an ERP system without a comprehensive requirements checklist is like building a house without blueprints — you might end up with walls, but nothing will fit together the way you need it to.

Whether you're selecting your first ERP system or replacing an outdated one, getting your requirements right from the start is the single most important step you can take. A well-defined requirements checklist ensures every stakeholder's needs are captured, every technical constraint is addressed, and every business process is accounted for.

This guide walks you through a comprehensive 15-step requirements checklist, proven gathering tools, and common pitfalls to avoid — giving you everything you need to master your ERP implementation like a pro.

15-Step Requirements Checklist

A successful ERP selection and implementation begins with thorough requirements gathering. Skipping or rushing this phase almost always leads to costly rework, missed deadlines, and disappointed stakeholders. Here are the 15 critical requirement areas every organization must define:

1. Business Process Analysis
2. Functional Requirements
3. Technical Requirements
4. User Experience and Interface
5. Reporting and Analytics
6. Customization and Configurability
7. Vendor and Support
8. Performance and Scalability
9. Compliance and Regulatory
10. Implementation and Training
11. Cost and Budget
12. Future-Proofing
13. Governance and Risk Management
14. Stakeholder Requirements
15. Data Migration

Let's explore each of these requirement areas in detail, with specific action items and considerations to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

1. Business Process Analysis

Before you can define what an ERP system needs to do, you must first understand how your business actually operates today. Business process analysis lays the foundation for every other requirement area.

• Map all current end-to-end business processes across every department, documenting each step, decision point, handoff, and approval in granular detail.
• Identify pain points, bottlenecks, and inefficiencies in existing workflows that the new ERP system should address or eliminate entirely.
• Document all manual workarounds and shadow IT solutions that employees have created to compensate for gaps in current systems.
• Analyze process dependencies and interconnections between departments to understand how changes in one area will impact others.
• Benchmark current process performance using KPIs such as cycle time, error rates, throughput, and cost per transaction to establish measurable improvement targets.
• Identify regulatory and compliance requirements that influence how specific processes must be executed and documented.
• Engage frontline employees and process owners through interviews and observation sessions to capture tacit knowledge not found in official documentation.
• Prioritize processes by business impact and complexity to determine which areas require the most attention during ERP configuration.
• Create future-state process maps that define how each workflow should operate within the new ERP system, incorporating best practices and automation opportunities.

2. Functional Requirements

Functional requirements define exactly what the ERP system must be capable of doing across every business area. This is typically the largest and most detailed section of your requirements document, covering six core functional areas.

Finance and Accounting

• Support multi-entity, multi-currency general ledger with automated intercompany eliminations and real-time consolidation across business units.
• Provide comprehensive accounts payable automation including invoice matching, approval workflows, payment scheduling, and vendor portal capabilities.
• Deliver accounts receivable management with automated invoicing, credit management, collections workflows, and cash application processing.
• Enable fixed asset management with depreciation calculations, asset tracking, disposal processing, and capital expenditure planning.
• Support budgeting and forecasting with multi-dimensional budget structures, rolling forecasts, variance analysis, and what-if scenario modeling.
• Provide tax management capabilities including multi-jurisdiction tax calculation, automated tax filing, and compliance with local, state, and international tax regulations.
• Deliver bank reconciliation automation with electronic bank statement import, matching rules, and exception handling for unmatched transactions.

Human Resources

• Support the full employee lifecycle from recruitment and onboarding through performance management, development, and offboarding.
• Provide payroll processing with support for multiple pay structures, deductions, garnishments, tax withholdings, and regulatory compliance.
• Deliver benefits administration including enrollment management, eligibility tracking, open enrollment workflows, and carrier integrations.
• Enable time and attendance tracking with configurable work schedules, overtime rules, leave management, and integration with payroll processing.
• Support performance management with goal setting, competency assessments, 360-degree feedback, performance review workflows, and development planning.
• Provide talent acquisition capabilities including job requisition management, applicant tracking, interview scheduling, and offer letter generation.
• Deliver workforce analytics with headcount reporting, turnover analysis, compensation benchmarking, and diversity metrics tracking.

Supply Chain Management

• Support end-to-end procurement with purchase requisitions, vendor selection, purchase order management, receiving, and three-way matching.
• Provide inventory management with real-time stock visibility, multi-warehouse support, lot and serial number tracking, and cycle counting.
• Deliver demand planning and forecasting using historical data analysis, seasonal adjustments, and collaborative planning with sales and marketing inputs.
• Enable warehouse management with bin location tracking, pick-pack-ship workflows, barcode and RFID support, and wave planning capabilities.
• Support supplier relationship management with vendor scorecards, performance monitoring, contract management, and strategic sourcing tools.
• Provide logistics and transportation management including carrier selection, route optimization, freight cost calculation, and shipment tracking.
• Deliver quality management with incoming inspection, quality hold workflows, non-conformance tracking, and corrective action management.

Customer Relationship Management

• Support lead and opportunity management with pipeline tracking, lead scoring, conversion analytics, and automated lead assignment rules.
• Provide contact and account management with 360-degree customer views, interaction history, relationship mapping, and customer segmentation.
• Deliver sales order processing with configurable pricing, discount management, credit checking, order promising, and fulfillment tracking.
• Enable customer service management with case tracking, SLA management, knowledge base integration, and omnichannel support capabilities.
• Support marketing automation with campaign management, email marketing, lead nurturing workflows, and marketing analytics dashboards.
• Provide customer analytics with lifetime value calculation, churn prediction, satisfaction scoring, and sales performance reporting.

Manufacturing

• Support bill of materials (BOM) management with multi-level BOMs, engineering change orders, version control, and effectivity date management.
• Provide production planning and scheduling with capacity planning, material requirements planning (MRP), finite scheduling, and shop floor control.
• Deliver work order management with routing definitions, operation sequencing, labor tracking, and material consumption recording.
• Enable quality control with in-process inspection, statistical process control (SPC), quality testing protocols, and certificate of analysis generation.
• Support lean manufacturing principles including kanban management, just-in-time scheduling, waste reduction tracking, and continuous improvement metrics.
• Provide product lifecycle management (PLM) integration with engineering data management, design collaboration, and new product introduction workflows.
• Deliver shop floor data collection with real-time production monitoring, machine integration, downtime tracking, and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) calculation.

Project Management

• Support project planning with work breakdown structures, resource allocation, dependency mapping, and critical path analysis.
• Provide project budgeting and cost tracking with planned vs. actual cost comparison, earned value management, and profitability analysis.
• Deliver time and expense management with project-based time entry, expense reporting, approval workflows, and billing rate management.
• Enable resource management with skill-based allocation, utilization tracking, capacity planning, and resource conflict resolution.
• Support project collaboration with document sharing, task management, milestone tracking, and stakeholder communication tools.
• Provide project analytics with status dashboards, risk tracking, issue management, and portfolio-level reporting across all active projects.

3. Technical Requirements

Technical requirements determine the underlying architecture and infrastructure that will support your ERP system. Getting these right ensures long-term performance, security, and scalability.

System Architecture

• Define deployment preference — cloud-based (SaaS), on-premise, or hybrid — based on your organization's IT strategy, security policies, and total cost of ownership analysis.
• Specify high availability requirements including uptime SLAs (typically 99.9% or higher), failover mechanisms, and disaster recovery capabilities.
• Document scalability requirements for handling growth in users, transactions, data volume, and geographic expansion over the next 5-10 years.
• Define API architecture requirements including RESTful APIs, webhooks, event-driven integration patterns, and real-time data synchronization capabilities.
• Specify multi-tenant vs. single-tenant requirements based on data isolation needs, customization flexibility, and regulatory compliance mandates.

Database Requirements

• Define database platform compatibility requirements and preferences, considering factors such as licensing costs, performance characteristics, and internal expertise.
• Specify data storage capacity requirements including current volumes, projected growth rates, and data retention policies for active and archived records.
• Document database performance requirements including query response times, transaction processing speeds, and concurrent user support levels.
• Define data backup and recovery requirements including backup frequency, retention periods, recovery point objectives (RPO), and recovery time objectives (RTO).

Integration Capabilities

• Map all required integrations with existing systems including CRM, e-commerce platforms, business intelligence tools, and third-party applications.
• Define integration methods and protocols required — real-time APIs, batch processing, file-based transfers, middleware platforms, or EDI connections.
• Specify data mapping and transformation requirements for each integration point, including field-level mapping, data format conversions, and validation rules.
• Document integration monitoring and error handling requirements including alerting mechanisms, retry logic, and exception management workflows.

Security and Compliance

• Define role-based access control (RBAC) requirements with granular permission levels for modules, functions, data fields, and approval workflows.
• Specify data encryption requirements for data at rest and in transit, including encryption standards, key management, and certificate handling.
• Document audit trail requirements including what actions must be logged, how long audit records must be retained, and who has access to audit reports.
• Define single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) requirements aligned with your organization's identity management strategy.
• Specify compliance certifications required from the vendor such as SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR compliance, and industry-specific standards.

Mobile Accessibility

• Define mobile access requirements including which modules and functions must be available on mobile devices for field workers and remote employees.
• Specify mobile platform support requirements — native iOS and Android apps, responsive web design, or progressive web application (PWA) capabilities.
• Document offline functionality requirements for users who need to work in areas with limited or no internet connectivity.
• Define mobile security requirements including device management, remote wipe capabilities, and biometric authentication support.

4. User Experience and Interface

A powerful ERP system is only effective if people actually use it. User experience requirements ensure the system is intuitive, efficient, and adopted across the organization.

• Define interface design standards including navigation patterns, dashboard layouts, form designs, and visual consistency across all modules.
• Specify personalization capabilities allowing users to customize their workspace, create saved searches, set preferences, and configure personal dashboards.
• Document accessibility requirements to comply with WCAG 2.1 guidelines, ensuring the system is usable by employees with disabilities.
• Define search and navigation requirements including global search functionality, contextual navigation, breadcrumbs, and recently accessed items.
• Specify workflow automation capabilities within the interface including drag-and-drop process builders, notification management, and task queue functionality.
• Document multi-language and localization requirements including support for different languages, date formats, number formats, and regional business practices.

5. Reporting and Analytics

Data-driven decision making requires robust reporting and analytics capabilities. Your ERP system should turn raw data into actionable insights across every level of the organization.

• Define standard report requirements for each functional area including financial statements, operational dashboards, compliance reports, and management summaries.
• Specify ad-hoc reporting capabilities allowing business users to create custom reports without IT assistance using drag-and-drop report builders.
• Document real-time analytics requirements including live dashboards, streaming data visualization, and automated alert triggers based on KPI thresholds.
• Define data visualization requirements including chart types, interactive drill-down capabilities, geographic mapping, and executive scorecards.
• Specify advanced analytics capabilities such as predictive modeling, trend analysis, machine learning integration, and statistical forecasting tools.
• Document report scheduling and distribution requirements including automated report generation, email delivery, portal publishing, and export format options.
• Define data warehouse and business intelligence integration requirements for organizations needing enterprise-wide analytics beyond ERP system boundaries.

6. Customization and Configurability

Every business has unique processes that may require customization. Understanding the balance between configuration and customization is essential for long-term system maintainability.

• Define configuration capabilities required including custom fields, user-defined workflows, business rules, validation logic, and approval hierarchies.
• Specify customization boundaries — which areas of the system can be modified through supported tools vs. which require custom code development.
• Document extension and plugin architecture requirements to ensure third-party add-ons can be integrated without impacting core system upgrades.
• Define development environment requirements including sandbox environments, version control integration, and deployment pipeline capabilities for custom developments.
• Specify upgrade impact assessment requirements — how customizations are preserved, tested, and validated during vendor-supplied system updates and patches.

7. Vendor and Support

Your ERP vendor becomes a long-term business partner. Evaluating vendor capabilities, stability, and support offerings is as important as evaluating the software itself.

• Define vendor financial stability requirements including minimum revenue thresholds, market presence duration, customer base size, and growth trajectory.
• Specify support tier requirements including response time SLAs for critical, high, medium, and low priority issues across different support channels.
• Document vendor ecosystem requirements including implementation partner availability, certified consultant network, and third-party solution marketplace.
• Define product roadmap transparency requirements — how frequently the vendor communicates future development plans and how customer input influences priorities.
• Specify training and certification programs available from the vendor for your internal team, including self-paced learning, instructor-led courses, and certification tracks.
• Document contract and licensing requirements including pricing models, user licensing structures, module-based licensing, and terms for scaling up or down.

8. Performance and Scalability

An ERP system that can't keep up with your business demands will frustrate users and hamper productivity. Performance requirements must be clearly defined and measurable.

• Define response time requirements for common transactions — page loads under 2 seconds, report generation within defined timeframes, and batch processing windows.
• Specify concurrent user capacity requirements based on current and projected user counts, including peak usage scenarios during month-end close or seasonal activity.
• Document transaction throughput requirements including the volume of transactions the system must process per hour, day, and month without performance degradation.
• Define auto-scaling requirements for cloud deployments — how the system should dynamically allocate resources based on demand fluctuations.
• Specify performance monitoring and alerting requirements including system health dashboards, proactive performance alerts, and capacity planning tools.

9. Compliance and Regulatory

Regulatory compliance is non-negotiable. Your ERP system must support all applicable regulations and provide the documentation and audit capabilities required by governing bodies.

• Document all industry-specific regulatory requirements such as FDA 21 CFR Part 11, SOX compliance, HIPAA, GxP, or ITAR that the ERP must support natively.
• Define data privacy and protection requirements aligned with GDPR, CCPA, and other regional data privacy regulations including data residency requirements.
• Specify audit management capabilities including internal audit support, external audit preparation tools, and regulatory examination response workflows.
• Document environmental, health, and safety (EHS) compliance requirements including incident tracking, regulatory reporting, and corrective action management.
• Define trade compliance requirements including export control management, customs documentation, sanctioned party screening, and tariff classification support.

10. Implementation and Training

A well-planned implementation and training program ensures smooth deployment and high user adoption from day one.

• Define implementation methodology requirements — whether you prefer waterfall, agile, hybrid, or the vendor's proprietary methodology for project execution.
• Specify phased rollout requirements including which modules and locations will go live first, parallel running periods, and cutover planning considerations.
• Document training delivery requirements including instructor-led training, e-learning modules, simulation environments, and ongoing learning resources.
• Define user acceptance testing (UAT) requirements including test scenario development, testing timelines, defect management, and sign-off procedures.
• Specify knowledge transfer requirements ensuring that your internal team can manage, configure, and troubleshoot the system independently after implementation.
• Document hypercare and post-go-live support requirements including dedicated support resources, issue escalation procedures, and stabilization period duration.

11. Cost and Budget

Understanding the full financial picture of ERP ownership prevents budget surprises and ensures you can sustain the investment over the long term.

• Define total cost of ownership (TCO) calculation requirements including software licensing, infrastructure costs, implementation services, training, and ongoing support fees.
• Specify licensing model preferences — subscription-based (SaaS), perpetual licensing, user-based, or consumption-based pricing structures and their financial implications.
• Document hidden cost considerations including data migration costs, customization expenses, integration development, change management programs, and productivity loss during transition.
• Define ROI measurement requirements including expected payback period, efficiency gains, cost reduction targets, and revenue growth attributable to the new system.
• Specify budget contingency requirements — typically 15-25% of the total project budget — to account for scope changes, unforeseen challenges, and extended timelines.
• Document ongoing operational cost requirements including annual maintenance fees, upgrade costs, additional user licensing, and continuous improvement investments.

12. Future-Proofing

An ERP system is a long-term investment, typically lasting 10-15 years. Future-proofing requirements ensure the system can evolve with your business and adapt to changing market conditions.

• Define technology roadmap alignment requirements — how the vendor's innovation strategy aligns with emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, blockchain, and robotic process automation.
• Specify platform extensibility requirements ensuring the system can accommodate new business models, product lines, markets, and organizational structures.
• Document upgrade path requirements including the vendor's release cadence, backward compatibility commitments, and the effort required to adopt new versions.
• Define API and integration architecture requirements that support future connectivity with technologies and platforms that may not exist today.
• Specify modular architecture requirements allowing you to activate new functionality incrementally without requiring full system reimplementation.

13. Governance and Risk Management

Strong governance ensures that the ERP system operates within defined boundaries and that risks are proactively identified and managed throughout the system's lifecycle.

• Define governance framework requirements including steering committee structures, decision-making authority levels, escalation procedures, and review cadences.
• Specify change control requirements for system modifications including change request processes, impact assessment procedures, approval workflows, and rollback capabilities.
• Document risk assessment requirements including risk identification methodologies, probability and impact scoring, mitigation strategy development, and risk register maintenance.
• Define business continuity requirements ensuring the ERP system supports disaster recovery planning, failover procedures, and minimum operational capability during disruptions.
• Specify vendor risk management requirements including vendor financial health monitoring, service level agreement enforcement, and contingency planning for vendor-related risks.
• Document data governance requirements including data ownership definitions, data quality standards, master data management practices, and data lifecycle management policies.

14. Stakeholder Requirements

Different stakeholders have different needs and perspectives. Capturing requirements from every level of the organization ensures the ERP system delivers value to everyone who uses it.

• Define executive stakeholder requirements including strategic visibility, board-level reporting, cross-functional analytics, and real-time business performance monitoring.
• Specify department head requirements including operational dashboards, team productivity metrics, resource allocation tools, and departmental budget tracking.
• Document end-user requirements including task-specific workflows, mobile access needs, self-service capabilities, and role-based interface simplification.
• Define IT stakeholder requirements including system administration tools, monitoring capabilities, security management, and technical support resources.
• Specify external stakeholder requirements including customer portal access, vendor self-service capabilities, partner collaboration tools, and regulatory body reporting.

15. Data Migration

Data migration is one of the most complex and risk-prone aspects of ERP implementation. A thorough set of data migration requirements prevents data loss, corruption, and quality degradation.

• Define data scope requirements specifying exactly which data sets will be migrated from legacy systems, including master data, transactional data, and historical records.
• Specify data cleansing requirements including duplicate removal, standardization rules, validation criteria, and data enrichment processes to improve data quality before migration.
• Document data mapping requirements defining how fields, formats, and structures in legacy systems correspond to the new ERP system's data model.
• Define data transformation requirements including format conversions, code translations, unit of measure standardizations, and currency conversions needed during migration.
• Specify data validation requirements including reconciliation procedures, data integrity checks, and acceptance criteria that must be met before migrated data is approved.
• Document migration testing requirements including trial migration runs, data verification procedures, performance testing, and rollback procedures for failed migrations.
• Define data archiving requirements for legacy data that will not be migrated but must remain accessible for historical reference, compliance, or audit purposes.
• Specify cutover planning requirements including data freeze periods, final migration scheduling, parallel running procedures, and go/no-go decision criteria.
• Document data governance requirements post-migration including ongoing data quality monitoring, stewardship assignments, and data maintenance procedures.
• Define data security requirements during migration including encryption of data in transit, access controls for migration tools, and audit logging of all migration activities.

Requirements Gathering Tools

Having the right tools and techniques for gathering requirements is just as important as knowing what to gather. Here are four categories of tools that will help you capture comprehensive, accurate, and actionable ERP requirements.

Workshops and Interviews

Direct engagement with stakeholders is the most effective way to uncover requirements that documents and surveys alone will miss.

• Cross-functional workshops: Bring together representatives from multiple departments in facilitated sessions to identify shared processes, integration points, and conflicting requirements. These collaborative sessions surface cross-departmental dependencies that individual interviews often miss.
• One-on-one stakeholder interviews: Conduct structured interviews with key decision-makers and process owners to capture detailed requirements specific to their functional area. Individual interviews create a safe space for stakeholders to share honest assessments of current pain points.
• Day-in-the-life shadowing sessions: Spend time observing end-users performing their daily tasks to identify undocumented processes, workarounds, and efficiency opportunities that stakeholders may not think to mention in formal interviews.

Pro Tip: Record all workshop and interview sessions (with permission) and assign a dedicated note-taker. This ensures that valuable insights aren't lost and provides a reference for resolving requirement ambiguities later in the project.

Process Mapping Tools

Visual process documentation makes complex workflows understandable and helps identify gaps and improvement opportunities.

• Flowchart software: Tools like Lucidchart, Visio, or Draw.io allow you to create detailed process flowcharts that visually document current-state and future-state workflows with standardized symbols and notation.
• Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN): Use BPMN standards to create formal process models that can be shared across teams and vendors, ensuring everyone has a common understanding of process flows and decision points.
• Value Stream Mapping: Apply lean methodology tools to map the flow of materials and information through your processes, identifying waste and non-value-added activities that the ERP system should eliminate.

Pro Tip: Start with high-level process maps to gain alignment on major workflows, then drill down into sub-processes and exception handling. This top-down approach prevents teams from getting lost in details before establishing the big picture.

Requirements Management Software

As requirements grow in volume and complexity, dedicated management tools become essential for tracking, organizing, and prioritizing them effectively.

• Dedicated requirements tools: Platforms like Jama Connect, IBM DOORS, or Helix RM provide structured requirements capture, traceability matrices, and impact analysis capabilities purpose-built for complex projects.
• Collaborative platforms: Tools like Confluence, Notion, or SharePoint enable distributed teams to collaboratively document, review, and approve requirements with version control and commenting capabilities.
• Agile tools: For organizations using agile methodologies, tools like Jira, Azure DevOps, or Monday.com help manage requirements as user stories with acceptance criteria, sprint planning, and backlog prioritization.

Pro Tip: Regardless of which tool you choose, establish a single source of truth for all requirements. Scattered requirements across emails, spreadsheets, and meeting notes are a recipe for missed items and conflicting specifications.

Prioritization Frameworks

Not all requirements are created equal. Prioritization frameworks help you distinguish between must-haves and nice-to-haves, ensuring the most critical needs are addressed first.

• MoSCoW method: Categorize each requirement as Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, or Won't Have (this time). This simple framework creates clear priority tiers that guide vendor evaluation and implementation phasing decisions.
• Kano model: Classify requirements as basic (expected), performance (satisfying), or excitement (delighting) to understand which features drive user satisfaction and which are simply table stakes for any ERP solution.
• Weighted scoring: Assign numerical weights to evaluation criteria and score each requirement against those criteria. This quantitative approach removes subjectivity and provides defensible prioritization decisions for stakeholder review.

Pro Tip: Involve stakeholders from every level — executive, management, and end-user — in the prioritization process. What leadership considers critical may differ significantly from what frontline workers need most, and a balanced perspective produces better outcomes.

Common Pitfalls

Even with a comprehensive requirements checklist, organizations frequently stumble on common pitfalls that can derail the entire project. Being aware of these traps helps you proactively avoid them.

1. Overlooked Requirements

Incomplete stakeholder consultation is the most common cause of overlooked requirements. When only IT and management are involved in requirements gathering, frontline user needs, cross-departmental integration points, and exception handling scenarios are frequently missed. The result is an ERP system that works in theory but fails in practice. Ensure every affected group has a voice in the process — from warehouse workers to executives, from finance clerks to sales representatives.

2. Scope Creep

Scope creep occurs when new requirements are continuously added without proper evaluation of their impact on timeline, budget, and system complexity. While some scope changes are legitimate discoveries, uncontrolled additions can inflate project costs by 50% or more and push timelines out by months. Establish a formal change control process that evaluates every new requirement against predefined criteria before approving it for inclusion.

3. Inadequate Testing

Rushing through testing or skipping critical validation steps is a false economy that almost always results in costly post-go-live issues. Requirements that are defined but never properly tested might as well not exist. Ensure your testing plan covers unit testing, integration testing, user acceptance testing, performance testing, and regression testing — with sufficient time between rounds for defect resolution and retesting.

4. Poor Change Management

Failing to prepare employees for new workflows and system changes is one of the leading causes of low ERP adoption rates. Even the best-configured system will underperform if users resist it or don't understand how to use it effectively. Invest in comprehensive change management that includes clear communication, role-based training, feedback mechanisms, and visible executive sponsorship from the earliest stages of the project.

Achieve ERP Mastery

A comprehensive ERP requirements checklist isn't just a project artifact — it's the blueprint for your organization's digital transformation success. By systematically working through all 15 requirement areas, leveraging the right gathering tools, and avoiding common pitfalls, you position your organization for an implementation that delivers real, measurable business value.

Remember, the time you invest in thorough requirements gathering pays dividends throughout the entire project lifecycle. Organizations that rush this phase spend far more time and money fixing issues during implementation and post-go-live than they would have spent getting it right from the start.

Take this checklist, customize it to your organization's unique context, and use it as your roadmap to ERP mastery. Your future self — and your entire organization — will thank you for doing the hard work upfront.