# Your ERP is fine. Everything else runs in Excel. — Alfaveo > A practical guide to fixing the processes that live outside your core system Source: https://alfaveo.com/guides/erp-excel ## Your ERP is fine. Everything else runs in Excel. A practical guide to fixing the processes that live outside your core system You have an ERP. It handles invoicing, stock levels, and basic accounting well enough. But approvals happen over email, production scheduling lives in a spreadsheet someone built three years ago, and the Monday morning report means someone spending half a day pulling data from three different places. The ERP is not the problem. The processes around it are. ### Why this happens ERPs are built to record what has already happened. They are not built for the messy middle, the approvals, the exceptions, the processes that involve multiple people making decisions in a specific order. When businesses try to extend their ERP to handle this, one of two things happens. The vendor quotes a large number for a module that still will not fit the way the team actually works. Or someone builds a workaround, a spreadsheet, a shared inbox, a WhatsApp group, that technically handles the process but creates new problems: no visibility, no audit trail, no way to know where something is stuck. The workaround becomes permanent. The spreadsheet becomes load-bearing infrastructure. The person who built it becomes indispensable. ### The five processes most likely costing you the most #### 1. Approval workflows Purchase orders, quotes, contracts, expenses, anything that has to go to multiple people before it moves forward. In most businesses these work like this: someone emails a request, it sits in an inbox, the approver approves or asks a question, the reply gets lost, someone chases, the approval eventually happens two weeks after it should have. What a fixed version looks like: a request goes in, it routes automatically to the right approver based on value or type, the approver gets a notification, they approve or reject with a comment, the requestor is notified, and there is a permanent record of what was approved, by whom, and when. The whole thing takes minutes instead of weeks, and nobody has to chase anyone. #### 2. Data entry between systems If someone in your business copies information from one system into another, from a customer email into your ERP, from your ERP into a spreadsheet, from a spreadsheet into a report, that is a process waiting to be automated. Every manual transfer is a source of errors and a waste of skilled time. A number entered wrong at step one is wrong everywhere it ends up. #### 3. Status and visibility “Where is this order?” “Has that been approved?” “What is the current stock level of X?” If the answer to any of these requires someone to check a spreadsheet, call a colleague, or dig through an email thread, you do not have visibility, you have a team of people holding information that should be in one place. #### 4. Reporting If producing a weekly or monthly report requires someone to manually compile it, the report is already out of date by the time it is read. Reporting is not where to start, it is the output of clean processes. Fix the data flows first and reporting becomes automatic. Try to fix reporting first and you are building dashboards on top of unreliable data, which is worse than no dashboard at all. #### 5. Exceptions and escalations Every process has exceptions, the order that does not fit the standard flow, the approval that needs someone senior, the request that falls between two categories. The same exception handled by different people on different days gets different outcomes. Customers and suppliers notice. ### What to do in order - Map what actually exists, walk through your current processes as they really work, not as they are supposed to. - Pick the one causing the most visible pain, not the most strategic one. A fast, visible win creates momentum. - Build the fix properly, clear input, clear output, no manual steps to keep it running, an automatic record. - Connect to your ERP, the new process feeds into the ERP via its APIs, it does not replace it. - Repeat, the second process is faster than the first. Within three to four months the five to eight processes generating most of your drag can run properly. ### What not to do - Do not try to replace your ERP. It almost certainly does not need replacing. - Do not buy an ERP-vendor module without checking it matches how you actually work. - Do not start with reporting. It feels productive. It is actually the last step. - Do not try to build everything at once, you end up with several half-finished things and no wins to show. ### What this is worth For every person spending more than four hours a week on manual process work, re-entering data, chasing approvals, compiling reports, you are spending roughly £7,000 to £10,000 a year on work that should not require a person. Most mid-sized businesses have five to fifteen people in this position. The total is usually larger than expected. The signal that this is your biggest problem: someone in your business could not do their job for a week if a specific spreadsheet disappeared. If that is true, you are one person leaving away from a crisis, and that person knows it. ### About Alfaveo Alfaveo builds custom software that connects to your existing systems and handles the processes they were never designed for. We start with a working prototype in 10 business days, real UI, real data, real workflow, so you can see exactly what you are getting before committing to a full build. If what you have read here describes your situation, the most useful next step is a 30-minute conversation. No proposal, no pitch, just an honest assessment of what is worth fixing first and roughly what it would take. Book a 30-minute conversation