An ERP project is off track: a 30-day recovery plan for municipal leaders

Start with the work that must keep running

A city manager hears that the enterprise resource planning (ERP) project is nearly ready. Finance staff say they still cannot reconcile a report. Payroll has not completed a representative test. The vendor says the remaining items can be handled after launch. Leadership needs a reliable picture of what is working before accepting another date.

A useful recovery review begins with essential services and the decisions blocking them. The 30-day sequence below is a planning approach, not a promise that every project can be repaired in a month. Adjust it to the severity of the issues and the agency's operating calendar.

Days 1 through 5: establish a shared view of the problems

Ask the project team for one issue register that includes the affected process, a reproducible example, the operational consequence, a responsible person, and the next decision. Reconcile it with support tickets, meeting notes, and staff workarounds. A long list of closed tickets does not tell leadership whether staff can run payroll or close a month.

Classify each blocker. A wrong balance may result from converted data, an account mapping, a report filter, or an unresolved accounting rule. Each cause needs a different owner. GFOA's guidance treats ERP as the combination of software, processes, policies, and people; that is a useful principle for diagnosing a troubled project.

• Identify the next payroll, payment, billing, and reporting deadlines.
• Document which services have a tested fallback and who can authorize it.
• Limit discretionary changes while critical problems are being assessed.
• Record decisions that are waiting on agency staff, the vendor, or another supplier.

Sources: GFOA — Foundation for a Strong ERP System

Days 6 through 10: test the critical processes

Choose a small set of complete transactions that expose the project's main risks. Follow an invoice from entry through approval, payment, and ledger posting. Run representative payroll cases and compare the output with expected amounts. Carry a utility adjustment through the customer account and financial posting.

Use agreed expected results and approved test data. Record differences rather than accepting a verbal statement that a scenario passed. Finance should define reconciliation expectations, including how rounding differences are treated. Unexplained variances need an owner and a disposition before acceptance.

Days 11 through 20: resolve causes and reset the plan

Review the failed scenarios with the people who can change the result. Configuration belongs with the configuration team. Data corrections require a source owner and repeatable conversion rules. Policy questions need an agency decision. Training gaps need staff practice in the actual process.

Turn those findings into a revised scope and schedule. Include agency effort, vendor availability, integration dependencies, and retesting time. A date supported by those inputs is more useful than a date chosen to restore confidence at a meeting.

Compare recovery, a narrower phased launch, a pause, and replacement where justified. A phased launch needs workable interfaces and reconciliations between the old and new processes. Replacement has its own procurement, conversion, and service continuity costs. Review contractual remedies with the agency's procurement and legal teams.

Days 21 through 30: prepare the go-live decision

Give the steering group a short decision paper. State what has been demonstrated, what remains unresolved, the cost and staffing implications of each option, and the conditions under which the recommendation would change.

Define go-live conditions by process. The responsible department should be able to confirm that transactions complete, balances reconcile, access is appropriate, staff can perform their jobs, and support is available. If a condition fails, the plan should say who decides whether to defer and how essential services continue.

• Keep one accepted issue register and one revised delivery plan.
• Name the department owners who approve critical processes.
• Document the cutover decision, contingency steps, and escalation contacts.
• Schedule an early operating review around the first live payroll, billing cycle, and month-end close.

ERP go-live acceptance checklist

Use this as a starting register for agency review. Record the test reference, expected and actual result, unresolved issue, responsible owner, and approval date for each acceptance decision. These checks do not replace the agency’s agreed scope.

Enterprise Asset Management (EAM): test the work order, not just the asset list

EPA describes asset management as balancing asset life-cycle costs with required service levels. The following acceptance checks are proposed project working aids, rather than an EPA checklist.

Begin with a register that staff can recognize. Check that each asset identifier is stable, that parent and child assets are placed in the right hierarchy, and that locations and GIS references point to the intended site. Agree on definitions for condition and criticality with the people responsible for maintaining them. Check whether preventive maintenance schedules have an owner, a trigger, and an exception path. These are recommended acceptance tests, not claims about a particular product.

Follow a representative request from intake through assignment, crew work, and completion. Ask staff to record labor, materials, inspections, and status at each step, then compare the agreed costs and status changes with the records in any connected financial system. Deliberately reject an update and replay it under controlled conditions; verify that the retry does not duplicate costs or close the order twice. Document which team owns the correction and how a supervisor sees it.

For a meter exchange, test the handoff to Utility Billing (UB) where the agency’s contracted systems support it. Record the asset identifier, old and new meter serial numbers, effective date, final reading, and initial reading. Check that the billing history retains the chronology and that an incomplete field record cannot silently produce a bill. Confirm interfaces and permissions in the agency agreement rather than assuming that two products connect automatically.

Sources: U.S. EPA — About Asset Management

What leaders should ask at the next steering meeting

Ask the team to demonstrate the most important unresolved process and explain what is needed to finish it. Then ask which agency decision or staffing constraint is holding the next milestone.

A credible recovery plan gives leadership a way to approve, defer, or change the work based on observed results. Independent oversight can help reconcile competing accounts, but accountability still needs named agency and vendor owners.