ERP go-live readiness checklist

Why run this

What this checklist is for

Most ERP go-lives that go badly do not fail on configuration. They fail because a data decision, an integration or a person's availability was assumed rather than confirmed.

Every item below is something we have seen stop a go-live. Run it four weeks out so there is time to act, then again a week out to confirm nothing has slipped.

Run it with

Finance director or business owner

And with

Implementation lead and system administrator

And with

Department heads for each in-scope function

The checklist

20 checks, in the order we would run them

Tick only what you can genuinely evidence today. An item you intend to do is not an item you have done, and scoring yourself generously here only produces a comfortable number and an uncomfortable project.

Section 1

Data

The area that produces the most go-live delays, by a considerable margin.

Opening balances agreed and signed off by your accountantNot prepared — signed off. The person who will file your accounts needs to have accepted these numbers.
A previously closed period reproduced in the new systemThis is the single best test of a migration. If the new system cannot reproduce a period you have already signed off, the migration is not finished.
Master data cleansed: customers, vendors, items, chart of accountsMigration is the one moment when cleansing is cheap. Duplicates and dormant records carried across will be there for a decade.
Open transactions identified with an agreed cut-offOpen purchase orders, sales orders and unpaid invoices. Decide explicitly what migrates and what closes in the old system.
Historic data retention decided and the old system's availability confirmedHow long you keep read access to the legacy system, who pays for it, and who can reach it.

Section 2

Configuration

What has to be right before anyone posts a live transaction.

Posting groups and dimension design confirmed against real transactionsPost one of every major transaction type and check the dimensions land as designed. Default dimension conflicts are invisible until something posts.
Number series set and gap behaviour agreedDocument numbering matters to auditors. Decide whether gaps are permitted before you go live rather than explaining them afterwards.
Approval workflows configured and tested with real approversTested by the people who will actually approve, on their own devices, including on a phone.
Tax and statutory settings verified for every jurisdiction you operate inThis is the item most often deferred and most expensive to correct after the first filing.
Permissions assigned by role and tested by an actual user of each roleNot by the administrator. A user who cannot complete their job on day one generates an escalation that colours the whole go-live.

Section 3

Integrations and reporting

The connections and outputs people will notice immediately.

Every integration tested end to end, including the failure pathWhat happens when the other system is unavailable. An integration with no failure handling is a silent data loss waiting to happen.
Bank feeds and payment files tested with your actual bankTest files accepted by the bank, not merely generated. Banks reject formats for reasons nobody anticipates.
The reports leadership reads monthly reproduced and comparedPick the three reports that actually get read and reproduce them against a known period. Anything else can wait.
Document layouts branded and approvedInvoices, statements and purchase orders go to customers and suppliers. A wrong layout is externally visible on day one.
Data export path confirmed, so you are not locked inEstablish how you would extract your data if you ever needed to. Do it now, while you have leverage and attention.

Section 4

People and cutover

The half that no amount of configuration compensates for.

Role-based training delivered, not one session for everyoneFinance, sales and warehouse need different things. A single generic session satisfies nobody.
At least one internal person can make routine configuration changesIf every change requires a purchase order with your partner, the system was implemented badly.
Cutover plan written with hour-by-hour tasks and named ownersIncluding who decides to roll back, at what point, and on what evidence.
Support arrangement agreed for the first two weeks, with a named contactGo-live week is when you need the most help and when the implementation team is most tempted to move on.
A rollback position defined and understood by leadershipYou will almost certainly not use it. Not having one is what turns a bad day into a bad month.

What your score means

Read this against the number above

These bands are deliberately blunt. The middle band is where most organizations honestly sit, and it is a perfectly reasonable place to proceed from — provided the gaps are written down with owners rather than carried as optimism.

0–59%Significant gaps

Do not proceed yet. More than four in ten items are unaddressed, and the ones that fail here are usually the foundational ones that make everything after them harder.

60–84%Mostly ready, with known gaps

Proceed on a defined scope, with the outstanding items written into the plan as risks with owners and dates. This is the most common honest position.

85–100%Ready

The remaining gaps are small enough to handle during delivery rather than before it. Confirm the unticked items are genuinely minor rather than simply unexamined.

Your score highlights automatically as you tick items above. Nothing is saved, sent or tracked — refreshing the page clears it.

Closing the gaps

If you could not tick these, start here

The four items below are the ones whose absence causes the most trouble downstream. If your unticked items include any of these, they are worth addressing before the rest.

Opening balances not signed off

Stop. This is the item most likely to produce an unrecoverable position, and your accountant's sign-off is not a formality.

Integrations untested at the failure path

Test the disconnect, not just the happy path. Silent integration failure is the most expensive post-go-live discovery.

Training not role-based

Split it. The cost of three focused sessions is trivial against a week of avoidable support calls.

No named support contact for week one

Agree it in writing before go-live. Discovering there is no arrangement at 8am on day one is a preventable crisis.

Want a second opinion on your score?

We will run this checklist with you against your actual implementation and tell you honestly whether the date is realistic — including when our answer is to move it.

Talk through your result Read the related guides We reply to every message within one business day.

Keep going

Related checklists

defender

small-mid-marketReadiness

Security baseline audit checklist

The controls your insurer, your clients and any competent attacker will all test. Twenty checks with binary answers.

July 11, 2026 · 20 checksOpen

sharepoint

small-mid-marketReadiness

Information architecture audit

Twenty checks on whether your file structure is helping people work or quietly costing them an hour a week.

January 10, 2026 · 20 checksOpen

What this checklist is for

Run it with

And with

And with

20 checks, in the order we would run them

Data

Configuration

Integrations and reporting

People and cutover

Read this against the number above

If you could not tick these, start here

Opening balances not signed off

Integrations untested at the failure path

Training not role-based

No named support contact for week one

Want a second opinion on your score?

Related checklists

Security baseline audit checklist

Information architecture audit

Tell us what you're trying to fix

Let’s get started on something great

Phone

Email