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An ERP project is often decided on a conviction: “we lose too much time”. It is often true, but a conviction cannot be checked. Quantifying costs and gains before signing lets you decide, then know, three months later, whether the project kept its promise.
In short
Cost: setup, licence, hosting, operations, over three years.
Gains: re-keying hours, errors avoided, shorter close, better-kept stock.
Measure before the project, otherwise the gains cannot be shown.
Check at 30 and 90 days, with the same measurements.
Qualitative gains count, but do not replace the figures.
The cost over three years
- Setup
Scoping, configuration, data migration, training.
- Licence
None for Dolibarr or Odoo Community, a per-user subscription for Odoo Enterprise.
- Hosting
Included at the publisher, to count on your own server.
- Operations
Support, updates, version upgrades, changes.
Three years is a good horizon: long enough to spread the setup, short enough to stay predictable. For Odoo, our calculation of the cost of Odoo over three years details each item. For the tiers of our offer, Dolibarr starts at €6,500 and Odoo at €15,000, at a fixed price on a written scope.
Measurable gains
Re-keying hours
The simplest to measure: how many hours a week go into copying data from one tool to another. Multiplied by the loaded hourly cost and by 47 weeks, they give a direct annual gain.
Errors avoided
Credit notes issued for invoicing errors, deliveries redone, unseen stock-outs. Each error has a cost (correction time, discount granted, customer lost). Count them over two months before the project.
A shorter close
A monthly close that goes from five days to two frees time in accounting and gives leadership figures sooner. Time is measured in working days.
Better-kept stock
Reliable stock reduces safety overstock and rush orders. The gain shows in average stock value and in rush purchasing costs. See Inventory management in an ERP.
Measure before the project
Without a starting measurement, no gain can be shown. The four measurements from When to move to an ERP, taken over two weeks, are enough: re-keying hours, errors, close duration, tools and their cost. They serve the decision, then as the baseline.
Check at 30 and 90 days
At 30 days
Share of documents created in the ERP
Support requests per week
Parallel files still open
At 90 days
Re-keying hours remaining
Invoicing errors over the quarter
Duration of the last close
At 30 days, you mostly measure adoption; at 90 days, the gains. A gap with the forecast is not a failure: it tells you where to look (a flow still manual, training to redo, a setting to fix).
The gains you do not quantify
Leadership reading reliable figures every week, a company less dependent on two people who “know”, growth that no longer requires another spreadsheet: these gains are real. They weigh in the decision, but a project justified only by them deserves to be reduced to a more modest first batch.
For a general method of calculating return on investment, Investopedia’s page on ROI recalls the basics of the calculation.
A calculation that fits on one page
The full calculation fits on one page: the four cost items over three years on the left, the four measured gains on the right, with their assumptions. Show it to leadership and department heads before signing: everyone can correct an assumption, and the calculation becomes the company’s, not the provider’s. The complete ERP guide details the steps that produce these gains. Our CRM and ERP offer sets out this calculation during scoping, then checks it with you at the 30 and 90-day follow-ups.
Frequently asked questions
How long until an ERP pays off?
It depends on the starting volume of re-keying and errors. A company spending several days a month reconciling its tools sees the gain in the first months; an already well-equipped company takes longer. The three-year calculation tells whether the project is justified.
Should team time be counted in the cost?
Yes. Workshops, data cleaning, tests and training take internal teams’ time. That time is often forgotten in budgets, while it weighs as much as part of the setup. It must be planned and reserved in schedules.
What if the gains are not there at 90 days?
Look for where manual work remains: an uncovered flow, a team keeping its spreadsheet, an integration that fails. Most often the cause is precise and can be fixed. A 90-day follow-up exists precisely to find it before the habit sets in.
Sources
- Return on Investment, Investopedia (new tab)investopedia.com
Jim · founder of Brain Plus AI
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