Is your ERP status report telling you the truth — or just telling you “Green”?
A structured way to read a pre-go-live status report before you carry its number into a board meeting.
EVALUATION GUIDE · FOR CFOS, CIOS & COOS
Is your ERP status report telling you the truth
— or just telling you “green”?
A structured way to read a pre-go-live status report before you carry its number into a board
meeting.
ISSUED BY
ORPINGTON ADVISORY
READING TIME
7 MINUTES
83
Most status reports you’ll be handed before go-live are self-reported by the same team accountable for hitting the
deadline. That’s not dishonesty — it’s incentive structure. A project manager under schedule pressure reports “on track”
using the most optimistic reasonable reading of ambiguous evidence.
The report isn’t lying. It also isn’t verified.
The gap
between those two things is exactly where ERP programmes go from 92% confidence to a stalled recovery.
01
Six evaluation criteria
ASK FOR THE EVIDENCE, NOT THE LABEL
Executive sponsorship
A status label (“sponsor engaged”) says nothing about frequency or authority.
Ask:
who is the named sponsor, and when did they last make a scope decision?
Change management
“Training planned” and “training scheduled and running” are different realities.
Ask:
show me the training calendar and attendance to date.
Testing discipline
Happy-path UAT can look identical to edge-case UAT in a one-line status update.
Ask:
show me the UAT scripts covering period-end close and manual overrides, signed.
Data migration integrity
“Reconciliation underway” can mean started yesterday or nearly finished.
Ask:
show me the trial balance reconciliation output, not the plan to produce one.
Integration testing
“Integrations tested” often means connectivity confirmed, not load-tested.
Ask:
show me end-to-end test results under realistic transaction volume.
Go-live strategy
A rollback plan discussed in a meeting is not a rollback plan.
Ask:
show me the documented rollback criteria and the stabilization plan.
ORPINGTON
ERP STEWARDSHIP, END TO END
EVALUATION GUIDE
Orpington Technologies Inc. · Saskatchewan, Canada ·
info@orpingtontech.com
·
https://www.orpingtontech.com/
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02
Five red flags in a status report
!
“Happy path” UAT presented as complete UAT
Edge cases — large transactions, period-end close, manual overrides — are where ERP defects actually surface.
!
No single, named, accountable sponsor
Distributed or informal sponsorship means no one is positioned to make a fast call when one is needed.
!
Reconciliation reported “on track” with no output attached
Planned reconciliation and completed reconciliation are reported in the same optimistic tone. Ask to see the number.
!
No documented rollback plan this close to go-live
If the rollback criteria and stabilization period aren’t written down, they don’t exist yet — no matter what was discussed.
!
The same firm assessing readiness is also implementing
Whoever is graded on the deadline has an incentive in how “on track” gets defined. Independent verification removes that incentive.
03
Three ways this gets assessed
AND WHAT EACH ACTUALLY GIVES YOU
Generic checklist
Traditional health check
Evidence-verified report
EVIDENCE
CHECKED
BOARD-
DEFENSIBLE
QUANTIFIED
OUTPUT
SPEED TO
RESULT
GENERIC CHECKLIST
TRADITIONAL HEALTH CHECK
EVIDENCE-VERIFIED REPORT
Output
Yes / No boxes
Lengthy PDF
Quantified confidence score
Variable weighting
None
Varies by consultant
Research-aligned weighting
Time to result
Same day
3–6 weeks, billing throughout
Instant self-report; full report on a scoped timeline
Evidence checked
None
Partial
Full — test logs, reconciliation, UAT sign-off
Defensible to a board
No
Sometimes
Built for exactly that moment
What a defensible report actually looks like
Not a traffic light. A number, built from evidence you could hand to an auditor —
with every self-reported answer checked against documentation, and the findings
reviewed by a certified expert on your specific platform.
FREE INSTANT
SCORE
full report from $4,900
ORPINGTON
ERP STEWARDSHIP, END TO END
EVALUATION GUIDE
Orpington Technologies Inc. · Saskatchewan, Canada ·
info@orpingtontech.com
·
https://www.orpingtontech.com/
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2
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