Most case studies are about manufacturers. But what about service firms? I worked with a company that managed 50 commercial janitorial contracts. They had accounts, invoices, and payments all over the place. They thought they needed a giant IT project, but ERP Consulting showed them a $5,000 fix that changed everything.
The “Revenue Leak” They Were Ignoring
They billed clients monthly, but the actual work happened on different schedules. Some clients paid on time; others took 60 days. The problem was that their system couldn’t tell them which contracts were profitable until the end of the year. By then, they had already lost $50,000 on one bad deal.
The ERP Consulting team didn’t recommend a new system. Instead, they built a simple tracker in Excel that connected to their accounting software. It tracked three things: hours worked, hours billed, and payment received. That simple report showed the owner exactly which contracts were bleeding money.
- They flagged any job where hours billed were less than 85% of hours worked.
- They set a rule: no new work on a contract until the last invoice is paid.
- They started reviewing the tracker every Monday morning, not quarterly.
How a Little Visibility Fixed Their Cash Flow
Within three months, they dropped the worst-performing contract and renegotiated two others. Their cash flow improved by $40,000 a month. The ERP Consulting insight was simple: you can’t fix what you don’t measure in real time. The system wasn’t the problem; the lack of a simple business intelligence report was.
They later implemented a proper ERP system, but only because they knew exactly what questions to ask. That initial $5,000 investment in ERP Consulting saved them from buying the wrong solution.
Your Next Action: Build a Revenue Health Dashboard
- List your top 10 contracts or projects by revenue.
- Track three metrics: total hours worked, total hours billed, and payment lag in days.
- Review this list weekly—not monthly.
You’ll spot the losers fast. Good ERP Consulting is about showing you where your cash is bleeding, not just automating your bookkeeping.