Before you sign, or after close as part of value creation, you’ll know whether the ERP can support the growth plan: what’s holding the close together, what it takes to integrate or replace it, and what that will cost. Clear findings you can build into the price, the 100-day plan or the value creation plan, in as little as 3–5 days.
Before signing, or post-close for value creation
3–5 days to 8 weeks, by scope
A keep, fix or replace call, costed, and a Day 1 plan
Deal teams, operating partners and portfolio CFOs
Diligence
Day 1
TSA exit
Integration
An ERP health check is the review of a company’s ERP and the finance and operations processes that run on it, before a deal closes or after it, as part of post-close value creation. In M&A, it tells the buyer whether the system can carry the investment thesis, what it will cost to keep, fix, integrate or replace, and how long that will take.
It matters because many portfolio companies have outgrown their ERP or accounting system without anyone saying so. A version the vendor is retiring, years of customization or a month-end close held together by spreadsheets rarely shows up in the CIM. It does show up in the 100-day plan and the budget. Found before signing, it can go into the price, the TSA and the plan instead.
Can the ERP carry the growth plan and the add-ons to come?
What will it take to move the add-on onto the platform’s ERP, and how fast?
Is the ERP shared with the parent, and what will it cost to stand up our own?
Can it consolidate many entities without a manual close?
Is the vendor retiring this version, and when does replacing it stop being optional?
Will a buyer trust the numbers that come out of the system?
Four lenses on the ERP, evaluated together, so a finding in one shows up in the cost and the plan for the others.
ERP version, support status and vendor roadmap
Hosting: on-premise, hosted or cloud
Customizations, scripts and workarounds
Integrations: EDI, warehouse, ecommerce, CRM and payroll
Licences and contracts
Will the ERP still be supported through the hold?
Can it be upgraded, or is it customized past that point?
Order-to-cash
Procure-to-pay
Record-to-report and the month-end close
Plan-to-make: inventory and manufacturing
Multi-entity consolidation
How long does the close take, and how manual is it?
Can it absorb the next acquisition?
Customer, item and vendor master data
Financial and management reporting
Reporting tools and spreadsheets around the ERP
Data quality for migration
Data readiness for AI
Do the numbers in the CIM come out of the system?
Is the data clean enough to move?
Total cost: licences, hosting and partner fees
Who runs it, and key-person risk
The implementation partner and support model
Financial controls and segregation of duties
User access and security
What does the ERP really cost a year?
What happens if the one person who knows it leaves?
AI is part of the review: whether the ERP’s data is clean and structured enough for AI forecasting and automation, and whether the platform’s roadmap will support it.
Run it on its own, as part of a full IT due diligence, or after close as part of value creation. Every tier ends in a clear call on the ERP: keep it, fix it, integrate it or replace it, and what each will cost.
3–5 days
CIM and management presentation review
A one-hour interview with finance or IT
ERP red flags and a rough cost to fix or replace
3–5 days
ERP contracts, licences and support status
1–2 hours of finance and IT interviews
ERP scorecard and a keep, fix or replace call
2–3 weeks
Process walkthroughs, from order-to-cash to the close
Customization, integration and data review
Costed roadmap and a 100-day ERP plan
4–8 weeks
Everything in a full-scope review
ERP separation or integration plan
TSA scope for finance systems, and the exit plan
2–3 weeks
ERP, close and reporting review with the finance team
Fit with the value creation plan and the next add-ons
An optimize, migrate or replace call, costed
The same repeatable sequence as our IT due diligence, refined across 300+ diligences, with the finance team at the center of it.
Request list, data room or system access, and a first read on the ERP.
Finance and IT interviews and process walkthroughs, traced through the ERP rather than described.
A keep, fix, integrate or replace call, costed, with a Day 1 or value creation plan for finance.
The ERP call shapes the cost of the whole deal. Here are three times getting it right paid off, and what a sponsor said afterwards.
IT due diligence and synergy analysis on 23 brands carved out of a global consumer goods company, then a right-sized move from SAP and Fusion to Business Central and a post-TSA IT model built for the new company.
Read the case study →
A $500M division carved out of an $8B public company, with eight facilities on different ERPs and the CIO gone a week before close. We centralized the ERP within three months and stabilized IT.
Read the case study →
We unified 43 systems into one operating platform for a PE-backed automotive aftermarket rollup, cutting $1.6M in annual costs.
Read the case study →They’re not a typical hardware and software consulting firm. They go a layer deeper, mapping IT infrastructure to operations and identifying strengths and weaknesses.
Operating Executive, PE firm with $3B AUMSomething we haven’t covered? A partner can answer it on a short call.
An M&A ERP health check is the review of a company’s ERP before a deal closes, or after close as part of value creation: the platform and how it’s customized, the finance and operations processes that run on it, the data and reporting, and what it all costs to run. The output is a clear call on whether to keep, fix, integrate or replace the ERP, and what each option will cost.
For a buyer, the point is the terms and the plan. ERP findings can support a purchase price adjustment, better transition services agreement (TSA) terms and a 100-day plan the finance team can actually deliver. See how it fits with the rest of our M&A IT services.
It depends on the decision. A red-flag review or a confirmatory review takes three to five days. A full-scope review takes two to three weeks, and a carve-out or integration diligence four to eight weeks, because it adds the separation or integration plan.
An ERP health check can run on its own, as part of a full IT due diligence when the deal needs a view of the whole technology estate, or after close as part of value creation. Either way, starting early leaves time to negotiate on what it finds.
Every report includes findings and recommendations, and a view of what the ERP will cost to keep, fix, integrate or replace. Confirmatory and full-scope reviews add an ERP scorecard; a full-scope review adds a costed roadmap and a 100-day ERP plan.
A carve-out or integration diligence also includes the ERP separation or integration plan, the TSA scope for finance systems and the plan to exit it. Findings are presented to the deal team in a read-out.
An ERP health check for private equity starts from the investment thesis, not a feature checklist. The questions are whether the system can consolidate the add-ons in the plan, how long the close takes, what the deal model should assume for ERP spend, and whether the reporting will hold up when it’s time to sell.
Our team implements and runs ERPs after close as well as reviewing them, so findings come with a realistic cost and timeline attached. See our private equity ERP services.
Yes. After close, it becomes part of the value creation plan: has the company outgrown its ERP or accounting system, how long does the close take, and can it absorb the next add-on? The output is a costed call to optimize, migrate or replace, sequenced into the plan.
That’s one of the most common findings, and one of the most expensive to discover late. When a vendor retires a version, the company can end up replacing its ERP on the vendor’s timeline rather than its own, often in the middle of the hold.
Diligence puts a date and a cost on it, so the replacement can go into the deal model and the plan. For one PE-backed equipment rental company, our assessment gave the sponsor a clear risk picture on a retiring ERP, so the replacement decision was made on evidence rather than vendor pressure.
The findings become the plan. We can run the ERP separation in an IT carve-out, move an add-on onto the platform’s ERP through M&A IT integration, or implement and run the ERP as part of our ERP services.
It’s an option, not a condition. Either way, what we learned in diligence isn’t lost between signing and Day 1.
What the target’s IT will really cost to run, fix, separate or integrate, before you sign.
Security posture, compliance gaps and cyber-insurance exposure, priced before you sign.
Separation design, TSA scope and governance, Day 1 cutover and an early exit from the TSA.
Day 1 readiness, then moving the add-on onto the platform’s systems.
One office running every workstream for carve-outs, ERP integrations and other transactions.
AI readiness, maturity, governance and training, tied to EBITDA.
Start with a red-flag review: three to five days, a clear view of the ERP risks, and what they’re likely to cost to fix or replace.
