How to consolidate many entities into 1 truth

M&A is all fun and gains until it’s time to integrate the newly aquired business. Then you run into a challenge: Should you consolidate their ERP into yours, build an integration, or defer? This guide presents 5 choices and a 9-step guide to how to unite all your financial systems into one source of truth.

→ Ideal for teams migrating 10+ ERPs per year

M&A EXCELLENCE

What does it take to integrate dozens of ERPs?

We wrote this guide for the teams with dozens or hundreds of sub-entities, whose aquisition strategy hinges on unified financials. "One truth" is more attainable than ever, but it isn't easy. You need the right (you guessed it) people, systems, and processes. This guide offers insight into how to build that organization along with step-by-step guidance and strategy.

Your 5 integration options

There is something unique and wonderful about each acquisition target that made it worth acquiring. Your challenge is to consolidate duplicate systems and information flows without stripping away what made it unique. To reduce without subverting. To standardize, but not de-specialize. There are few more difficult challenges, nor fruitful opportunities.

There is, unfortunately, no such thing as a harmless integration.

There will always be costs. Some employees will resist learning a new ERP system no matter how advanced it is, because it demands too much time. There will be details and technicalities where you have to reallocate and reapply transactions and tagging. Some bugs will affect customers, who may similarly resist learning anything new. Reporting can fail and invoices can go missing.

Each integration is about maximizing the opportunity while reducing the harm. The equation is never perfectly balanced.

You may deploy the same ERP differently for different businesses

A good ERP provides the right balance of structure and flexibility—rails to guide but malleability to support the company’s advantages. A flexible ERP can look completely different depending on the business it’s deployed for. Reevaluate your options each time. Technology is always changing.

Your co-authors

Franz and Sandeep co-founded Everest to be the first AI-native ERP built for change. It's the only AI-native ERP with infinitely scalable multi-book, multi-currency, multi-entity capabilities—perfect for consolidation and integration.