Sequence by workflow, not by department
The instinct is to move finance, then sales, then operations. It produces a company where a single order touches two systems, and every handover between them is a manual re-key that somebody has to remember. Move whole workflows instead, even when a workflow spans three teams.
| Wave | What moves | Why this order |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The pilot workflow, company-wide | Already proven. The people who ran the pilot become the people who help everyone else. |
| 2 | Everything upstream of it | A workflow fed by the old system still depends on the old system. |
| 3 | Everything downstream of it | Reporting and billing usually sit here. |
| 4 | The long tail | The quarterly things and the once-a-year things. Do them when they come round, not in advance. |
Getting people onto it
Access arriving before a reason to use it teaches people to ignore the invitation.
Do not give everyone everything and tidy up later. Module access removes; set it as people arrive.
Not a trainer. Someone whose own work depends on the wave landing.
Answers in a channel are answers everyone in the next wave can read.
Announced in advance, and actually done. Nothing else ends a rollout.
One close in both systems is a sensible verification. Two is a stretch. Beyond that, people stop maintaining the new system properly because the old one is still authoritative, and you get the cost of both with the confidence of neither.
Module access
Organisation has 6 modules · rows below remove, never add
| Person | Accounting | CRM | Projects | Chat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dana Okoro | Inherit | Inherit | Inherit | Inherit |
| Priya Raman | Inherit | Removed | Inherit | Inherit |
| Tom Baird | Removed | Inherit | Inherit | Inherit |
| [email protected] | Removed | Removed | Inherit | Removed |
Before you switch the old system off
- One period has been closed in erp.io, by the person who normally closes it.
- Every recurring thing has run at least once — payroll journal, monthly invoices, the standing report somebody sends the bank.
- The audit log shows the whole company, not just the pilot team.
- You have an export of the old system stored somewhere that is not the old system.
- Somebody has tried to find a two-year-old transaction and succeeded.
Keep the old system readable for as long as your retention policy requires. The goal is that nobody can write to it, not that nobody can look at it.
What this does not do
A module is either the system of record or it is not. There is no supported mode where half the invoices live in each system.
These docs are the material. There is no in-product tour or courseware.
Invitations are entered as addresses. There is no CSV upload or directory sync.
Questions
How many people can we move at once?
As many as one accountable person can support. In practice that is 10–30 per wave.
What if a wave stalls?
Stop starting new waves. A stalled wave that gets overtaken becomes a permanent island on the old system.
Related
The rhythms that keep a live erp.io workspace correct: the monthly close, access review, audit log review, AI spend, and what to check quarterly.
Module accessPer-person control over which erp.io modules somebody can open. Restrict-only by design, enforced at the hand-off, and invisible until you use it.