ERP Business Analyst in Brisbane

Insurance repair and restoration work after storms and floods

Brisbane's exposure to severe summer storms, hail and river flooding creates steady work for insurance repair builders, restoration specialists, roofers and make-safe contractors. Their jobs do not arrive like ordinary building work. A claim is lodged with an insurer, an assessor or loss adjuster scopes the damage, the job is allocated to a builder on a panel, and the builder then works to the insurer's rules on reporting, photographs, variations and payment. Each insurer or claims manager may use its own portal and its own expectations.

When I analyze a repair builder's processes, I map the full claim lifecycle: allocation, first contact with the homeowner, make-safe, scope, quote approval, trade scheduling, variations, completion evidence and invoicing. I record which steps happen in the insurer's portal, which happen in the builder's own system, and where staff re-key the same information. After a major storm the volume of new jobs can rise sharply, so the requirements also cover bulk intake, triage and how work is prioritized when crews are stretched.

The result separates what the ERP or job management system must do from what stays in insurer portals, and identifies where an integration or import would remove double entry. That distinction often decides which platforms are worth shortlisting. My process mapping service explains how these maps are built.

Requirements that hold up when the city floods

Parts of Brisbane along the river and its creeks have flooded in the past, including industrial areas where warehouses and workshops sit on low ground. Businesses that lived through those events know the system question is not only about features. It is about what happens when the office is unreachable, the server cupboard is under water or the mobile network is overloaded.

I treat continuity as a set of written requirements rather than an afterthought. Typical items include: where the system and its backups are hosted, and whether that location is exposed to the same event as the business; which functions must work from a phone or laptop anywhere; whether field staff can capture data offline and sync later; how quickly a replacement device can be set up; and how stock, equipment or records lost in an event will be identified, valued and written off. Insurance claims for stock depend on showing what was on hand, so inventory records and their history become a requirement in their own right.

These requirements do not favor one platform; they set a test every option must pass. I list them alongside functional needs so vendors answer them directly. Hosting and recovery details should then be checked with your IT provider, and claim evidence with your insurer or broker.

Franchise networks managed from South East Queensland

A number of franchise brands in food, retail, home services and fitness are run from Brisbane and the Gold Coast. A franchise network creates a requirements problem that a single business never faces: two sets of owners using connected systems with different rights. The franchisor wants consistent product, pricing and brand data, visibility of sales for royalty calculation, and network-wide reporting. Each franchisee runs a separate business that keeps its own books, payroll and customer relationships.

I start by mapping which data belongs to whom. Product and price lists, approved supplier agreements, marketing assets and operating procedures usually flow down from head office. Sales, labor and stock figures flow up, at a level of detail the franchise agreement allows. Royalties, marketing fund levies, supplier rebates and technology charges each need clear calculation rules and an agreed source of truth. Franchisee onboarding and exit are processes too, including how data is handed over when a store changes hands.

Point of sale, booking or field service apps often sit at store level, with the franchisor's ERP or reporting layer above them. My requirements make that boundary explicit and leave the legal questions, such as what data the franchisor may access, to your franchise lawyer. The requirements gathering service describes the workshop format.

Suppliers to Queensland agencies, councils and defense

As the state capital, Brisbane is where Queensland government departments and statutory bodies buy much of what they need, and Brisbane City Council is one of the largest local councils in Australia. Further west, the air base at Amberley and defense industry activity around Ipswich add another group of demanding customers. Suppliers to these buyers face requirements that come from outside the business: contract and spend reporting, purchase order formats that must be matched exactly, local content or social procurement commitments and, for defense work, security and traceability expectations.

As a business analyst I capture each of these as an explicit requirement with a named source. For a supplier to state agencies that might mean matching invoices to government purchase order lines, sending invoices electronically where the buyer asks for it, and producing contract reports on spend, subcontracting and delivery. For a defense supplier it might mean serial or batch traceability, controlled documents, restricted access to certain project data, and records that support whatever security arrangements the customer requires.

I do not interpret procurement policy or security rules myself. Your contracts, your customers and your advisors define the obligation; I make sure the system requirements cover it and that each one can be tested. The BRD consulting service shows how these items sit in the final document.

Testing the requirements with Brisbane scenarios

Requirements only earn their keep if they are tested. Generic test scripts, the kind an implementer reuses from one client to the next, rarely include the situations that make a Brisbane business different. So I write test scenarios from your own work and use them twice: first to score vendor demonstrations during selection, then as the basis of user acceptance testing before go-live.

Examples show the idea. For a repair builder: a storm produces a burst of new insurer allocations, some are duplicates, another needs make-safe the same day, and an assessor rejects a variation. For a franchisor: a store changes owners partway through a month and royalties must split correctly. For a government supplier: an invoice must match a purchase order with partial deliveries and a price change. For any business: the main premises are unavailable and staff must keep working from home.

Each scenario lists the expected result and who signs it off. Gaps found in demos go into a fit-gap register with a decision: configure, adapt the process, add a tool or accept the gap. The Australian ERP business analyst page covers GST, payroll and migration requirements, the Brisbane ERP consultant page covers construction and logistics needs in the city, and the testing and UAT service explains the acceptance stage.