ERP Business Analyst in Perth

Requirements set by your largest customer

Many Perth suppliers and contractors earn much of their revenue from a handful of major mining, energy or infrastructure customers. Those customers run large procurement organizations with their own rules, and the rules become your requirements whether or not you wrote them down. Typical examples include invoices that must quote a purchase order and line number, receipts or service entry confirmations that must exist before an invoice is accepted, submission through a supplier portal or electronic channel, and supporting documents attached in a set format.

Prequalification adds another layer. Safety records, insurance certificates, licenses and inductions may need to be current before work is accepted, and expired documents can hold up payment. Some customers also ask suppliers to report spending with local businesses or with Aboriginal businesses as part of their own commitments. Exactly what is required varies by customer and contract, so I work from the documents they have given you rather than assumptions.

In practice I collect the procurement manual, invoicing instructions and any reporting templates, then trace a real order from request to payment. Each rule becomes a requirement tied to a process step and a test case. The ERP requirements gathering service describes the general method; this is its application to suppliers who answer to large resource customers.

Joint ventures and shared costs

Joint ventures are common in Western Australian mining and energy. One participant usually acts as operator, running the project and spending money on behalf of everyone, then recovering each partner's share through billing or cash calls. Smaller participants receive reports from the operator and need to record their share correctly in their own books.

For an operator, the requirements are detailed. Costs must be coded to the right venture and cost category, overheads may be recovered under agreed rules, partner billings must be traceable to source transactions, and reports must follow the format the agreement sets out. Assets, inventory and contracts may be owned jointly while sitting in the operator's systems. For a participant, the need is simpler but still specific: importing operator statements, reconciling cash calls and keeping each venture's figures separate.

General-purpose ERP systems differ widely in how they handle this. Some need a specialist module, others rely on analytic dimensions and careful reporting, and some are a poor fit. I document what your agreements require in plain terms, without interpreting the accounting treatment, which stays with your accountants and auditors. The resulting requirements let you ask vendors precise questions instead of accepting a general claim that joint ventures are supported. The multi-company ERP page covers related entity structures.

Camps, villages and site services billed per room night and meal

Remote mining and construction projects rely on accommodation villages, catering, cleaning, laundry, transport and maintenance services, often supplied by Perth-based companies. The commercial arrangements behind these services are more complex than they look. A client may pay per occupied room night, a fixed charge for a set number of rooms, separate rates for meals and packed lunches, and extra charges for services such as transport between the village and the site.

The requirements start with occupancy. Who is booked into which room, for which client and contract, on which nights, and how changes, no-shows and late departures are handled. Then come the charge rules: what each client pays for, what is included, and what is billed separately. On the cost side, food, consumables and labor need to be tracked against each village or contract so margin can be measured.

A specialist accommodation booking system may already handle the room side, in which case the analysis focuses on how its data reaches the ERP for billing and costing. I map the end-to-end flow from booking to invoice and write requirements that any proposed system must meet, including the reports your clients expect with each invoice. The facility management ERP page discusses service contract billing in general.

Rural merchandise and wheatbelt suppliers on seasonal terms

Not every Perth business looks north to the mines. Machinery dealers, rural merchandise suppliers, fertilizer and chemical distributors, and agronomy services supply growers across the wheatbelt and the Great Southern, many of them managed from Perth or its outer industrial areas. Their processes follow the farming year, from preparation and seeding through spraying to harvest.

Credit is one of the most distinctive requirements. Growers may buy inputs early in the season on terms that fall due after harvest, so the system must support seasonal due dates, account limits that reflect the grower's situation, and statements that make sense to a farming business. Product records need batch details for chemicals and fertilizers, along with safety documents and any handling or storage rules your industry requires.

Other requirements include rebate and volume programs with manufacturers, deliveries to farms over long distances, and agronomy recommendations linked to the sale. I document how your branch and head office handle each of these, then turn them into requirements and test cases. The specific credit, chemical and safety obligations are confirmed with your advisers and suppliers. The distribution ERP page covers the wider wholesale model.

Testing the requirements with Western Australian scenarios

Requirements are only useful if someone checks that the new system meets them. For each Perth engagement I write acceptance test scripts based on real situations from your business rather than generic examples. A supplier script might follow an order from a mining customer's purchase order through dispatch, a service entry confirmation and portal invoice submission. A joint venture script might trace a contractor invoice through cost coding to a partner billing. A camp script might cover a room booking that changes midweek and the invoice that results.

Each script names the starting data, the steps, what should happen and which person approves the outcome. Your own staff run them during user acceptance testing, with me reviewing results and helping decide which failures must be fixed before go-live and which can wait. This makes testing a structured check on the requirements rather than a quick look at screens.

The full pack usually includes the process maps, the BRD, a fit-gap matrix, the test scripts and an issues log. The national context, including GST and payroll boundaries, is set out on the Australia ERP business analyst page, and the industries served across the city are described on the Perth ERP consultant page. For details of the testing service see ERP testing and UAT.