ERP Audit Consultant, Lebanon

What this review covers, and what stays with your auditor

By an ERP audit I mean a structured review of a working system. It asks four questions: does the configuration reflect how the company really operates, can the data be trusted, do the controls work, and do people rely on the system's reports or on something else?

The accounts themselves are outside its scope, and so is tax advice. Your external auditor, your accountant and your legal advisors keep their roles. The review does, however, produce evidence they often value: a list of users who can both raise and approve payments, a rate entered by hand that differs from the agreed source, a cash box whose movements never reach the ledger.

For a Lebanese company, this kind of review is worth commissioning when:

• The owner sees different results depending on which currency or report is used.
• Finance still adjusts heavily in spreadsheets before every management meeting.
• Outlets, branches or sister companies abroad report figures that do not reconcile with head office.
• A new finance manager or partner wants an independent view of the system they inherit.

My ERP health check page sets out the general method; the sections below focus on Lebanese conditions.

Testing exchange rates and dual-currency results

Lebanese companies may hold several rates for the same currency pair, each used for a different purpose, and they often want results in pounds and dollars side by side. An ERP can support that, but only if every transaction type picks the intended rate and every report reads the right one.

I begin by collecting your written rate policy, or writing a short one with finance and your accountant if none exists. Then I take sample transactions across a period and recompute them by hand:

• A sale quoted in dollars and collected in pounds, including any exchange difference.
• A supplier payment made in cash dollars and one made by bank transfer.
• A payroll or expense journal posted at the rate payroll uses.
• Month-end revaluation of open receivables, payables and bank balances.

For each, I check that the original currency amount is stored, the rate used is the intended one and the result matches what finance expects. I then compare key reports, such as profit, receivables ageing and stock value, in both currencies with finance's own figures. Differences are traced to their cause: a default rate, a manual override, a report built on the wrong field. The multi-currency ERP page describes the target design behind these tests.

Cash, checks and the controls around them

Many Lebanese businesses handle a large share of their receipts and payments in cash, often in two currencies, and still use checks, including post-dated ones, with some customers and suppliers. These flows are where controls are most easily bypassed, so the audit examines them closely.

I walk through the actual routine at a sample of locations with the people who run it, then compare it with what the system records:

• Is there a cash box or journal per location and currency, with opening and closing counts recorded by a named person?
• Do transfers to the bank or to head office appear as documents on both sides?
• Can the same person receive cash, record it and approve its deposit?
• Are post-dated checks held in a register with due dates and status, and are returned checks reversed correctly?
• Do petty cash expenses carry approval and receipts, and are limits enforced?

Where the system holds only a daily total, I note what evidence is lost and what a better setup would look like. For hospitality and retail groups, the link between point of sale and the ledger gets the same scrutiny, since outlet cash is where differences tend to hide. The restaurant ERP page covers that flow in more depth.

Outages, backups and access rights

Power at Lebanese sites may switch between the grid, generators and batteries during a single day, and internet quality differs from one location to the next. An ERP that worked well in testing can behave badly when a connection drops halfway through a transaction or a server restarts without warning.

With your IT lead and the implementer I review the practical setup: where the system is hosted, whether backups are taken and, more importantly, whether a restore has ever been tested; whether servers and network equipment are on protected power; how point of sale or warehouse apps behave offline; and how transactions recorded during an outage are entered afterwards without duplicates. I look in the data for signs of trouble, such as repeated documents or gaps in numbering around known outages.

Access rights get the same practical treatment. I pull the user list, role definitions and approval thresholds and set them beside a grid showing who ought to create customers and suppliers, change prices, edit exchange rates, approve payments and post manual journals. Conflicts, shared logins and accounts still held by former staff or the implementer are listed by name. Who can change a rate deserves particular attention, because one wrong entry affects every report that follows.

The report, the readout and next steps

The findings report is written in English for owners and finance heads. It starts with an overall assessment and the most important risks, then sets out every finding in the same pattern: what I saw, the proof, why it matters commercially, where it probably comes from and how to correct it, graded by impact and urgency.

Two further sections are often useful in Lebanon. The first covers documents: invoices, quotations and statements in Arabic, French or English, checked for missing fields, wrong totals and broken layouts, with the wording itself confirmed by your bilingual staff. The second covers licensing: modules and users you pay for and do not use, and how subscriptions are billed, which matters when payment routes are not straightforward.

I present the results in an online meeting, where your implementer is welcome. The tone is neutral; most problems come from rules that were never written down rather than from careless work. Your staff can work through the list themselves, hand it to the implementer, or ask me to lead the follow-up as ERP optimization work.

If the review shows a project that never settled after go-live, see the ERP rescue consultant page for Lebanon. For selection and design work, start from the ERP consultant page for Lebanon or the Lebanon hub.