ERP Rescue Consultant, Lebanon

Why Lebanese ERP projects stall

Most of the reasons are familiar from anywhere: requirements written too thinly, a date fixed before the scope was understood, too few people on the client side with time to decide. Lebanon adds a few patterns that make projects stall harder and longer.

• Unsettled currency rules. Finance works with one set of rate practices and the implementer configures another. Every test then produces figures someone rejects, and the project circles.
• Key-person dependency. Some implementers are small teams. When the consultant who designed your setup leaves, or relocates abroad, nobody else knows why it works the way it does.
• Converted opening balances. Customer and supplier balances migrated as a single converted figure make statements, collections and revaluation impossible to explain.
• Outlets drifting away. Point of sale terminals that fail to sync after outages lead staff back to old tills and handwritten sheets.
• Groups across borders. A sister company abroad joins the project late, with its own currency and reporting needs.

A rescue begins by naming which of these apply, with evidence. Where the system is stable and simply underperforming, the lighter ERP audit for Lebanese companies is usually the right first step.

Containing the damage: trading, VAT and month-end

Before any analysis, the business must keep selling, collecting and paying with numbers it can stand behind. I agree with the owner and finance which processes are critical this week and which temporary routines are acceptable while the system is repaired.

Access comes next, because it is easy to overlook and hard to fix later. I check that your company, not only the implementer, holds administrator accounts, hosting or server credentials and the latest backup, and that a restore has actually been tried. If the system depends on one person's laptop or password, that is the first risk to close.

Then I work with your accountant on the coming VAT period and month-end. Together we settle which figures the return and management accounts will rely on, what must be corrected beforehand and how the ERP will be tied back to bank, cash and supplier records. Tax treatment and filing stay with the accountant; I make sure the system can support their work.

Outlets get a simple, documented interim procedure if their point of sale cannot be trusted yet: how sales are recorded, counted per currency and entered later. Each interim routine has an owner and a date to retire it, so temporary fixes do not become permanent.

Settling the facts and the currency dispute

When a rescue starts, the owner may be hearing two incompatible stories. Finance says the system never produced believable numbers; the implementer says the rules kept changing. A rescue needs one version of events that both sides can at least recognize.

I talk to the owner, finance, operations, outlet managers and the implementer's team individually. I review the original proposal, the agreed scope, any requirements and design documents, approved changes and test evidence. Then I run sample transactions in the system myself, in both currencies, from quotation to collection.

Where the core dispute is about exchange rates, I write down both positions side by side: which rate each transaction type should use, where rates come from, how original amounts are kept and how revaluation runs. Your accountant then decides, in writing, which rules apply. That single page can restart a project that has been circling, because the implementer finally has a stable target to configure and test against.

The resulting status paper lists agreed, delivered, partly delivered, missing and disputed items, with causes framed as requirements, data, configuration or governance problems rather than as blame. The independent second opinion page describes this assessment in general terms.

Rebuilding balances that lost their currency

Opening balances loaded as converted totals are one of the most damaging problems in a Lebanese ERP. Customers receive statements nobody can explain, collections staff cannot tell what is owed in which currency and revaluation produces meaningless figures.

The repair runs in rounds, with a finance lead who remembers how each account built up over the years:

• Open customer and supplier invoices are rebuilt from source records one by one, each with its original currency, amount and the rate your accountant specifies.
• Bank and cash balances are separated by account and currency and matched to statements and counts.
• Stock values are checked against finance's valuation method and corrected where landed costs or rates were lost.
• Intercompany balances with group companies abroad are agreed with the other side before loading.

Corrections go in through approved journals or controlled imports, never by editing the database directly, and each round is reconciled before the next begins. The evidence is kept so your auditor can follow what changed and why. The ERP data migration and multi-currency ERP pages cover the underlying methods.

Deciding the way forward and seeing it through

With operations contained and the facts written down, management can choose calmly. Four routes are realistic, and each has its own costs and compromises:

• Continue with the current implementer, now working to written currency rules, a reset scope and firmer governance.
• Re-scope so the core ledger, sales, purchasing and stock stabilize first, while outlets, a sister company or advanced reporting follow.
• Change implementer on the same platform, which depends on getting code, documentation, credentials and backups handed over in usable form.
• Re-platform, only where the evidence shows the software cannot express your currency or outlet needs in a workable way.

If a change of implementer or a dispute is on the table, your lawyer should review the contract first. I prepare a factual summary and the relevant clauses, covering acceptance, payment stages, ownership of custom work, access to source code and exit support; legal judgment stays with them.

Once chosen, the plan moves forward under one accountable sponsor, with each process area owned by a manager, risks reviewed every week and changes released in small pieces your own staff retest. I consider the job done when the exit conditions agreed at the start hold true, typically a month closed cleanly in both currencies and outlets that sync reliably. My ERP recovery page describes the general approach, and the Lebanon implementation consultant page and Lebanon hub cover the wider picture.