ERP Audit Consultant, Switzerland

What a Swiss ERP audit covers, and what it leaves to others

The word audit carries weight in Switzerland, so I define the scope precisely before any work begins. What I offer is an ERP audit in the sense of a structured system review: is the software configured for the way your company now trades, are the controls inside it working, and can management rely on what it reports? It is not an audit of your financial statements, it gives no assurance opinion, and it does not replace the statutory auditor, your fiduciary or your tax advisor.

The review tends to be useful at particular moments:

• A new CFO or finance head inherits a system and wants an independent picture before committing budget.
• The integrator who set it up has moved on, and nobody inside holds the full design.
• The group plans to add a Swiss or foreign entity and wants to know whether the base can carry it.
• Staff complain, but the complaints contradict each other.

In each case the aim is the same: replace opinions with evidence. I work from interviews, walkthroughs and read-only access to configuration and data, then report findings your team, the integrator or a new advisor can act on. The general method is set out under ERP health check; this page covers what changes when the system serves a Swiss company.

Do open items and currency balances still tell the truth?

Receivables are often the first place a Swiss system shows strain. When invoices carry a QR-bill with a structured reference, incoming payments should match automatically from the electronic bank statement. If customers pay with the wrong reference, if some invoices were sent without one, or if the matching rules were never finished, payments pile up in a clearing account and someone matches them by hand. I sample those clearing entries and trace each pattern to its cause.

Currencies are the second test. Many Swiss companies hold euro and dollar accounts beside the franc account, and the questions are practical:

• Is revaluation run every period, with the same rate source and the same accounts?
• Are realized and unrealized differences posted where your fiduciary expects them?
• Do foreign currency customer and supplier balances agree with the subledger in both currencies?
• Are intercompany positions with group entities reconciled in the system, or only in a spreadsheet?

None of this requires me to form an accounting opinion. The audit shows whether the system applies the rules your advisors set, consistently, and where it does not. Findings in this area often lead to work on multi-currency setup or a tidy-up of bank reconciliation rules rather than anything dramatic.

VAT codes and the payroll journal, handed to the right advisor

Swiss VAT sits outside the EU system, and many international platforms reach it through a localization package, a partner app or custom setup. Over time, codes get copied, renamed or reused for purposes nobody documented. I list every tax code, how often it is used, which accounts it posts to and how it feeds the VAT report, and I flag patterns that look inconsistent: a code used for both domestic and import cases, manual journals that bypass tax logic, or services bought from abroad booked without a tax code.

Each observation is written as a question, not a verdict. Your fiduciary or tax advisor decides whether the treatment is right and what correction, if any, is needed. My part is to make the questions specific enough to answer quickly and to note where the system would need to change.

Payroll gets the same treatment. Most Swiss companies run it with an external provider or a separate payroll package, so the ERP only receives a journal. I check that the journal lands on the agreed accounts and cost centers, that someone reconciles it each month against the payroll summary, and that salary data is visible only to the people who need it. Social insurance and withholding questions stay with your payroll provider.

Who can change a supplier IBAN and release a payment?

Access rights tend to grow quietly. A finance employee covers for a colleague and keeps the extra rights. The integrator's administrator account stays open after the project. A shared login is created for the warehouse. None of this is unusual, but together it can mean one person can create a supplier, change its bank details, approve an invoice and generate the payment file.

I export the user list and role assignments, then test them against a simple matrix of duties your management agrees should be separated. The usual areas are:

• Supplier master data and bank details versus invoice approval.
• Payment proposal and payment file creation versus release in e-banking.
• Customer credit limits versus sales order approval.
• Journal entry versus period closing and VAT reporting.

I also check dormant accounts, users who left the company, and whether personal data in HR or customer records is limited by role, which matters under Swiss data protection law and, where you serve EU customers, under GDPR. Legal interpretation stays with your advisor. The same review covers licenses: users billed but inactive, modules paid for and never switched on, and named users sharing one seat.

Interfaces, side spreadsheets and the written report

The final strand follows data across system borders. Electronic bank statements, payment files, logistics or forwarding portals, a web shop, a CRM and the feed into group consolidation each need an owner, an error routine and a way to notice when something stopped. I check the logs where they exist and ask the people who fix things by hand what they fix and how often.

Side spreadsheets are evidence, not embarrassment. A margin file maintained outside the ERP tells me which report management does not trust and why. I record each one with its owner and purpose.

The report itself is short and written for decision-makers:

Sessions run remotely during the Swiss morning and early afternoon; a meeting in person is possible by arrangement. If the system turns out to be in worse shape than a tune-up can fix, the Swiss ERP rescue page explains the next step, and fixes that fit the current platform continue as ERP optimization. Everything else I do for Swiss companies is linked from the Switzerland hub, starting with my ERP consultant work in Switzerland.