The 3 Most Common ERP Performance Failures (And How to Fix Them)

ERP problems don’t always scream. Sometimes… they whisper

ERP issues don’t usually show up with alarms or flashing alerts. Instead, they slip in quietly. Maybe a report is late, a team slows down, or someone creates a spreadsheet workaround that eventually becomes the norm. It seems minor at first, but it can turn into a big problem.

Over time, these small inefficiencies add up. You lose time, waste money, and execution slows down. For companies with $10M to $100M in revenue, facing these ERP problems is almost expected.

The good news is that most ERP breakdowns fit into just a few categories. Once you identify them, you can fix them, and the return on investment can be significant.

Let’s look at what usually goes wrong, what it costs, and how you can fix it for good.

1. The integration headaches that drain revenue

High-growth brands usually rely on a network of systems. Shopify or Amazon drives demand. NetSuite handles accounting and inventory. A 3PL ships the product. And a tool like Celigo ties it all together.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

When one of those connections breaks, chaos follows. Orders get stuck. Inventory data becomes unreliable. Your team shifts from scaling to firefighting. And while the stress is visible, the real cost often isn’t.

Take one retailer we worked with. They were losing 2% of annual revenue—$400,000 on a $20M business—because Amazon and Shopify orders weren’t syncing with NetSuite. Their team just called it “system issues,” but it was really a revenue leak.

Contrast that with Softies, a DTC brand that cleaned up its order flows. By stabilizing their integrations and cutting 10 manual order-entry roles, they unlocked $2.3M in new revenue and saved over $500K annually.

When integrations break, the ripple effects hit every team:

• Finance gets unreliable numbers

• Ops loses trust in inventory data

• Customer support gets buried in tickets

• Leadership starts making decisions in the dark

Fixing this starts with visibility. You need to run a real diagnostic: map out your data flows, find where things are breaking, and link those issues to business outcomes. Then, rebuild your system based on how your business actually works today, not how it was first set up. 

With a scalable integration strategy, you can protect revenue, save time, and grow without adding more staff.

2. Reporting that’s slow, outdated, or flat-out wrong

Let’s be honest: reporting problems aren’t just a finance issue. They affect every team and every major business decision. When ERP reports are late, messy, or inconsistent, the whole company feels the impact.

We’ve worked with businesses where the month-end close took more than 10 days. That kind of delay isn’t just frustrating. It’s expensive. In one case, we helped a client reduce it to 4 days, saving more than $57,000 in annual productivity costs.

Why does this happen so often? Usually, the root causes are pretty clear:

• Messy or inconsistent data coming from upstream systems

• NetSuite modules that aren’t configured correctly

• Bloated transaction volumes that overwhelm the system

When leaders stop trusting the data, they start to hesitate. Inventory purchases get delayed, forecasts become less accurate, and strategic plans turn reactive. In short, everything slows down.

The solution isn’t to work harder; it’s to clean up your data environment. This means tightening data flows, reviewing accounting structures, and automating routine tasks such as reconciliations and report preparation.

SMYTHE is a great example. They were spending hours manually reconciling Shopify data. We automated that flow and saved them more than $10,000 annually. But more importantly, their team started trusting their data again… and that trust translated into better, faster decisions.

3. Manual workarounds are costing you more than you think

When ERP systems can’t keep up, people fill in the gaps. Someone builds a spreadsheet, another person manually fixes a field, and everyone insists it’s just temporary.

But six months later, it’s the new normal.

Manual workarounds kill profitability quietly. Here’s how:

• Time gets wasted on tasks that should be automated

• Orders move more slowly, delaying revenue and cash collection

• Labor costs rise for low-value work

• Human error increases and impacts customers and partners

In many product companies, up to 15% of orders need human intervention. If you process 20,000 orders a year, that’s more than $62,000 wasted on time alone.

It gets worse when teams start to see the system as fragile. They stop trying to improve it, and minor optimizations feel risky, so manual work continues.

That’s why automation needs to be intentional. Begin by mapping your end-to-end processes. Find the repeated manual steps that take a lot of time and don’t add strategic value. Once done, rebuild those flows in NetSuite and your integration tools so they run automatically.

Don’t just assume things are better. Instead, track the impact with real numbers… error rates, time saved, and revenue gained. Automation builds efficiency and confidence at the same time.

Why these ERP problems keep happening

If it feels like you’re constantly battling the same ERP headaches, you’re not alone. These issues aren’t unique to your company. We’ve seen them across dozens of industries… from eCommerce and retail to wholesale and manufacturing.

Most ERP challenges come down to the same root causes:

• The system was built for where your business was, not where it is now

• Your internal ERP owner left or is stretched too thin

• Integrations were duct-taped instead of being properly designed

• Reporting was built around short-term needs, not long-term architecture

• Your vendors focused on tasks instead of business outcomes

The result is a system that works most of the time, until it suddenly doesn’t.

That’s why we believe in a structured, repeatable approach. We've seen it work with all of our clients, and it leads to faster results, fewer surprises, and clearer ROI.

How to fix your ERP without blowing it up

The best part? You don’t need to rebuild everything from scratch. In most cases, the foundation is solid so you just need to realign it to today’s business.

Here’s the four-step approach we use with nearly every client:

1. Run a quantified diagnostic

Start with the facts. Our clients on AlturaCare start with a comprehensive system HealthCheck that shows where things are failing, how much it's costing, and where the biggest returns are. It also helps get leadership aligned around fixing it.

2. Align systems with how you operate today

Your ERP should match how your business actually runs today, not how it was first set up. That means aligning it with your current financial setup, inventory flow, sales channels, and how your teams really work.

3. Rebuild automation around scale

Eliminate as much busywork as you can. Focus on automating tasks… like forecasting, reconciliation, and order fulfillment. The goal is to keep operations running smoothly even as your business scales—preferably without adding more people.

4. Build in continuous improvement

Your ERP isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it system. The best-run companies treat it like a living asset that evolves with the business. That’s why they rely on embedded partners rather than one-and-done consultants.

What happens when you get ERP right

When your ERP starts supporting the way your team actually works, everything gets easier. Month-end gets wrapped up faster. Orders move with fewer errors. Revenue climbs without hiring more people. Costs drop. Teams spend less time putting out fires and more time moving the business forward. And leadership gets the visibility they need to make smart decisions.

That’s when your ERP stops holding you back… and starts helping you grow.

What could that look like for your business? Take a look at our NetSuite Optimization Services. And if you need data to help make the case internally, Gartner’s ERP benchmarks are a great place to start.

Growth shouldn't come with operational chaos. Let’s fix what’s slowing you down so you can scale faster, smarter, and with more confidence.

See what your ERP can really do. Book a call with us today and start uncovering the ROI you have been missing. Ready to run faster and scale smarter? Talk with our team about AlturaCare and get a plan built around your business.

Beyond Go-Live: The New Mandate for ERP Ownership

When you own your ERP, you own your future

For many businesses, “go-live” marks the finish line. The system’s up, data’s flowing, and operations are technically functional. But as any seasoned operator knows, functional isn’t the same as optimized.

What happens in the months and years after launch is when ERP ownership really counts. Companies that excel treat their ERP as a living system, not just a one-time project.

And that shift in mindset is becoming a strategic necessity.

The post–go-live reality

After implementation, most teams face a familiar pattern: workarounds multiply, reports drift out of sync, and internal admins become firefighters instead of strategists. Sound familiar?

These are signs of underdeveloped ERP ownership. The system runs, but the business isn’t running on it. According to NetSuite, less than half of organizations actively review or optimize configurations post–go-live. That’s a missed opportunity with real financial consequences: longer month-end closes, recurring data issues, and delayed decision-making.

ERP ownership means taking control of that post-launch lifecycle. It’s how you move from “just keeping up” to “scaling up.”

From maintenance to maturity

Owning your ERP means evolving from maintenance to maturity. That requires three key shifts:

1. From project to program. Stop treating ERP as something that’s “done.” Make it a continuous improvement program with defined owners and measurable outcomes.

2. From firefighting to forecasting. Shift the focus from reacting to issues toward anticipating them. Mature ERP owners use data trends to prevent problems before they hit operations.

3. From system stability to business agility. When processes are stable and documented, you can adapt faster—whether it’s integrating a new sales channel or rolling out automation to reduce overhead.

That’s the difference between surviving growth and mastering it.

Why digital operations are the new competitive edge

In today’s mid-market, speed and accuracy win deals. Your ability to quote, ship, and close fast depends entirely on how well your ERP and connected systems perform. Every delay compounds. Every manual process eats into margin.

That’s why forward-thinking CFOs and COOs are reframing ERP ownership as digital operations management. It’s not about IT uptime—it’s about business performance.

At Altura, we see this across industries. In retail, automation cut order entry times by 80%. In distribution, better visibility eliminated hours of manual reconciliation per day. And in manufacturing, proactive system audits prevented costly production delays before they started.

ERP maturity isn’t optional anymore—it’s a growth lever.

The lifecycle management model

Owning your ERP means treating it as a product with a lifecycle:

• Plan: Define KPIs that tie system health to business outcomes.

• Operate: Monitor processes, document exceptions, and track trends.

• Optimize: Prioritize enhancements that move the financial needle.

• Evolve: Revisit architecture quarterly to support new goals.

That’s the framework behind AlturaCare—a managed service that embeds ERP ownership into the organization. It’s not about keeping the lights on. It’s about driving measurable improvement every month.

Because the companies that win don’t just maintain their ERP systems, they make them better.

Avoiding the post–go-live plateau

Even well-run teams fall into the “we’ll fix it later” trap. But delayed optimization always costs more. Processes calcify, data debt grows, and staff learn bad habits that are hard to undo.

We’ve seen what happens when companies stay in that mode. In one case, a finance team took 10 days to close each month. With structured lifecycle management, that dropped to four days—freeing up a week of productivity every month. The difference wasn’t new software. It was ownership.

To help identify early warning signs, check out our guide on 6 Early Warning Signs Your NetSuite Implementation Needs Help.

From ownership to transformation

True ERP ownership turns technology into leverage. It creates the conditions where finance, operations, and leadership can work from the same version of the truth—and move faster because of it.

That’s where digital operations maturity becomes a differentiator. Mature ERP owners don’t just react to change… they anticipate it. They run faster, scale smarter, and spend less doing it.

The takeaway

ERP ownership isn’t just an IT responsibility. It’s a leadership mandate. Go-live isn’t the end—it’s the beginning of continuous improvement, measurable ROI, and operational confidence.

If your team is still in firefighting mode, it’s time to step into ownership. Because in today’s market, how well you manage your ERP defines how far you can grow.

See what mature ERP ownership looks like.

Explore AlturaCare or browse our Optimization insights to learn how proactive lifecycle management can transform your NetSuite environment—and your business.

The Real ROI of NetSuite Managed Services

How managed services turn NetSuite from a cost center into a growth engine

For most mid-market companies, NetSuite is both indispensable and underperforming. It’s the system that runs your finances, inventory, and reporting, yet it's too often a bottleneck rather than a growth enabler.

Many leadership teams accept inefficiency as the cost of doing business. But when your ERP is delivering incomplete data, manual rework, and daily exceptions, the real cost isn’t the software. It’s the missed opportunity.

That’s where managed NetSuite services change the game. By shifting from reactive fixes to proactive optimization, managed services transform NetSuite into a measurable driver of ROI. With AlturaCare, the focus isn’t just on keeping your system running… we make sure it’s driving performance, efficiency, and profitability across your organization.

The hidden cost of “good enough”

Most internal teams do their best to keep NetSuite stable. The problem is that "stable" doesn't equal "optimized." When your ERP is just functioning rather than performing, hidden costs can erode as much as 5% of your margins over the course of a year. These stealth costs compound quietly, often going unnoticed until they significantly impact the bottom line.

A single full-time NetSuite administrator can cost more than $120,000 per year including benefits. If that person leaves or splits time across multiple systems, expertise gaps emerge that slow everything from reconciliations to reporting. Meanwhile, teams fill the gaps with spreadsheets and manual workarounds. In fact, research shows major ERP-ROI erosion occurs in process inefficiencies rather than licensing alone.

Consider a typical scenario for a $50M retail or wholesale company:

• Month-end close: Currently 10 days instead of 4, costing roughly $57,000 per year in lost productivity.

• Manual order handling: 15% of orders require human intervention, wasting $62,500 annually in labor.

• Integration issues: Routine integration failures causing a 2% revenue loss on $20M in annual sales—$400,000 in missed revenue.

These are not theoretical numbers. They’re pulled from real mid-market companies using NetSuite every day. Once you add turnover, inconsistent data, and rework costs, “good enough” quickly turns into a six-figure drain.

What managed services really mean

Managed services are often misunderstood as glorified support contracts. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Traditional support is reactive—it fixes what breaks. Managed services, especially through AlturaCare, are proactive. They continuously analyze performance, implement automation, streamline integrations, and identify strategic improvements that pay measurable dividends.

Think of it like this:

• Support fixes errors.

• AlturaCare prevents them… and builds efficiency while doing it.

This model aligns directly with business performance, not just system uptime. Every hour saved in finance, every workflow automated, and every integration stabilized is tracked, measured, and converted into ROI you can show to your board.

Explore AlturaCare

The measurable impact of optimization

It’s one thing to claim efficiency. It’s another to quantify it.

Softies, a fast-growing eCommerce apparel brand, partnered with Altura to overhaul its NetSuite environment. Within months, automated workflows replaced manual order entry, unlocking millions in new annual revenue and eliminating labor costs in the mid-six figures.

Smythe, a wholesale distributor, reduced Celigo errors by 50% and automated their available-to-ship reporting. The result? A faster sales cycle, fewer customer delays, and hundreds of hours recaptured for their team every quarter.

These results are consistent across industries because AlturaCare uses proven playbooks, refined through years of solving the same operational challenges for similar-sized companies. Whether your business sells apparel, manages multiple warehouses, or assembles custom products, the outcome is the same: stronger visibility, faster processes, and better margins.

Turning data accuracy into profit

For CFOs, ROI isn’t about soft metrics—it’s about the P&L. Every data error or manual process has a quantifiable cost.

When NetSuite data isn’t synchronized with your eCommerce or 3PL systems, you lose more than time. You lose customer trust, revenue accuracy, and decision-making agility.

A finance team spending an extra two days reconciling orders because of data mismatches isn’t just wasting labor hours. It’s delaying insight that could drive pricing strategy, purchasing decisions, or cash flow management.

AlturaCare focuses on eliminating those delays because companies that base decisions on real-time data outperform peers in profitability and productivity. Automated reconciliation, real-time integration health checks, and custom dashboards ensure that every stakeholder—from accounting to operations—has reliable, up-to-date data.

That data integrity directly drives ROI because it allows leadership to act faster, with confidence.

Why in-house teams can’t match managed ROI

Even with a skilled NetSuite admin or a small internal team, it’s nearly impossible to replicate the breadth of expertise managed services bring.

AlturaCare clients benefit from:

• Access to specialized NetSuite, Celigo, and reporting experts across accounting, operations, and integration domains

• Established best practices proven to reduce manual work and error rates

• Ongoing system health checks and KPI reporting

• Continuous improvement initiatives designed to scale with growth

For most companies, hiring even half that level of expertise internally would require multiple full-time salaries, not to mention the ongoing costs of training and retention. Managed services deliver that same (or greater) impact at a fraction of the total cost.

And this isn’t just a niche trend. The global managed services market is projected to more than double by 2030. That surge reflects how companies across industries are increasingly relying on managed partners to close capability gaps, streamline operations, and drive measurable ROI.

Calculating your own NetSuite ROI

Here’s a simple way to quantify the impact of inefficiency. Multiply the hours spent on manual, error-prone work by your team’s average hourly rate.

Operational Issue			Estimated Annual Cost
Manual order entry (5 min × 20k orders × $25/hr)			$62,500
Integration errors (2% revenue loss on $20M)			$400,000
Extended close time (4 days × 3 staff × $50/hr × 8 hrs)			$57,600
Data corrections and rework			$45,000
Total Annual Impact:			$565,100

If your company faces even half of those issues, your NetSuite ROI is being cut in half. AlturaCare helps reverse that loss by eliminating redundancy, tightening integration performance, and keeping your system optimized year-round.

You don’t need another consultant. You need results you can measure.

Managed services and scalability

ROI doesn’t stop at efficiency. Managed services enable scalability without proportional cost increases.

When your systems are stable, automated, and working together, growth doesn’t put pressure on your operations. Adding sales channels, product lines, or new warehouses becomes a strategic choice rather than a risk.

One AlturaCare client expanded into two new retail channels without hiring a single additional NetSuite admin. Their existing workflows simply scaled because automation was built to handle it.

That’s what a scalable ERP investment gives you: confidence in your operations that supports growth instead of holding it back.

Partnership over project work

Another key ROI driver is partnership continuity.

AlturaCare isn’t project based or a bucket of hours. It makes us an extension of your team. That means your business goals, seasonal demands, and integration priorities are included in our plans. The result is fewer surprises, faster decision-making, and a consistent push toward measurable performance.

Clients often say, “We wish we’d chosen Altura from the start.” The reason is simple: the right partner delivers results that keep adding up over time, not just completed projects.

Read next: 5 reasons mid-market companies outsource NetSuite management

The bottom line

When you view NetSuite ROI solely as a cost question, you miss the full picture. Managed services like AlturaCare turn your ERP into a profit driver by bringing together technical expertise, operational insight, and measurable business outcomes.

ROI isn’t just about doing the same work for less money. It’s about cutting out wasted effort, using smart automation, and growing faster than your competitors.

Your NetSuite investment can already deliver this level of performance. It just needs a partner who knows how to make it happen.

Talk to us about your NetSuite ROI.

Want to see where your ROI is hiding? Try our quick NetSuite Optimization Self-Audit to identify performance gaps in 30 minutes or less.

NetSuite Optimization Self-Audit: Identify performance gaps in 30 minutes

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If your NetSuite feels slower, clunkier, or more manual than it should, you’re not alone. Many growing companies hit a wall after their initial NetSuite implementation. Processes that once worked fine start dragging. Reports take longer to run. Teams rely on workarounds, and leadership loses visibility into what’s really happening across the business.

The good news? Most of these problems can be spotted quickly with the right framework. This 30-minute self-audit will help you identify where performance gaps are costing you time, money, and momentum.

Step 1: Evaluate your financial close process

If your month-end close is taking longer than five days, it’s a red flag. Review your journal entries, reconciliations, and approval chains. Ask: which parts could be automated or simplified? Many clients have reduced their close from ten days to four just by optimizing NetSuite workflows and approvals.

Step 2: Review automation and workflow uptime

Automation is only powerful when it’s reliable. Check for failed workflows, scripts, or integrations. If your automation uptime isn’t near 99%, you’re spending too much time firefighting instead of forecasting.

Step 3: Assess integration stability

Shopify, Amazon, 3PL, EDI—if any of these connections break, your business slows down. Audit your integration logs for recurring Celigo or API errors. Even a 2% failure rate can mean hundreds of delayed or lost orders a month.

Step 4: Measure reporting and visibility

How quickly can finance and operations leaders get answers to basic questions? If dashboards lag or data requires multiple exports, it’s time to tighten your data pipelines. A well-optimized NetSuite delivers real-time visibility across your entire business.

Step 5: Examine user experience and training

A powerful system is only as effective as its users. If your team relies on manual steps or can’t find what they need, productivity stalls. Review permissions, saved searches, and training resources to make everyday tasks easier.

When a self-audit isn’t enough

Sometimes, the gaps you uncover go deeper than expected. That’s where AlturaCare comes in. Every new AlturaCare engagement begins with a comprehensive HealthCheck, a deep, data-driven analysis that pinpoints exactly where inefficiencies are hiding and builds the roadmap to fix them. From there, our team stays hands-on to keep your NetSuite performing at its best, month after month.

Take the next step

Don’t wait for inefficiencies to become bottlenecks. Download the 30-Minute Optimization Checklist to pinpoint your biggest opportunities and see what’s possible when your systems are seamless.

Download your 30-Minute Optimization Checklist and uncover what’s slowing you down.

5 reasons mid-market companies outsource NetSuite management… and why it’s smarter than hiring in-house

What to do when NetSuite starts running the show instead of supporting your growth

You brought in NetSuite to bring order to your business. But now? The system’s chewing up more time than it’s saving.

Tickets backlog. Integrations get glitchy. Month-end close drags into week two. And your team — bright, capable, already stretched — is stuck in reactive mode.

If that’s where you are, you’re not alone. We see this all the time at Altura Innovation, especially with companies scaling fast across platforms like Shopify, Amazon, Celigo, 3PLs, and more. At a certain point, NetSuite becomes the bottleneck, not the boost.

That’s usually when companies start asking a smart question:

“Do we keep trying to manage this in-house… or is it time to bring in help?”

Here’s why more mid-market companies are turning to AlturaCare — our managed services program designed specifically for scaling product-based businesses — and why it’s often the smarter, better move than hiring in-house.

1. In-house hiring is expensive… and still leaves gaps

Let’s say you hire a NetSuite Admin. Great start. But as your operations grow more complex, one admin won’t cut it. You’ll need developers, integration specialists, finance-savvy pros, and someone who can manage projects across the stack.

That’s 4–5 headcount. $90K–$180K each. Plus benefits. Plus onboarding. And even then, your in-house team probably won’t cover every specialty.

With AlturaCare, you get fractional access to that entire cross-functional team without the full-time payroll. We scale with you, plug into your systems fast, and give you deep expertise from day one.

2. You get real depth, not just ticket-takers

NetSuite doesn’t exist in a silo. Neither should your support.

AlturaCare teams span developers, finance experts, integration pros, and solution architects. So when something breaks — say, a Celigo flow throws errors — we don’t just fix it. We look at how it impacts financials, inventory, order ops, and reporting. Then we fix it for good.

You don’t have to explain your stack over and over. We stay integrated, retain context, and work like an extension of your internal team.

3. You get proactive monitoring — not just firefighting

Most internal NetSuite teams operate reactively—fixing issues as they appear. AlturaCare takes a proactive approach, continuously monitoring your system health, catching errors early, and ensuring smooth system updates.

This lets you stay ahead of problems instead of chasing them.

This approach prevents issues before they cascade into outages or lost sales. In other words: less downtime, more uptime, and more confidence that your ERP can handle tomorrow’s volume.

4. Your internal team finally gets breathing room

IT leaders, finance directors, and ops managers tell us the same thing: they’re buried.

They want to focus on strategy — like automation, analytics, new sales channels — but they’re stuck clearing tickets and fixing broken flows.

With AlturaCare, your team gets space to think bigger. We handle the grunt work: error resolution, integration management, config changes, compliance checks. You focus on growth.

For many of our clients, this shift creates immediate ROI: faster decision-making, better data, and way less burnout.

5. You get consistency, not chaos

Maybe you’ve tried freelancers. Or a friend-of-a-friend NetSuite dev. Or a block-of-hours shop.

Those might work short-term. But when projects stall, documentation disappears, or someone ghosts mid-fix — you’re back to square one.

AlturaCare gives you a dedicated partner team. We learn your business, stay consistent, and build a roadmap that evolves with your systems. You’ll be ready when the next integration, acquisition, or BFCM wave hits.

Outsourcing NetSuite management isn’t giving up control — it’s how you take it back

Altura Innovation’s AlturaCare is a built-in partner for fast-growing companies feeling stuck. It’s not ad hoc support. It’s not a discount developer pool. It’s a smarter way to run your systems… without burning out your team or blowing up your budget.

Ready to regain control of your NetSuite?

If your NetSuite feels stuck in reactive mode, it’s time to move to a proactive model. AlturaCare helps mid-market companies stabilize, optimize, and scale their NetSuite environments — with engaged expertise, predictable billing, and measurable ROI.

Let’s talk about how AlturaCare can help your systems run as fast as your business.

Need more information? Visit our AlturaCare page or read our AlturaCare FAQ.