Why employees hate their ERP — and how UX design fixes it
Walk past any finance team during month-end and you will see the same thing: an ERP open on one screen and a spreadsheet on the other. The spreadsheet is not a failure of discipline. It is a sign the ERP was designed around how data is stored, not around how people work.
The three most common ERP UX problems
Screens mirror tables. A purchase order screen shows every column in the database, so the three fields an approver needs are buried among forty.
Status lives in people's heads. The system knows an invoice is overdue, but nobody sees it until a customer calls.
Every task needs three modules. Finding a stock shortage in inventory and raising a purchase order in procurement means two logins, two searches and a copy-paste.
How a task-first redesign changes the day
We start by shadowing the people who use the ERP and listing the decisions they make. A controller needs four numbers to report upward and a list of receivables to chase. An inventory planner needs days of stock cover, not units. A shift manager needs to know whether approving leave leaves the floor short. Each screen is then designed around that decision — with the action available in the same place the problem appears.
You can see this approach on our ERP page: a finance command centre, inventory with reorder-in-the-row, leave approvals with coverage warnings and procurement approvals with budget impact.
Redesign without disruption
- Work module by module, starting where the spreadsheets are thickest.
- Keep familiar terms and data, change the structure.
- Test with real users before rollout.
- Design permissions, approvals and audit trails from the start.
An ERP people actually use pays back in fewer errors, faster closes and less training — and it is one of the highest-return design projects a growing company can run.