ERP can validate a required field, route a document, calculate a value and prevent an unauthorised action. It cannot decide why two departments use different definitions of priority, who may approve an exception or whether a step is an inherited habit with no business value. Those decisions must come before automation.
The greatest risk is not that the system will reject a poor process. It is that the system will execute it consistently. Manual work can hide flawed logic because an experienced employee corrects it silently. Once standardised, the same flaw passes through more transactions and becomes part of reporting.
Sales wants to confirm a date quickly, procurement needs availability, production needs capacity, while finance needs credit risk and margin context. If every department checks its part after the customer has already received a promise, ERP merely transfers the conflict faster. The target process first determines which checks come before confirmation, which are informative and which can stop the order.
The system then does not impose administration for its own sake. It assembles the facts required for an accountable decision at the right moment. The standard case moves quickly, while an exception receives a reason, owner and deadline. That is the difference between a digitised form and a genuinely managed process.
Users should demonstrate real work, edge cases and the consequence of an error. The project team must then separate a necessary business requirement from a personal preference. The useful criterion is not whether someone likes the screen, but whether they can fulfil their responsibility without a parallel tool, unnecessary step or loss of traceability.
Do not automate a step until you know which decision it supports, who is accountable and what happens when the standard case does not apply.