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Most mornings, someone in your business opens the same screen, sets the same filter and clicks the same button. Tomorrow they'll do it again. Acumatica will do all of it for you — on a timer, in the background, with no code, no integration and no consultant. It's called an automation schedule, it's already baked into the system you pay for, and it's one of the most underused features in it.

This week Pete and Nirav get hands-on. Nirav shares his screen and builds an automation schedule live from scratch — auto-invoicing confirmed shipments — while Pete brings the view from inside a business that went live on Acumatica almost a year ago and has only recently started switching automations on. (Emily's off this week, so it's two seats today: the partner and the data side.)

What you'll take away:

• Why automating a process in Acumatica is now configuration, not customisation — and why that changes who's allowed to do it
• Automation schedules vs business events: proactive on a timer, versus reactive on a trigger
• The "learn to fly the plane first" rule — why Pete's team ran everything manually for six months before automating a single thing
• Which processes to automate on day one, and which to leave alone until the business has found its rhythm
• How to build a schedule live from any process screen, plus the green-button rule for spotting candidates in seconds
• The one checkbox — use shipment date for invoice date — that can quietly knock two weeks off your customers' payment terms
• Why automation schedules fail silently, the sequential-stop trap, and the governance habit that keeps them honest

Whether you've just gone live or you've been on Acumatica for years and never noticed the little clock icon, this one pays for itself in time saved.

Key moments

• (01:51) The feature nobody talks about
• (03:56) Build it in a sandbox first
• (06:20) Customisation vs configuration
• (10:04) Learn to fly the plane first
• (19:52) Demo: where the schedules live
• (30:00) Building one live: auto-invoicing shipments
• (36:45) The green-button rule
• (41:28) The checkbox that steals payment terms
• (43:58) Silent failures and who owns the schedules
• (47:19) Where the ROI hides

Resources & links

• 🎥 Watch the live demo on YouTube — this was a screen-share episode, so you can see the schedule being built.
• Nirav Shah and the team set these up for a living — AdCirrus ERP · nirav.shah@adcirruserp.com
• Pete writes about ERP, data and governance at petenicholson.co.uk · info@petenicholson.co.uk
• Free Acumatica training on this topic lives in Acumatica Open University.

Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube, and leave a review if it was useful — it genuinely helps. No ads, no sponsorship, just two people who like ERP a bit more than is strictly healthy.

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A small business owner posted on r/ERP that they'd outgrown their patchwork of spreadsheets and SaaS apps — and had heard they'd need an ERP "once they hit a certain size." They just couldn't work out where that line was. The post sat unanswered. So Pete, Nirav and Emily took the question on.

No top fives, no checklists this week — just a straight conversation about what actually pushes a growing business onto an ERP, what holds it back, and whether the leap is as scary as it sounds.

In this episode:

• Why the first real signal is frustration, not revenue — and how owner burnout quietly turns into business risk
• Why hiring another body rarely fixes a broken process (it just moves the burnout around)
• The silo trap: how sensible point-solution decisions — Shopify, ShipStation, QuickBooks, Fishbowl, a bit of Google Docs — stop adding up
• Putting a number on the pain: the value-justification time study and cost per transaction
• Treating a modern ERP like a 24/7 worker with its own hourly rate
• When you're not ready for an ERP — and the one question to ask any VAR before you sign
• Why 80% of spreadsheets carry errors, and what that does to your weekly numbers

The line that summed it all up: you don't grow into an ERP, you stop growing without one.

Related episodes:

• S04E13 — How to Choose an ERP: Where Do You Even Start?
• S2E04 — When Do You Need an ERP System? 5 Signs You've Outgrown Spreadsheets
• S3E06 — How to Build the Perfect ERP Implementation Team

The ABCs of ERP & Beyond is hosted by Peter Nicholson, Nirav Shah, and Emily Browning. New episodes every two weeks on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and everywhere else you catch your podcasts.

Got a question like the one that sparked this episode? Drop us a comment or message — we read them, and they make for good episodes.

Support the show

👋 JOIN THE CONVERSATION:
Have you experienced an ERP data migration, or are you planning one? Share your thoughts, experiences, or ask questions in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!

🔔 STAY IN THE KNOW:
Enjoyed the content? Subscribe to our channel and hit the bell icon to stay updated on the latest episodes. We bring you expert insights, valuable tips, and real-world case studies from the ERP realm and beyond!
#ERPTips #BusinessProcesses

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Choosing the wrong ERP is one of the most expensive mistakes a business can make — and it rarely happens because the software was bad. It happens because the company never worked out what it actually needed before it fell for a slick demo. The tech demo always works. That's the entire point of the tech demo.

In this episode Pete, Emily, and Nirav walk through how to choose an ERP properly, from both sides: the inward look at your own business, and the outward look at the market. It's the first time the show has tackled the selection question head-on — and the short version is that almost all the work happens before you ever email a vendor.

What we cover:

• Why "it's old" and "it's expensive" are symptoms, not reasons — and the real question to ask: what can't you do today that's costing you money?
• Why fit beats age every time (a 15-year-old system that still fits the business is not a problem)
• The "do nothing" option — and why a lot of what you want from a new ERP, you can do without one
• Know who you are: revenue, users, sites, countries, industry, compliance — the facts that quietly shrink your shortlist
• Why you choose on fit first and cost second (ROI shows up in years three to six, not year one)
• Why "know your processes" is the most important step — and the test that proves whether you actually do
• Ask why you do something, not what you do — and let your project manager be the internal consultant
• Non-negotiables vs preferences in disguise — and the one-line test that separates them
• Where to start the market research: G2, Compare Software, Info-Tech, industry associations, Reddit, and yes, AI
• How to handle demos: every demo works, so your job is to break it — on your data, with your hardest questions
• Why the implementation partner matters as much as the ERP, and the red flags that should make you walk

If you're about to be handed the "which ERP should we get?" question — or you're the one handing it over — start here. Done properly, choosing an ERP takes four to eight months. This episode is how you spend that time well.

Support the show

👋 JOIN THE CONVERSATION:
Have you experienced an ERP data migration, or are you planning one? Share your thoughts, experiences, or ask questions in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!

🔔 STAY IN THE KNOW:
Enjoyed the content? Subscribe to our channel and hit the bell icon to stay updated on the latest episodes. We bring you expert insights, valuable tips, and real-world case studies from the ERP realm and beyond!
#ERPTips #BusinessProcesses