Paper Enterprises:
5 risks caught before go-live.
A Bronx distributor of food, janitorial and restaurant disposable products was moving off a legacy AS400 system while relocating its facility. Incipient Corp verified readiness across 11 modules, caught five critical risks before cutover, and order fulfillment kept running through the move.
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A legacy system, a facility move, and no room for error.
Paper Enterprises Inc. distributes food-related, janitorial and restaurant disposable products from the Bronx. Sales, inventory, accounting, warehouse and transportation all ran on a legacy AS400 system, and the company was preparing to convert to a new distribution ERP.
Two things made that risky. Nobody had written down how the business actually operated, so there was no baseline to check a new system against. And the conversion was happening alongside a facility relocation, which meant any ERP-driven problem with orders would land on customers.
"What set Incipient apart was their willingness to get on-site and learn how our business actually operates."Howard Cohen, VP Customer Relations, Paper Enterprises Inc.
- 1No written baselineHow the business actually operated had never been written down, so there was nothing to check a new system against.
- 2Core flows at riskPayment processing, routing and allocation had to be proven against the live AS400 before cutover.
- 3Integration gapsEDI with SPS Commerce and the E-Store were gaps waiting to surface after go-live.
- 4Facility moveThe conversion ran alongside a relocation, so any order problem would land on customers.
- 5Finance unverifiedAR, AP, GL, ACH, Positive Pay and multi-state tax had to be validated against the AS400 baseline.
Verify everything before anyone flips the switch.
The engagement ran in two phases: document how the business really works, then check the new system against it, module by module, with the people who run each department. Incipient acted as project manager for the conversion and stayed on it through the go/no-go decision.
- Phase 1: a 21-page, version-controlled gap analysis of the AS400 against PBS across Sales, Inventory and Accounting
- Built a dependency matrix, a pain-points matrix, a RACI and a scope register of 60+ line items
- Phase 2: a 142-item verification of the AS400 against the new ERP across 11 modules
- Ran 11 on-site sessions with department heads, each ending in a written record of what was verified, pending or at risk
- Validated financial processes (AR, AP, GL, ACH, Positive Pay and multi-state tax) against the live AS400 baseline
- Tracked and categorized 136 open configuration items
The result was an evidence-based picture of readiness, not a feature checklist. That is what the go/no-go call was made on.
A go-live decision backed by evidence.
A premature go-live was prevented. Five critical risk categories were caught before cutover: payment processing, routing, allocation override, EDI with SPS Commerce, and the E-Store. There was no ERP-driven disruption to order fulfillment through the facility relocation.
The readiness work also gave Paper Enterprises the most complete picture of its requirements it had ever documented. It supported a phased Odoo 19 plan, with multi-entity expansion, at about 34% lower five-year TCO than continuing on PBS. That Odoo work is now in flight.