ERP Pricing, Comparisons and 2026 Rules
ERP implementation, data migration and training costs: what partners charge for
What goes into an ERP implementation quote in Australia, how partner day rates, fixed-price scopes, migration and training are costed, and how to spot gaps.
ERP implementation is the work of turning a generic product into your business's system: designing processes, configuring the software, migrating data, building integrations, testing and training. In Australia it is usually done by a vendor-certified implementation partner, charged either by time (day or hourly rates) or as a fixed-price statement of work with stated assumptions. For small and mid-sized businesses the one-off implementation bill is frequently between one and three years of subscription fees, and sometimes more. This guide explains each component, how it is priced and where quotes leave gaps.
This guide is part of the ERP software pricing comparison overview. All rates and figures are illustrative.
The phases you are paying for
| Phase | What happens | What drives the effort |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery and design | Workshops to document current and future processes, decide chart of accounts, approvals, reports | Number of departments, entities and unusual processes |
| Configuration | Setting up the system: entities, tax codes, item master, pricing rules, workflows | Edition complexity, number of modules |
| Customisation and development | Custom fields, scripts, reports, forms beyond standard configuration | Requirements the standard product does not meet |
| Integrations | Connecting e-commerce, payroll, banking, freight, warehouse scanners, CRM | Number of systems, whether ready-made connectors exist |
| Data migration | Extracting, cleansing, mapping and loading data | Years of history, data quality, number of trial loads |
| Testing | System testing and user acceptance testing | How many scenarios you script |
| Training | Key users and end users | Number of staff, locations, roles |
| Go-live and hypercare | Cutover weekend, first month-end support | Complexity of opening balances, parallel running |
Time-and-materials vs fixed price
Time and materials bills hours or days actually worked at agreed rates. You carry the risk of overruns but only pay for what is done. Ask for an estimate by phase and a weekly burn report.
Fixed price sets a total for a defined scope. The partner carries the risk inside the scope, but everything outside it becomes a change request at day rates. A fixed price is only as good as its assumptions list.
Illustrative example: a partner quotes 60 days at $1,600 a day for a time-and-materials project: 60 × $1,600 = $96,000. Another quotes a fixed $85,000 but assumes one data migration load, two training sessions, no more than 10 custom reports and only standard connectors. If you need three migration loads (two extra at 3 days each), 15 reports (five extra at 1 day each) and a custom freight integration (8 days), the change requests at $1,600 a day add (6 + 5 + 8) × $1,600 = $30,400, for a total of $115,400. The "cheaper" fixed quote is now dearer.
Data migration in detail
Data migration is the phase most often underestimated. Decide early:
- What to migrate: typically open transactions (unpaid invoices and bills, open orders), master data (customers, suppliers, items, price lists), opening balances, and a limited period of history.
- How much history: migrating every transaction for many years is expensive. Many businesses bring in summary balances by month for prior years and keep the old system read-only for detailed lookups. Remember that Australian businesses generally need to keep tax records for five years, so the old data must remain accessible in some form.
- Who cleanses the data: partners usually load data; your staff usually have to clean it (duplicate customers, obsolete items, wrong GST codes).
- How many trial loads: each trial load and reconciliation takes days. Two or three are common for a clean go-live.
Illustrative example: 8,000 item records, 1,500 customers and 600 suppliers with many duplicates. If your staff spend 15 days cleansing at an internal cost of $450 a day, that is $6,750 of internal time on top of the partner's migration fee.
Training and change management
- Train-the-trainer: the partner trains key users who then train staff. Cheaper, but takes key users away from their work.
- Role-based end-user training: sessions for accounts payable, warehouse, sales and managers.
- Documentation: process guides in your own terms.
- Refreshers: budget for new starters and for changes at each software release.
Training is a common budget cut. Under-trained staff create workarounds, spreadsheets and bad data, which wipes out the efficiency savings modelled in the payback example.
Internal costs nobody quotes
Your own people will spend time on workshops, decisions, testing and data. A practical estimate:
| Role | Illustrative time over the project |
|---|---|
| Project owner (often the financial controller or operations manager) | 30–50% of their time |
| Key users in each department | 10–25% of their time during design and testing |
| Executive sponsor | Weekly steering meetings |
If you hire a temporary accountant at $900 a day for 40 days to backfill the financial controller, that is $36,000. It belongs in the budget and in the TCO estimator as a one-off cost.
Reading an implementation quote
Check for:
- Named consultants and their roles, and whether they are local or offshore.
- Day rates for change requests and travel policy.
- Assumptions: number of entities, reports, integrations, migration loads, training sessions, test cycles.
- Exclusions: data cleansing, third-party apps, hardware, payroll set-up, award interpretation.
- Payment milestones tied to deliverables, not dates.
- Warranty period after go-live for defects in configuration.
Then compare proposals using the quote comparison guide and test the schedule against the timeline guide. If the project still looks thin, read about budget overruns.
Frequently asked questions
Do implementation partners charge GST?
Australian partners registered for GST charge 10% GST on their services. A GST-registered business can generally claim the GST back as an input tax credit on its BAS.
Can we implement an ERP ourselves?
Smaller cloud products can be self-implemented with vendor onboarding packages. For mid-market ERPs, partner involvement is usual. Self-implementation saves fees but shifts the effort and risk to your staff.
Is offshore delivery cheaper?
Some partners use offshore teams at lower rates for configuration and development. Check time zones, communication and who is accountable for quality.
How much contingency should we hold?
There is no reliable universal figure. Many buyers plan for 15–25% of one-off costs as an illustrative planning range, held in their own budget rather than given to the partner.
Sources
- Australian Taxation Office — record keeping periods for businesses and GST on services
- business.gov.au — managing suppliers and contracts
- ACCC — consumer guarantees for services bought by businesses
