In Middlesbrough, your ERP treats a COMAH chemical batch and a wind-farm install as the same job. They aren't.
For a Middlesbrough process or engineering firm running both regulated batch production and project-based EPC work, a custom or heavily-extended ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) typically costs £90k to £260k and lands in 5 to 9 months. Off-the-shelf NetSuite, SAP Business One or Odoo handle the finance ledger fine, but they fight you the moment a COMAH-tier chemical batch, a wind-farm install schedule, and a fixed-price engineering contract all need to live in one operational model.
You bought NetSuite or SAP Business One expecting it to run the whole Teesside operation. It runs the GL. What it does not do is let a process chemist book a batch against a recipe with raw-material lot traceability, while the engineering side runs a fixed-price renewables contract with retentions, variations and a site-by-site cost-to-complete. Those are two different businesses pretending to be one in the same database.
So your team props the gaps with spreadsheets: batch yields here, project margin there, plant maintenance somewhere else entirely. By the time numbers reconcile, the chemical batch has shipped and the EPC job is two variations behind. The ERP is technically live and operationally half-trusted.
The problems nobody warns you about
- NetSuite's project module can't carry retentions and contract variations on a renewables EPC contract, so quantity surveyors rebuild cost-to-complete in Excel
- Batch traceability for a regulated chemical run (raw-material lot in, finished-good lot out) doesn't fit SAP Business One's discrete BOM without bolt-ons
- Plant maintenance and inspection data lives outside the ERP, so asset cost never lands against the job that consumed it
- Multi-entity Teesside group structure (trading, EPC, holding) forces month-end intercompany journals by hand
The case for owning your erp
A custom ERP, or a custom operational layer that feeds a standard finance core, lets you model what Middlesbrough actually does: process batches with lot genealogy on one side, project-accounted EPC and engineering contracts on the other, both rolling into one consolidated set of books. You stop bending the business to fit the software's idea of an order line.
Budgeting a erp build in Middlesbrough
| Project scope | Typical cost | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Finance core on a standard ERP + light config | £25k to £55k | 2 to 3 months |
| Custom operational layer (batch or project) over a standard core | £70k to £140k | 4 to 6 months |
| Full custom ERP spanning batch and EPC | £150k to £260k | 7 to 9 months |
What your build should include
What we build under ERP in Middlesbrough
Everything an ERP build here can cover: Microsoft Dynamics 365, ERP migration, cloud ERP, manufacturing ERP, distribution ERP and custom ERP modules.
Exactly what you get
A system where a regulated chemical batch and a renewables EPC contract live in one ledger and report true margin without a spreadsheet in between. Batch runs carry lot genealogy you could survive an audit on; EPC contracts carry retentions, variations and cost-to-complete your QSs actually trust. Plant maintenance cost lands on the job that caused it. Month-end consolidates the Teesside group with automated intercompany rather than a day of manual journals.
How to choose a developer in Middlesbrough
Hire for domain scars, not framework fashion. The right partner has shipped both process-industry traceability and project accounting, and can argue about which one yours should be built around first. Ask to see a real lot recall and a real application for payment in something they've built. If they treat your COMAH and EPC requirements as identical 'order lines', they'll build you a prettier version of the spreadsheet problem you already have. Pair the ERP work with a custom CRM (Customer Relationship Management) development plan, an inventory management software layer and business intelligence dashboards so the operational data has somewhere to surface.
- !They demo a generic manufacturing module and call batch traceability 'just a custom field'. Ask them to walk a lot recall end to end
- !No one on the team can explain retentions or cost-to-complete. Ask how they'd model an EPC application for payment
- !They propose ripping out your finance core on day one. Ask how they'd phase a parallel run instead
- !They quote a fixed price before discovery. Ask what assumptions that price is built on
- !They've never touched multi-entity consolidation. Ask to see intercompany handled in a past build
If erp is on the roadmap, internal tools, shopify, inventory management usually follow within the year. Budget them as one conversation.
Rohan advises mid-market and enterprise teams on ERP, CRM and custom software, and has led delivery on dozens of business-software builds.
Writes for Digital Heroes, shipping business software for 2,000+ brands across 55+ countries since 2017.
Frequently asked questions
Can one ERP really handle both chemical batches and EPC contracts?
Yes, but rarely off the shelf. The honest pattern for a Middlesbrough firm is a standard finance core with a custom operational layer on top: batch-and-lot logic for the process side, project accounting for the EPC side, both consolidating into one set of books. Forcing both into a single vanilla module is where rollouts stall.
How long before we can switch off the spreadsheets?
Plan for 5 to 9 months to a trustworthy go-live, plus a parallel-run period where the old spreadsheets and the new ERP run side by side until the numbers agree. Teams that skip the parallel run to save a month usually spend three rebuilding trust after a bad first month-end.
Is NetSuite or SAP a waste of money for us?
No. For the finance ledger and standard reporting they're excellent and far cheaper than custom. The waste comes from expecting them to model batch genealogy or EPC retentions natively. Keep the standard core, build custom only where Teesside's actual operations break the standard model.
What's the single biggest cost driver?
Regulated batch traceability. Getting raw-material lot-in to finished-good lot-out genealogy right, in a way that survives a recall and an audit, is the most demanding part of the build and the part most likely to be underestimated in a fixed quote.