Contact Info
Belgium
When does a Belgian organization need an ERP rescue consultant?
A Belgian organization needs an ERP rescue consultant when its implementation has stalled, overrun its budget or gone live in a way that disrupts invoicing and cash. I restore Peppol sending and CODA payment matching, help your accounting firm close the VAT period, establish the facts with the partner in a neutral way and compare carrying on, trimming scope and switching platform, working remotely and in English.
Last reviewed by Vikas Saroj
Belgian ERP projects under pressure often share a backstory. A go-live was pulled forward so that structured e-invoicing would be in place, the partner's consultants worked in a different language from half the users, and the social secretariat's journals were left for the end. When the switch came, invoices bounced on the Peppol network, bank lines stopped matching and the accounting firm could not close the period.
I help Belgian companies, associations and service firms recover from that position independently, from a remote base and in English. I start with what keeps the organization running, invoicing and cash, then build an agreed account of the project and help management choose its direction.
My fees come from the organization I advise; vendors, partners and access point providers pay me nothing.
What I Do
Invoicing and cash come first; the project discussion follows once the organization can trade normally again.
Rejected and stuck Peppol messages traced and resent, customer identifiers corrected, and a daily check set up so new exceptions are caught before customers chase their invoices.
CODA imports, structured references and open items examined together, then corrected so incoming payments find their invoices again and reminders go to the right customers.
A joint plan with your accounting firm for closing the current VAT period and listings, covering which system holds what, which balances need correcting and who signs off each step.
Separate interviews with management, users and the partner, a review of the offer, plan and change requests, and a test of core flows, written up in one neutral status report.
A structured reset with the implementation partner, with French, Dutch or English working sessions as needed, to agree remaining scope, responsibilities and checkpoints.
Options to continue, narrow the scope or change partner or platform, with risks and cost drivers set out, followed by a recovery plan with owners, decisions and regular reporting.
How I Work
Invoicing and cash under control
Clear rejected Peppol messages
Fix structured references
Rebuild open items if needed
Agree close plan with accountant
One version of events
Hear each party separately
Read offer and change requests
Test core processes
Share a neutral status report
A path the board backs
Compare the options
Reset scope with the partner
Assign owners and checkpoints
Report progress monthly
Behind most troubled Belgian projects lies a combination of ordinary pressures rather than one dramatic error:
None of this is unusual, and responsibility is almost always shared between client and partner. So the rescue concentrates on evidence and the next decision, and stays away from fault-finding. If your system is live and running but simply underperforming, the lighter ERP audit for Belgium may be enough. If it is stuck or hurting the business, the steps below apply. The general method sits under ERP recovery.
When a go-live has disrupted invoicing, customers stop paying because they never received a valid invoice, and suppliers chase because their Peppol invoices are stuck. Fixing that comes before any discussion of scope or blame.
A brief call each morning brings together finance, the partner and, where relevant, the access point provider, and keep one ranked issue list. Rejected outgoing messages are traced to their cause: a wrong or missing enterprise number, a customer not yet reachable on the network, missing mandatory data or a credit note that does not refer to its invoice. Each is corrected and resent, and anything that genuinely cannot go over Peppol yet gets an agreed temporary route. Incoming invoices that piled up in a portal or inbox are processed in order of due date.
Cash comes next. If incoming payments stopped matching, the cause usually sits in invoices issued without structured references, references in an unexpected format or open receivables migrated as single balances. Where open items must be rebuilt invoice by invoice from the old package, I organize that with finance and the partner, and agree with your accounting firm how adjustments are booked. Reminders and direct debit collections restart only once the receivables can be trusted again, so customers are not chased for invoices they already paid.
A disrupted go-live leaves the accounting firm with an awkward period: some invoices issued from the old package, some from the new ERP, some sent twice and credited, and bank movements split between systems. Before anyone can file a VAT return or listing with confidence, there needs to be an agreed basis.
I prepare that discussion with your accountant. Together we confirm which system is the reference for each type of transaction during the period, reconcile opening balances in the new ledger with the closing position of the old one, list duplicate or missing invoices and agree how each will be corrected. VAT treatment, corrections and any adjustments to earlier returns are decided by the accounting firm. My part is to attach evidence and a responsible person to every open point, so the finance team is not left improvising.
The social secretariat is part of the same picture. If payroll journals have not been posted since go-live, or arrived in a format the new chart no longer accepts, I agree a corrected format and catch-up with them and finance. Once a full period closes cleanly, the routine passes back to the finance team, and the remaining improvements move into the project plan. For the structured checklist behind this stabilization, see go-live support.
Once invoicing and cash are under control, the project itself needs an honest look. Management, the finance and operations leads, several key users and the partner's lead each get a private conversation; read the offer, statement of work, requirements, plan and change requests, and test the main processes in the system. The result is a short status report setting out what was agreed, what was delivered, what the organization now needs and where those diverge, with causes described without naming culprits.
Language matters in that conversation. If the partner worked in French while your operations team works in Dutch, or the other way round, some disagreements turn out to be translation problems in the requirements rather than real disputes. Bilingual colleagues help me check the original wording where it matters, and the status report is written in English so that management, the partner and any foreign parent read the same thing.
With that report on the table, partner and client go through what is left and label it essential, later, unnecessary and disputed, with acceptance criteria and owners for each item. I also note commercial points in the contract worth raising, such as acceptance, payment stages, rights to custom code and handover support if the relationship ends. Their legal interpretation stays with your lawyer. In larger employers, staff representatives may expect information when new technology changes how people work; HR decides how to handle that with its advisors.
The rescue ends in a decision about direction. Continuing with the same platform and partner under a reset plan is often right when the foundations are sound and the problems came from timing, decisions and data. Narrowing the scope helps when the project took on too much: finance, invoicing and Peppol stabilized first, with project accounting, member portals or a second entity later.
Changing partner or platform is sometimes the honest answer, for example when the product cannot handle multilingual documents, grant reporting or your pricing without custom work that keeps failing. That calls for a calm comparison, not a reaction to a bad month. Should that be the outcome, the transition is planned step by step, and a fresh selection reuses the requirements, test cases and cleaned data from the current project.
For each option I describe what changes for finance, operations, staff and customers, together with what drives the spend: partner days still to come, licenses already signed for, staff hours, data correction and any extra months of double running. No figures are invented. Management or the board decides, and If useful, I stay on to steer the plan from a distance alongside your internal lead, and travel only by arrangement. Related reading: the independent second opinion guide, my implementation page for Belgium and the Belgium overview.
Tell me about your business and current systems. I’ll suggest the most sensible first step.
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FAQ
With the outgoing message log. I trace a sample of failed or missing invoices to find whether the problem is customer master data, missing document data, the access point connection or invoices that were never released. Most causes fall into a few groups, so fixing the main ones clears the backlog quickly. A temporary route is agreed for anything that cannot be sent electronically yet.
Yes. The engagement runs in English, and the partner can keep working with your teams in French or Dutch. Bilingual colleagues help check the original wording of requirements where meaning matters. Status reports, issue lists and the recovery plan are kept in English so management, the partner and any foreign shareholders all read the same version.
Usually not. The firm that built your configuration already understands its quirks, which usually makes it the quicker route back, as long as both sides commit to the revised plan. Changing partner is worth considering only when the fact base shows they cannot deliver what the organization needs, and then the handover needs careful planning so documents, data and design are kept.
Only on the handoff into the ERP, and with your agreement. I can agree the journal format, account mapping and catch-up plan with them and your finance lead. Payroll calculation, declarations and employment questions remain entirely their responsibility and your HR advisor's.
Every business is different. Share where you are today and what you want to fix, and I’ll tell you honestly whether and how I can help.
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