Choosing ERP software in Bangladesh: an honest checklist

Does it fit how business is actually done here?

Plenty of capable foreign ERP systems assume every sale is paid immediately, every customer is a company record, and VAT works the way it does somewhere else.

Ask specifically about the things your day depends on: amounts in BDT, credit sales and outstanding baaki, cash-on-delivery, and whether a customer asking for an invoice produces the VAT documentation you need.

Ask where stock lives

If you have more than one location, this is the question that separates real systems from glorified sales registers. Is quantity held per location, and can a specific register be tied to a specific location?

A system that only tracks one company-wide total will oversell you the moment you open a second outlet. Ask to see it demonstrated with two locations, not described.

Ask what a cashier cannot see

Permissions are boring to demo and vital to own. Can a cashier be blocked from seeing cost prices? Can refunds be restricted? Does a big discount need approval from someone else?

If the answer is that everyone sees everything, you will either give staff too much access or keep half the business outside the system. Both are expensive.

• Can cost price be hidden from floor staff?
• Do large discounts need manager approval?
• Are refunds restricted to senior roles?
• Can one manager see all cashier sessions?

Ask who answers when it breaks

Software fails at the worst possible moment-usually a Thursday evening with a queue at the counter. The relevant question is not whether support exists, but who picks up, in what language, and within what time.

Local matters here for practical reasons, not patriotic ones. A team in your time zone who can visit if it comes to that is worth more than a slightly cheaper licence.

Ask what happens when you grow

The system should let you start narrow and add later. If taking on purchasing or HR later means a migration project, you have bought a ceiling.

Equally, be sceptical of anyone selling you every module on day one. Modules you do not use are training burden and clutter, and they are the main reason staff quietly go back to the notebook.

Ask what it does not do

This is the most useful question in any software demo, and the one vendors least enjoy. Anyone who claims their system does everything is either not listening or not being straight with you.

For the record: Workcel runs monthly payroll for small HR teams (payslips in BDT), and it does not file your VAT returns with the NBR. Get an equally specific answer from everyone else you talk to.