The Integration Blueprint

From fragmented systems to one integrated platform.

An owner-side framework for scoping the integration, controlling total cost, and selecting an implementation partner on comparable terms. It keeps the requirements, the economics, and the decisions with management, and buys specialist help only where it is genuinely differentiated.

See the framework Score partners

8 to 12 wks

Owner-side assessment to a comparable RFP

5 gates

Management decision points before build

Workstreams the assessment covers

1 scope

Priced by every bidder the same way

A reusable framework. Adapt the phases, weights, and figures to your integration. Cost and timeline figures shown are illustrative planning assumptions, not vendor quotes.

The plan

Where you are now, where you are going, and how to get there.

Where you are now

Multiple systems, often one per entity, function, or acquisition.
Manual reconciliation and consolidation across them.
No single source of truth, so reporting is slow and hard to audit.
Controls and access maintained separately in each system.

Where you are going

One governed platform, or a defined core with integrated satellites.
A standardized close, controls, and reporting.
Automated, auditable transactions across the business.
Consolidated analytics that make the business case measurable.

How to get there

Step 1

Assess

Owner-side assessment, 8 to 12 weeks. Current state, target model, scope, cost.

Step 2

Decide

Five gates. Confirm the platform, approve Phase 1 scope and assumptions.

Step 3

Select

One RFP. Score partners on the same scope, then choose.

Step 4

Implement

Phased build under management governance. Illustrative 12 to 15 months.

Current state

What drives cost and risk, and a target to test against.

What drives cost and risk

Multiple entities and currencies

More entities, ledgers, and countries means more consolidation and more configuration.

Transaction volume

High volume raises the stakes on automation, performance, and reconciliation.

Number and fragility of integrations

Each interface is scope, test effort, and a point of failure after go-live.

Data quality and history

Cleansing, and how much history to migrate versus archive, drive real effort.

Regulatory and controls burden

SOX, audit, and jurisdictional reporting must be designed in, not bolted on.

Legacy customizations

Custom logic in old systems is the hardest thing to unwind and re-platform.

Candidate target architecture

Core

Ledger and financials

General ledger, payables, receivables, cash, multi-entity and multi-currency.

Revenue

Revenue and billing

Billing, receivables, and revenue recognition for your revenue model.

Spend

Procure-to-pay

Vendors, approvals, purchasing controls, expenses, and payments.

Cash

Treasury and cash

Banking, cash management, payments, and reconciliation.

People

HR and payroll

Employee records, payroll, and time, where in scope.

Connect

Integration and analytics

The integration layer to source systems, plus consolidation and planning.

A starting point for the assessment to test, not a fixed target. Keep the platform a working hypothesis until the current-state gate.

The assessment

A seven-phase, owner-side assessment to a comparable RFP.

Phase 0 · Mobilize

Week 1Owner-led

What happens

1Confirm the sponsor, decision rights, and whether a platform is assumed or a hypothesis.
2Stand up workstreams and the decision log.
3Issue the information request to finance, IT, and process owners.
4Set deliverable standards so every output is portable.

What we produce

Project charter and decision log
Structured information request
Interview calendar and standards

The five gates

Gate 1

Platform hypothesis

Is the platform still preferred after discovery?

Gate 2

Scope approval

Sponsor approves Phase 1 scope and assumptions.

Gate 3

RFP readiness

Two bidders can price the same scope.

Gate 4

Partner selection

Credible staffing, milestones, total cost.

Gate 5

Design authority

Management approves design and scope changes in build.

Ten workstreams the assessment covers

Enterprise structure

Entities, ledgers, chart of accounts, intercompany, shared services.

Record-to-report

Close, journals, consolidation, reconciliations, reporting, controls.

Procure-to-pay

Vendors, approvals, AP, expenses, payments, purchasing controls.

Order-to-cash and revenue

Billing, receivables, recognition, credits, collections.

Treasury and cash

Banking, cash, payments, reconciliation, liquidity.

Tax

Indirect tax, jurisdictional reporting, filings, transfer pricing.

Data and integrations

Master data, conversion, interfaces to source systems, banks, payroll.

Security and controls

Roles, segregation of duties, access, SOX, audit evidence.

FP&A and EPM

Planning, forecasting, consolidation, KPI and benefit tracking.

Program and change

Governance, PMO, training, testing, cutover, hypercare.

Timeline

An illustrative phased path from assessment to go-live.

Illustrative planning timeline, not a committed schedule

Months 0 to 33 to 66 to 99 to 1212 to 15

Owner-side assessment and scoping8 to 12 weeks

Decision, RFP and selectionGates 1 to 4

Plan and designImplementation begins

Core platformLedger, AP, AR, cash

Extended functionsPayroll, procurement, more

Integrations and dataInterfaces and conversion

Reporting and analyticsConsolidation, dashboards

Cutover and go-liveParallel run, hypercare

Assessment and selectionImplementation buildCutover and go-live

8 to 12 wks

Assessment to a comparable RFP

5 gates

Management decision points

12 to 15 mo

Illustrative phased implementation

Phased

Core first, then cutover and go-live

Owner-side advisor and implementation partners

Pay specialists for what only they can do. Keep the rest owner-side.

Recommended operating model

You own the requirements, decisions, economics, RFP, and partner selection. An independent advisor leads discovery and scope. Implementation partners, such as a systems integrator or platform specialist, validate product fit and architecture, then build.

Who leads each activity

Activity	Owner-side advisor	Implementation partner	Why
Program objectives and business case	Lead	Advise	Management owns the value case.
Current-state interviews and mapping	Lead	Support	Does not require expensive product specialists.
Business requirements catalog	Lead	Validate	Requirements stay portable across bidders.
Target operating model	Lead	Advise	Business design precedes configuration.
Platform fit and gaps	Support	Lead	Needs deep product knowledge.
Enterprise structure and chart of accounts	Co-lead	Co-lead	Accounting objectives and configuration, together.
Solution and integration architecture	Challenge	Lead	Technical architecture is specialist work.
Data migration	Data rules	Lead	Owner owns data quality, partner owns conversion.
Security, roles, segregation of duties	Control intent	Lead	Control intent plus product build.
RFP and bidder comparison	Lead	Respond	Keeps procurement comparable.
Configuration and build	Oversight	Lead	Core partner responsibility.
Change control and economics	Lead	Estimate	Owner approves cost and scope changes.

A modest block of specialist time validates the assessment before the RFP. Discovery, requirements, economics, and governance stay owner-side, where they cost less and the knowledge should live. Hours vary by scope.

Selecting an implementation partner

The questions, the red flags, and a live scorecard.

What to ask every bidder

What happens during your assessment, by week?
Which deliverables become our property and can go to another bidder?
Which activities need product specialists versus general finance resources?
What would make you materially revise your estimate afterward?

Red flags

A low fixed fee held up by broad exclusions or vague client responsibilities.

No named senior architects, or no committed time for them.

Heavy customization before standard platform functionality is shown.

Pricing as a single total, with no hours, staffing mix, or workstream breakdown.

A timeline that assumes your people are free without quantifying the effort.

Data migration framed as pure conversion, with no owner for cleansing.

Controls and security deferred to late design or testing.

A sales team materially more senior than the delivery team.

Score the bidders

Rename the bidders, then score each 1 (weak) to 5 (strong) on every criterion. The weighted total updates live and flags the leader. Set the weights before proposals arrive.

Criterion (weight)

Solution fit and architecture

20%

Relevant delivery experience

15%

Named team and capacity

15%

Methodology and risk

15%

Commercials and total cost

15%

Data, integrations, controls

10%

Change management

Cultural fit and credibility

Weighted score

out of 5

—/ 5

Weights sum to 100% and are an illustration; set your own. The RFP forces one baseline: common background, requirements, integration inventory, data-conversion scope, deliverables, and a shared pricing template, so proposals compare cleanly.

Cost

Where the money goes, and why the hybrid assessment costs less.

Illustrative planning ranges, not vendor quotes

Implementation labor sensitivity

External implementation hours3,000

5005,00010,00015,000

Blended rate$350

$250$350$450$550

The right hour estimate comes only after modules, entities, integrations, data conversion, customizations, testing, and deployment are understood.

External implementation labor

$1.05M

Before licenses, internal labor, backfill, third-party software, testing, travel, or contingency.

Hours3,000

Rate$350/hr

For reference: 5,000 hours at $400 is $2.0M; 10,000 at $300 is $3.0M; 15,000 at $400 is $6.0M.

Assessment-phase economics

Implementation-partner-led assessment

$160k to $220k

400 to 550 hours at an illustrative $400

26 to 36%

lower

Hybrid: owner-side advisor plus specialist validation

$102k to $148k

Advisor $78k to $108k, plus specialist validation $24k to $40k

Why the savings are real: the hybrid pays specialist rates only for specialist work. Why they can vanish: if the upstream requirements are incomplete or unrealistic, the partner repeats the discovery and you pay twice. Savings hold only when the deliverables are implementation-grade.

Governance

The forums, the owner-side time, and the minimum controls.

Standing forums

Executive steering

Budget, scope, cross-functional decisions, risk acceptance, go-live.

Biweekly / monthly

Design authority

Approves enterprise structure, accounting, reporting, integration, security, customization.

Weekly

PMO and program review

Milestones, dependencies, budget, RAID log, change requests.

Weekly

Risk and controls

SOX, access, approvals, testing evidence, audit readiness.

Biweekly

Go-live readiness

Cutover, defects, reconciliations, training, rollback criteria.

Weekly near go-live

Owner-side roles and time

Indicative ranges; bars show the upper end.

Executive sponsor

5 to 10%

Controller / design owner

20 to 40%

Program lead / PMO

50 to 100%

Finance process leads

20 to 50%

IT / enterprise architect

20 to 50%

Data lead

25 to 75%

Internal controls

10 to 30%

Owner-side advisor

20 to 60%

The common hidden cost is expecting finance leaders to absorb this without cutting close and reporting duties. Plan backfill.

Minimum controls over scope and cost

A signed baseline scope with numbered requirements and explicit exclusions.
A decision log linking each major design decision to an owner and date.
A change-request register: trigger, root cause, hours, rate, schedule impact, approver.
No material customization without a documented standard-option analysis.
A monthly estimate-at-completion with actual and remaining hours and variances.
Named-key-person protections in the statement of work.
Acceptance criteria for major deliverables and milestones.
A client resource plan refreshed as phases change.

Next steps

Nine moves to start owner-side, this quarter.

01
Confirm sponsor and decision rights
And whether the platform is a hypothesis or a decision.
02
Issue the information request
To finance, IT, and process owners.
03
Run 10 to 15 focused interviews
Across controllership, FP&A, AP, AR, treasury, tax, IT, data, security, and controls.
04
Produce a current-state map
With a scope matrix, complexity drivers, and an open-questions log.
05
Run specialist validation
Ask capable firms to challenge the scope, not restart discovery.
06
Build the TCO and resource model
And find the decisions that most move cost and timeline.
07
Convert the scope into an RFP
With a comparable pricing template.
08
Demo against real scenarios
Your use cases, not generic product demos.
09
Select and move to governance
Score, negotiate protections, then start implementation governance.

The decision rule

Pay implementation partners for the expertise and execution only they can provide. Keep ownership of requirements, economics, partner selection, and governance. Design the assessment so specialist validation adds value without forcing the partner to repeat discovery.

How an owner-side advisor helps

Leads discovery and scope; builds the portable requirements catalog.
Builds the TCO and resource model; runs the RFP and scorecard.
Provides the owner-side challenge function and commercial governance.
Stays owner-side, and does not bid to implement.

Planning a systems or business integration?

A short working session can confirm the sponsor, decision rights, and the information request, and set the assessment against your timeline. The build itself can run with an embedded team of senior specialists under your governance.

Start the conversation Advisory engagements

Devon Coombs

Teaching Professor of Finance, Santa Clara University · ex-Google Cloud · CPA, MBA

This framework comes out of Devon's finance and accounting transformation advisory, where the goal is to keep the requirements, economics, and partner selection with management.