You spent millions implementing your ERP system. It was supposed to be the backbone of your retail operation, integrating everything from inventory to financials into one seamless platform. And for core transactional processing, it delivers. But every day, your finance team works around the ERP rather than through it, using spreadsheets to track approvals, email to route invoices, and shared drives to store documents that should be part of an automated workflow.
The limitations of ERP for retail finance teams are becoming increasingly apparent as the pace of business accelerates and the demand for agile finance operations grows. ERPs were designed for stability and consistency, not for the rapid process changes and exception handling that modern retail finance requires.
What ERPs do well, and where they fall short
Let us be clear: ERPs are excellent at what they were designed for. They maintain your chart of accounts, process journal entries, manage the general ledger, and produce financial statements. They provide the financial record of truth that auditors and regulators require. No workflow platform replaces these capabilities, nor should it try to.
The ERP workflow gaps emerge in the processes that feed data into the ERP and the approvals that govern it. Invoice routing, expense approvals, budget requests, vendor onboarding, contract reviews, and countless other operational workflows live outside the ERP's core competency. Gartner research predicts that by 2027, more than 70 percent of recently implemented ERP initiatives will fail to fully meet their original business case goals. A significant portion of these failures stem from expecting ERPs to handle workflow automation they were never designed for.
The speed problem in retail finance
Retail moves fast. A new promotional campaign might require budget reallocation within days. A vendor issue might demand immediate payment authorization to prevent stockout. A regional expansion might necessitate new approval workflows before the first store opens. Traditional ERPs struggle with this pace because changes require IT involvement, testing cycles, and careful management of system integrity.
Finance leaders consistently cite agility as a top priority. Industry surveys show that 70 percent of finance leaders report that talent attraction and skill gaps threaten their ability to achieve goals. Part of this challenge is that talented finance professionals do not want to spend their careers doing manual workarounds for rigid systems.
Agile finance operations require a different approach
The concept of agile finance operations is gaining traction precisely because traditional approaches cannot keep pace with business demands. Finance teams need the ability to create new workflows quickly, modify approval chains without IT tickets, and experiment with process improvements without risking system stability. This agility is not a luxury; it is a competitive necessity.
Research indicates that by 2027, 62 percent of ERP spend will go toward solutions with GenAI capabilities. This shift reflects the recognition that static, transactional systems cannot meet the dynamic needs of modern finance. Yet even AI-enhanced ERPs focus primarily on the core financial record, leaving workflow automation as a persistent gap.
The workflow layer your ERP is missing
Think about the journey of a typical invoice in your organization. It arrives, gets scanned or emailed to someone, sits in a queue, gets manually entered into a spreadsheet for tracking, gets routed via email for approval, potentially sits in an inbox for days, gets approved and manually entered into the ERP, and finally gets paid. Your ERP handles maybe two steps of that journey. Everything else is manual workaround.
This is where workflow platforms fill ERP workflow gaps. They do not replace your ERP; they complement it by automating the processes that feed into and surround it. Best-in-class AP teams process invoices in just 3.1 days compared to 17.4 days for organizations without workflow automation, even when both use the same ERP for final payment processing.
Multi-location retail magnifies the workflow challenge
Single-location businesses can often make manual ERP workarounds function acceptably. Multi-location retailers cannot. When you have dozens or hundreds of stores, each generating invoices, expenses, and budget requests, the workflow volume overwhelms any manual approach. You need automated routing based on location, category, and amount. You need mobile approvals for managers constantly on the move. You need visibility across all locations that your ERP cannot provide in real-time.
The accounts payable automation market is growing at 12.8 percent annually as businesses recognize that ERP-native AP capabilities cannot meet the demands of complex, distributed operations. The answer is not replacing ERPs but augmenting them with purpose-built workflow automation.
Breaking free from the IT bottleneck
One of the most frustrating aspects of ERP-centric finance operations is the dependency on IT for any process change. Need to add a new approval step? Submit a ticket. Want to modify an expense category? Wait for the next release cycle. This dependency creates a backlog of finance improvements that never get implemented because IT is understandably focused on mission-critical system maintenance.
Gartner's research warns that by 2027, less than 10 percent of organizations that implement agentic AI within their ERP systems will have realized significant measurable value. The message is clear: throwing more technology at ERP limitations does not solve the fundamental architectural mismatch between transaction systems and workflow automation needs.
The complementary approach to ERP and workflow
Forward-thinking retail organizations are adopting a two-layer architecture: ERP for financial records and transactions, workflow platforms for the processes that drive those transactions. This approach preserves ERP investments while enabling the agility that modern retail demands. Finance teams can create and modify workflows independently, with data flowing seamlessly into the ERP for final processing and recording.
This complementary model explains why the spend management platform market is projected to reach $42.67 billion by 2029. Organizations are not abandoning ERPs; they are surrounding them with workflow capabilities that unlock the full value of their financial systems.
How Kissflow fills the ERP workflow gap
Kissflow positions itself as the workflow layer that ERP systems are missing. With no-code and low-code capabilities, finance teams can build and modify approval workflows, invoice routing, expense management, and budget request processes without IT involvement. Data integrates with major ERP systems, ensuring that your financial record of truth remains in the ERP while agile processes live in Kissflow.
For retail finance operations seeking agile finance operations, Kissflow provides the flexibility that ERPs cannot. New stores can be added to workflows in minutes. Approval hierarchies can be modified by finance administrators. Exception handling can be designed to match actual business needs rather than system limitations. The result is finance operations that move at the speed of retail while maintaining the control and visibility that leadership demands.
Kissflow's no-code platform allows finance teams to automate processes without IT dependency. This brings flexibility beyond traditional ERP systems.
ERPs alone cannot support modern retail finance operations. Retail finance workflow automation extends ERP capabilities.
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