An ERP demo is built to show the software at its best: clean data, a happy-path order, a confident presenter. That is fair, it is a sales meeting. Your job is to see how the system handles the days that go wrong, because those are the days that decide whether it works for you.

Before the demo

  • Send your scenarios in advance. A short list of real situations from last month: a short-shipped order, a return, a price change, a question about where a lot went. Ask the vendor to show those, not only their standard script.
  • Offer sample data. A few customers, a few dozen items including catch-weight and lot-tracked ones, and a price list. A vendor who can load it shows you more than one who cannot.
  • Bring the right people. Someone from the order desk, the warehouse and accounting. Each will spot problems the others miss.
  • Agree a scorecard. Each person scores every question below from 1 to 5 during the demo, on their own, before anyone discusses it.

The 12 questions

  1. "Show me an order we cannot fill completely." Most demos show the happy path. Ask for partial fulfilment, what the customer is told, and what happens to the missing quantity: back-order, substitute or cancel.
  2. "Show me a credit memo from start to finish." A returned or damaged case, through approval, to the customer's balance and the ledger. If the presenter hesitates, the credit memo workflow is probably awkward.
  3. "Trace a lot we received six months ago." Every customer who got it, with dates and quantities. Time how long it takes. If you handle foods on the FDA's Food Traceability List, this question carries extra weight; see our FSMA 204 guide.
  4. "Invoice a catch-weight item." Order by the case, ship a weight, invoice on the weight that shipped. Variable weight is a good test of whether software was built for food distribution.
  5. "Install the driver app on your phone, now." If the presenter cannot do it in the meeting, your drivers will struggle too.
  6. "Show me this screen as a sales rep, not an admin." Demos usually run as a superuser. Ask to see what a rep, a picker and a driver actually see, and what they are stopped from doing.
  7. "Show me the API documentation." Open it in a browser during the call. If there is none, integrations will cost money. Our piece on API-first ERP has a quick test you can run.
  8. "Show me the history of an edited order." Change a quantity, then show who changed it, when, and the value before and after.
  9. "What will surprise us after we sign?" A confident vendor names its weak spots. An evasive answer tells you something too.
  10. "Walk me through your last few months of releases." It shows whether the product is actively improved or in maintenance mode.
  11. "How do customers leave you?" What a full data export looks like, in what format, and at what cost. A vendor that answers plainly is not relying on lock-in.
  12. "Can we talk to a customer like us?" A distributor of similar size and product mix, not only the biggest name on the logo slide. Ask them about their worst week since go-live.

Red flags

  • The demo only runs on the vendor's own data, and they will not load yours.
  • "That is on the roadmap" comes up for things you need on day one.
  • The presenter cannot answer technical follow-ups and cannot bring in someone who can.
  • References are all large companies, with nobody your size.
  • Pricing stays vague after you have asked for it in writing.
  • Every question about how you work is answered with "you would change your process."

Green flags

  • The vendor offers to load your sample data into a test account.
  • The presenter answers technical questions, or pulls in someone who can, on the call.
  • You can try the software yourself, not only watch it.
  • References are easy to get and include businesses like yours.
  • Pricing is clear and in writing.
  • They tell you, unprompted, what the software does not do.

After the demo

  1. Compare scorecards before anyone shares an opinion, so the loudest voice in the room does not set the result.
  2. List every "we can do that" you did not actually see. Ask to see those in a follow-up session.
  3. Call the references. Ask about data migration, training and the first month after go-live.
  4. Get the full price in writing: subscription, setup, data migration, training, payment processing, and anything charged per user, per warehouse or per integration.
  5. Read the exit terms in the contract before you sign it.

Once you have chosen, the move itself needs a plan. Our guide to switching ERP systems walks through it step by step.

Asking APFoodz

Put the same 12 questions to APFoodz. Several map to pages you can read before the call: catch weight, traceability and permissions.