When Gear for the Game, a growing sports equipment retailer specializing in racquet sports like pickleball, first purchased their Microsoft Business Central licenses, they thought they were ready to hit the ground running. Like many ambitious business owners, they figured they could handle the implementation themselves using the default “My Company” setup that comes with Microsoft business central.
Six months later, they weren’t using the system at all.
The Problem with Generic Setups
What Gear for the Game discovered—and what many growing businesses learn the hard way—is that an ERP system is only as good as its configuration. The default “My Company” setup in Business Central uses generic templates designed to showcase the software’s capabilities, not run your actual business.
In Gear for the Game’s case, this meant dealing with several critical mismatches:
- Wrong accounting standards: IFRS setup when they needed GAAP for US operations
- No sales tax configuration for their business requirements
- Generic customer and vendor records with no relevance to their actual relationships
- No inventory items matching their sports equipment products
- Missing posting groups and account structures for proper financial reporting
Essentially, they had purchased a sophisticated business management system and were trying to force their square business into a round hole.
The Real Cost of Delay
While Gear for the Game’s team was wrestling with an unusable system, their business continued to grow. Orders were processed manually, financial reporting was cobbled together from spreadsheets, and valuable business insights were locked away in disconnected systems. The opportunity cost of not having a properly functioning ERP system was mounting daily.
This scenario plays out more often than you might think. Growing businesses, eager to control costs and timelines, attempt to implement complex ERP systems without proper expertise. The result is often months of frustration, followed by the realization that professional help was needed from the beginning.
The Turning Point with Microsoft Business Central
When Reach stepped in to provide what was initially scoped as basic user training, our team immediately recognized the underlying issue. You can’t train users on a system that isn’t configured for their business. Instead of simply teaching the client how to navigate generic screens, we took a step back and addressed the fundamental problem.
In just two weeks, working closely with the Gear for the Game team, we completely reconfigured their Business Central environment, leveraging our BC Rapid offering. We implemented a GAAP-compliant chart of accounts, set up proper posting groups, created their actual inventory items, imported their customers and vendors, and designed custom document layouts that reflected their brand and business processes.
The Lesson for Growing Businesses
The Gear for the Game experience illustrates a critical principle: the fastest way to implement an ERP system is to do it right the first time. While it might seem cost-effective to attempt a DIY implementation, the hidden costs—lost productivity, delayed insights, and eventual rework—far exceed the investment in professional implementation services.
For businesses outgrowing QuickBooks or struggling with legacy systems, the path forward doesn’t have to be painful or prolonged. With the right approach and expertise, a Business Central implementation can be completed in 4-6 weeks, delivering immediate business value while setting the foundation for future growth.
