ERP systems like SAP, Oracle, IFS, and Business Central all work better when paired with Power Platform.
If your goals this quarter include:
- Reducing clicks and rekeying on high-volume tasks
- Speeding up approvals and month-end without sacrificing control
- Letting teams work on mobile while keeping auditors comfortable
- Delivering improvements in weeks, not quarters (with budget you can justify)
…then this blog is worth your time.
Your ERP is your single source of truth. But it wasn’t built to handle every scan, photo, form, or exception flow your teams deal with every day.
That’s where Microsoft Power Platform comes in. It sits alongside your ERP and clears the operational friction.
Real example:
A picker went from juggling three tabs and seven clicks per pick to using a barcode Power App. It checked the PO and quantity, then posted directly through the ERP connector.
Cycle time dropped. Mis-picks reduced. ERP unchanged – just faster.
What You Gain from the Power Platform
- Faster decisions. Turn slow hand-offs and inbox chases into guided steps, real-time alerts, and one-tap approvals.
- Reduced cost of change. Streamline edge processes without risky ERP customisations – so upgrades stay routine, not disruptive.
- Improved user experience. Simple, task-focused mobile screens replace tab-hopping and rekeying. Less training. Fewer errors.
- Tightened governance. Keep data, permissions and audit trails inside your Microsoft estate – no side tools or shadow workflows.
- Visible value fast. Track cycle time, error rates and rework. Improvements show up in weeks, not quarters.
6 Workflows That Unlock Power Platform Value Without ERP Disruption
Where Power Platform delivers fast, visible ROI, without touching your ERP core.
1. Warehouse & Receiving
What changes: Simple mobile apps for barcode scans, photo capture, and quick checks. Post directly to ERP via connector.
Why it matters: Fewer mis-picks, faster training, no manual rekeying.
Measure: Cycle time per receipt/pick, error rate, time-to-train
2. Credit Holds & Exceptions
What changes: One-tap approvals with clear ownership, audit trails, and daily digests of items needing action.
Why it matters: Fewer email chases, faster order release, cleaner compliance.
Measure: Approval lead time, aged backlog, rework rate
3. Field Service & Quality
What changes: Capture notes, photos, and signatures on-site. Validate against ERP records before posting.
Why it matters: Better documentation, fewer returns, no rogue ledger edits.
Measure: First-time-fix rate, defect rate, claim write-offs
4. Supplier Onboarding & Questionnaires
What changes: Collect forms and documents in Dataverse. Validate before updating ERP vendor records.
Why it matters: Faster onboarding without cluttering ERP with non-ledger data.
Measure: Time-to-ready, info loopbacks, compliance flags
5. Operations Exceptions Digest
What changes: Teams or email digests summarising orders, receipts, and invoices needing action.
Why it matters: Managers see the ten things that matter, not ten dashboards.
Measure: Time-to-clear exceptions, SLA hit rate
6. Light Cross-System Workflows
What changes: Automate handoffs between ERP, CRM, and files (e.g., PO change triggers account team alert with context).
Why it matters: Fewer manual updates, cleaner transitions, better visibility.
Measure: Handoff lead time, manual touches per case
What Power Platform is (and isn’t)
Power Platform is a low-code layer that speeds up the work around your ERP – things like mobile apps, one-tap approvals, and simple workflows that move information cleanly between systems.
It runs on tools already in your Microsoft estate (Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Dataverse), with built-in governance and audit. It’s the glue for reporting and handoffs across ERP, CRM, and shared files, without needing core ERP changes.
What it isn’t: a replacement for ERP logic like posting, costing, or inventory movements. It’s not built for sub-second scan-to-post, offline complexity, or bypassing audit and permissions.
The boundary, kept simple
- ERP owns the record of truth. Ledgers, inventory, costing, MRP, and audit controls stay there.
- Power Platform owns the speed of change. Capture, guide, approve and orchestrate the work that surrounds ERP.
Why Finance and Audit Love The Power Platform
Control Stays with the ERP
The ERP remains the single source of truth. Posting rules, costing logic, inventory movements, and approvals all happen where they always have – in your core system. Power Platform operates around that core, capturing inputs and guiding the process, but never executing the financial transaction.
Permissions Travel with the Data
Role-based access, row-level security, and sensitivity labels aren’t bypassed – they extend across Power Platform. Everything runs inside your Microsoft environment, under your existing security model. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies prevent data from flowing into unauthorised tools or services.
Traceability Is Built In
Every approval, submission, and system interaction can include a correlation ID, creating a clear chain of custody from user action to ERP transaction. Key references (document IDs, approval logs) are written back to the record, not buried in inboxes or spreadsheets.
Segregation of Duties Is Respected
Makers can build apps and workflows, but they don’t get access to ledgers or sensitive data. Power Platform uses service principals for system connections and applies least-privilege roles in Dataverse. DLP keeps development separated from production-critical functions.
Change Control That Auditors Recognise
All updates follow a familiar path: dev → test → UAT → production. Releases go through versioned solutions with documented approval gates and history. No one’s editing flows or apps live in production.
Data Residency and Retention Are Covered
Power Platform respects your Microsoft tenant and region settings. Retention policies, eDiscovery tools, and compliance requirements all continue to apply.
What This Looks Like in Practice
- A warehouse receipt is scanned in a Power App, validated against the open PO, then posted via the ERP connector. The staged record stores the ERP document number and correlation ID.
- A credit hold is released via a one-tap approval in Teams. The approver, timestamp, and reason are logged; the ERP entry references the approval ID.
- Monthly reconciliation pulls a list of Power Platform-generated transactions, matches them to ERP records, and flags any discrepancies for review.
The Outcome
Finance keeps control. Audit gets a cleaner, traceable trail. Operations get the speed they need – without customising the core.
Get Started – Without Disrupting What Works
Your ERP is doing its job, it’s the system of record, and it should stay that way. But the real gains come from tightening the work around it: cleaner capture, faster hand-offs, clearer exceptions, and less manual effort across the board.
Power Platform gives you that speed – without rewriting your ERP, compromising compliance, or increasing upgrade risk. Governance stays intact. Control stays with finance. And your teams get better tools to do the work they already know.
Curious where this could apply in your team? Get in touch, we’d love to explore it with you.
