The ERP selection process in East Africa is broken. Not because firms don't do their research — most do — but because the questions they ask are the same questions a European or American firm would ask, and the answers that matter here are different.
We've been involved in ERP selections and implementations across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda for twelve years. The firms that get it right ask different questions than the firms that end up in expensive customisation spirals or discover two years in that their chosen platform doesn't handle PAYE as KRA now requires it.
What follows is the checklist we give to clients at the start of a selection process. Some questions are universal. Three of them are specific to the East African context — and eliminate most major international ERP vendors from serious contention.
The three eliminator questions
1. Does the system support eTIMS fiscalisation out of the box, or as a certified local extension? From January 2026, KRA requires all businesses above a certain threshold to fiscalise all invoices through eTIMS. An ERP that doesn't handle this natively requires a custom integration — which means cost, maintenance risk, and the possibility that it breaks when KRA updates their API. Ask for a live demonstration of eTIMS invoice generation, not a roadmap slide. If it's not live today, it's not ready.
2. Does the payroll module calculate PAYE, NHIF (now SHIF), NSSF, and NITA levies correctly for Kenyan employees? This sounds basic. It eliminates approximately 70% of internationally marketed ERP platforms. Many support payroll for their home market; their Kenya localisation is superficial, outdated, or delegated to a local partner who may or may not be keeping it current. Test this by providing sample payslip scenarios — including NSSF tiered contributions and SHIF deductions as of the current tax year — and checking the output.
3. Is M-Pesa payment reconciliation supported natively? For any business that receives significant M-Pesa volumes — which in Kenya means most businesses — the ability to automatically reconcile M-Pesa transactions against invoices and post them to the general ledger is not optional. If the vendor's answer is "we integrate with a reconciliation middleware" or "your bank provides a connector," get the technical specification and test it before you sign.
More than once we've seen a vendor present a slide titled "Kenya localisation roadmap — Q4 2025." We are now in 2026. Ask where the roadmap is. If the answer involves future sprints, the localisation is not done. Buy ERP for what it does today, not what the vendor intends to do later.
The remaining nine questions
Once a vendor passes the three eliminators, ask these. They're less context-specific but equally important.
- What is the total cost of ownership over three years, including implementation, licensing, customisation, training, and annual support? Ask for this in writing, not a ballpark.
- Who implements the system — the vendor's own team or a partner network? If a partner, which partner specifically, and can you speak to three recent clients of that partner?
- What is the upgrade path when new modules or versions are released? Will customisations survive an upgrade?
- What is the data migration process? Who is responsible for data quality, and what happens if migration is late?
- What SLA governs support response times? Is support in-market or offshore? What is the escalation path for a production incident at 10 PM?
- How many customers of comparable size and sector have gone live in East Africa in the last 24 months?
- What does a training programme look like, and who owns post-go-live change management?
- What are the contractual exit provisions? If you decide to move platforms in year three, what does data portability look like?
- Can you speak to a customer who decided not to renew and ask them why?
What good looks like
A vendor that can answer all twelve questions with specificity — reference clients, live demonstrations, written commitments — is worth serious consideration. A vendor whose answers to any of the three eliminators are "roadmap," "partner-dependent," or "it's configurable" is not.
The most common ERP failure mode we see in East Africa is not choosing the wrong platform. It's choosing the right platform for the wrong reasons — because the demo was impressive, because the brand was familiar, because the sales team was persuasive. The questions above force the conversation past the demo.
The ERP market is full of platforms that work well in the countries where they were built. The ones that work in Kenya are a shorter list. Test the localisation before you sign, not after.
Drawn from ERP selection and implementation advisory across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda, 2018–2026. Vendor names omitted deliberately.