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Refined Operations

@refinedops

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Business Analysis | ERP | Systems | Digital Transformation 💻 Clarity 🧠 Growth 💪🏾

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Ever wondered what a business analyst actually does all day? 👀

Here are 10 things that fill my week, from untangling requirements to being the translator between finance and IT. 💼

Which one surprised you most? Drop a number below 👇

#BusinessAnalyst #DayInTheLife #CareerTalk #DigitalTransformation #WomenInBusiness taken in Vancouver, BC by @refinedops

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6 days ago

Everyone celebrates go-live.

And then six months later, the finance team is still running three manual workarounds that the system was supposed to replace.

That’s not success. That’s tolerance.

So what does success look like... six months in, when the noise has settled and reality has set in.

Here are the four signals I look for.
Signal 1 — Reporting.
Signal 2 — The suspense account.
Signal 3 — Workarounds.
Signal 4 — Chart of Accounts integrity.

These four signals don’t show up in a go-live checklist. They show up six months later. When the project team has moved on. And the finance team is living in the system every day. That’s when you find out if it actually worked.

#FinancialSystems #ERPImplementation #ChartOfAccounts #FinanceTransformation #RefinedOperations by @refinedops

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2 months ago

We’ve been talking about financial system implementations for a while now on this page and we’ve finally made it to the other side.

The system is live.

But here’s what most people get wrong about go-live.
It is not the finish line. It is the starting line.

Because the first 30 days after go-live is where the real test happens.

This is when real transactions hit the system for the first time. Real vendors. Real customers. Real payroll. Real month-end.

Things will surface that testing never caught. That is not a failure of the implementation. That is the nature of going live.

The question is whether you have the support structure in place to catch them quickly.

Organizations that navigate this well plan for hyper care the same way they planned for go-live.

#ERPImplementation #FinancialSystems #GoLive #FinanceLeadership #FinanceTransformation taken in Vancouver, British Columbia by @refinedops

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2 months ago

There’s a moment in every financial system implementation when you’re in parallel running.

Both systems are live. Transactions are being processed in the old system and mirrored in the new. At the end of the period, you reconcile.

What happens when the numbers don’t match. Not by a lot. Maybe a rounding difference. Maybe a timing difference in how a transaction was recognized. Maybe something more significant.

Let me prepare you for this moment. Because how you respond here determines whether your implementation crosses the finish line or quietly stalls.

The implementations that come out strongest are the ones where that moment was treated as an asset. Not a crisis.

#ERPImplementation #FinancialSystems #DataMigration #FinanceTransformation #RefinedOperations by @refinedops

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2 months ago

The project plan almost never covers the reality of when your finance team is being asked to run the current system while simultaneously learning, testing, and validating a completely new one.

Month-end doesn’t stop. Payroll doesn’t pause. Tax deadlines don’t move.

#ERPImplementation #ChangeManagement #FinanceTransformation #RefinedOperations #SystemsImplementation by @refinedops

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2 months ago

For the past two weeks I’ve been heads down working on something completely different. I’m the Campaign Manager for Candace Knoll, who is running for School District 43 Board Trustee in the Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and Port Moody area.

Her campaign tagline is ‘Building for Tomorrow’ and if you’re in the Tri-Cities, I’d encourage you to look her up.

The 2026 General Local Elections are in October. School Board Trustees, Mayors, and Councillors are all on the ballot. These are the people making decisions about your schools, your neighbourhoods, and your communities. Please don’t forget to vote and more importantly, take the time to know who you’re voting for.

Campaigning and implementing financial systems have more in common than you’d think. Both require stakeholder alignment. Both live or die on communications. Both have a go-live date you cannot move.

We’re moving into the stage of this series that people ask me about the most.

Stage 4. The Implementation Itself.

This is where everything that was planned, designed, and built gets put to the real test. The data migration runs. The integrations go live. The users log in for the first time.

And that’s exactly where I’m picking up in Episode 4 of Inside a Financial System Implementation.

#FinancialSystems #ERPImplementation #SystemsImplementation #BCElections2026 #CandaceKnollSD43 taken in Vancouver, British Columbia by @refinedops

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2 months ago

For years, I lost my passion for politics.

Growing up in Nigeria, I was inspired by leaders from Cross River State who had genuinely transformed their communities. That admiration turned into a deep desire to build systems that create real, multiplier change — not just for a few, but for everyone.

After spending several years in Canada and the United Kingdom, I returned to Nigeria as a Youth Corper — a national service program that places young graduates in industries across the country to contribute to development. I worked across Oil & Gas consulting and Agricultural Lending, got exposure to million-dollar government projects, and thought I had found my lane.

What I witnessed instead broke something in me. Daily corruption. Government funds misused and rerouted. Leaders holding positions of power who had no intention of using them for the people they served. I kept going for four years — joining non-profits, finding other ways to contribute — but I couldn’t unsee what I had seen. So I left Nigeria and came back to Canada.

My story continues here.

This campaign — supporting Candace Knoll for SD43 Board of Trustees — has re-ignited something I thought I had buried. What it looks like to show up for your community with integrity. What it feels like to be part of something that actually means what it says.

If you’d like to learn more about Candace’s platform, what she stands for, or how to get involved — slide into my DMs. I’d love to tell you more.

#CandaceKnollSD43 #JrBAA #SD43 #Coquitlam #BuildingForTomorrow taken in Coquitlam, British Columbia by @refinedops

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3 months ago

🚦 Go-Live Is Not the Finish Line — It’s the Starting Line
The dominant emotion when a system goes live is almost never celebration. It’s vigilance.

I walk through what the hypercare period actually looks like — the first 30 days when real transactions hit a system your team has only ever used in a controlled environment — and what needs to be in place to catch what testing never caught.

#ERPImplementation #FinancialSystems #DigitalTransformation #BusinessAnalyst #FinanceAndAccounting taken in Vancouver, British Columbia by @refinedops

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3 months ago

Welcome to the implementation.

This is the episode nobody’s vendor demo prepares you for. Not the planning phase. Not the selection process. The actual messy middle — where governance gets tested, teams get tired, and the numbers don’t always match.

If you’re currently in the middle of an ERP or financial system implementation — this episode is for you.

In this episode, I walk you through the four things that actually determine whether an implementation survives its own middle:

🏛️ Project Governance
👥 Team Dynamics
🗂️ The Data Migration Moment of Truth
🔁 Parallel Running — When the Numbers Don’t Match

Who this episode is for:
→ Project leads and executive sponsors currently inside an implementation right now.
→ Finance leaders trying to protect their team’s capacity during a system transition.
→ Business analysts and PMOs building or refining their governance structure.
→ Anyone who has ever sat in a reconciliation meeting where the numbers didn’t add up.

#ERPImplementation #FinancialSystems #ProjectGovernance #FinanceTransformation #ChangeManagement by @refinedops

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4 months ago

“Why is electricity in Cost of Goods Sold?”

It’s one of the most common questions I get asked when walking someone through a manufacturing Chart of Accounts for the first time.

And it’s a fair question. Because most people’s instinct is to put electricity in operating expenses. That’s where utilities live, right?

Not for a manufacturer. Not for a roofing sheet company running roll-forming lines, a galvanising plant, and a painting line.

Here’s the difference that matters.

Operating expenses are the costs of running the business. Cost of Goods Sold is the cost of making the product.

For a roll-forming and galvanising operation, power consumption on the production floor is a direct cost of making the sheet. Not a general overhead.

It’s a production overhead and belongs in COGS.

Why does that distinction matter for your ERP?

Because your cost accounting module maps those overhead accounts to production cost centres. If electricity is sitting in the wrong section, your product costing is off. Your margins are off. And every pricing decision your team makes downstream is based on a number that isn’t accurate.

This is not a reporting problem. It’s a business problem.

And it can be solved right here, in the Chart of Accounts design, before the system ever goes live.

I walk through these kind of nuances in detail in Episode 3 of Inside a Financial System Implementation. A real COA. A real manufacturing company. Real design decisions and why they matter.

Link in the comments. 👇

#COGS #ManufacturingFinance #ERP #ChartOfAccounts #FinanceTransformation taken in Vancouver, British Columbia by @refinedops

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4 months ago

The steel coil arrives on Monday morning.

The zinc coating goes on Tuesday.
The finished sheets leave on a truck Friday.
An invoice gets raised. A payment comes in.

Every single one of those movements- every cost, every dollar of revenue, every asset, every liability- has to live somewhere in the system.

Most people think that “somewhere” is just a list of accounts.

It’s not.

It’s a deliberate, structured decision that determines whether your ERP produces numbers you can actually trust.

That decision is in the Chart of Accounts.

In Episode 3 of Inside a Financial System Implementation, I walk you through a real one built for a roofing sheet manufacturer- tab by tab.

Not theory. Not a template. A live spreadsheet with real account structures, real tax codes, and the real design logic behind every choice.

Yes, the COA doesn’t make it onto the board presentation. Nobody puts it in the go-live announcement. But it is the foundation that every single transaction in your new system will sit on.

Get it wrong… and you are doing workarounds from day one.

Episode 3 is live. Link in the comments.👇

I’m a Business Analyst with a background in finance and accounting. This series is about the implementation and structural side of financial systems.

#FinancialSystems #ERP #ChartOfAccounts #FinanceTransformation #ERPImplementation taken in Vancouver, British Columbia by @refinedops

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4 months ago

Phased cutover, HyperCare, Continuous KPI monitoring. The system is live. But the work isn’t done.

#FinanceTransformation #DigitalTransformation #BusinessAnalysis #FinanceSystems #ERPSolutions taken in Vancouver, British Columbia by @refinedops

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5 months ago