International non-profit · 2022
ERPNext, customised until it fit: five systems replaced by one
Finance, HR, payroll, operations, and expenses unified on a customised ERPNext and Frappe stack with web and mobile apps, for 60% less than the proprietary alternatives.
- ERPNext
- Mobile
- Fractional Leadership
- ERPNext
- Frappe
- Python
- React Native
- −60%
- Cost vs. proprietary ERP
- +35%
- Team throughput
- 5
- Business domains unified
Challenge
A non-profit was running finance, HR, payroll, operations, and expense management across five systems that did not talk to each other. Staff re-keyed the same figures repeatedly, month-end close dragged on for weeks, and the proprietary ERP packages quoted to fix it cost more than the programmes the organisation existed to fund.
Approach
Leapwind came in as fractional engineering leadership. We built on ERPNext and the Frappe framework (customising doctypes, workflows, and permissions to the way the organisation actually worked instead of bending the organisation to fit a proprietary suite), added the mobile app field staff use daily, and stood up the engineering team and delivery process alongside it. Delivery ran on Shape Up: fixed six-week timelines with flexible scope.
Outcome
Five systems became one. The build came in over 60% below the cost of the proprietary alternatives, and the delivery process itself lifted team throughput by around 35%. The engineering team grew from two people to seven over the engagement, with two leads promoted from within.
The organisation’s problem was not that it lacked software. It had plenty: a finance package, a payroll tool, spreadsheets for operations, an expense process that ran on email. The problem was that none of them agreed with each other, so every month someone spent days reconciling numbers that should never have diverged in the first place.
Proprietary ERP vendors had an answer, but the licensing and implementation quotes were difficult to justify for a non-profit: money spent on software is money not spent on programmes.
Why ERPNext
ERPNext already had credible finance, HR, and payroll modules, and the Frappe framework underneath it is genuinely designed to be extended: custom doctypes, server scripts, workflows, and role-based permissions are first-class features rather than escape hatches. That combination put the same capability as the proprietary suites within reach for a fraction of the cost, and left the organisation owning its own system rather than renting it indefinitely.
The customisation work was where the engagement actually lived: modelling the organisation’s real approval chains, its grant and expense structure, and its payroll rules as Frappe doctypes and workflows, then building the mobile app that field staff use to submit expenses without going near a desktop.
Building the team alongside the product
Leapwind’s engagement here was fractional engineering leadership rather than a fixed-scope build: the organisation needed someone to own the technical direction, the delivery process, and the hiring, not just the code.
It started with two engineers and a lot of undefined scope. Over the year we hired and mentored five more, deliberately recruiting talented engineers one to two years into their careers (the level the budget could support) and investing heavily in bringing them up to speed. Two of them had grown into lead engineers by the end of the engagement.
The delivery process mattered as much as the hiring. Requirements had previously been captured in product documents that could never quite specify what engineers needed to know, which meant scope got settled in long meetings instead. Moving to Shape Up (fixing the timeline and flexing the scope) gave engineers the context and the autonomy to make those calls themselves. Meetings shrank, anxiety dropped, and throughput rose about 35%.
What the organisation was left with
One system of record across finance, HR, payroll, operations, and expenses. Mobile apps for the staff who work away from a desk. And, critically, a team that could keep building it: the handover was not a document, it was two lead engineers who had helped design the thing.