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Peter Nicholson

Business Intelligence & Data Enthusiast from the UK

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Peter Nicholson

Your second ERP migration is a different project

23 Jul 2026 · 6 min read

Your second ERP migration is a different project

The thing keeping you on a system everyone hates isn't the system. It's the scar tissue from the first migration. And round two is a different project — easier, better understood, and mostly a matter of not squandering everything you learned the first time.

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Nobody models the Fabric bill until it lands

1 Jul 2026 · 2 min read

Nobody models the Fabric bill until it lands

Fabric pricing guides focus on SKUs and thresholds, but the real cost emerges after deployment. In Microsoft Fabric, shared capacity means every refresh, model, and pipeline draws from one pool—so ongoing spend is driven less by licensing choice and more by architecture and governance.

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Semantic model sprawl is a symptom, not the disease

29 Jun 2026 · 2 min read

Semantic model sprawl is a symptom, not the disease

Semantic model sprawl isn't caused by having too many Power BI models. It's caused by having too many competing definitions of the business. Fix the numbers everyone trusts, and the model count largely takes care of itself.

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Keeping your ERP upgrades boring

27 Jun 2026 · 4 min read

Keeping your ERP upgrades boring

ERP upgrades shouldn't be exciting. If yours are, you're probably paying for decisions you made years ago. Here's why boring upgrades are the mark of a healthy ERP.

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What to extract before you replace your ERP

19 Jun 2026 · 3 min read

What to extract before you replace your ERP

When you replace an ERP, you're ending a ten-year conversation between people and software. That conversation is messy, half-finished, and full of workarounds nobody ever wrote

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The semantic model finally has its moment

14 Jun 2026 · 3 min read

The semantic model finally has its moment

Eighteen months ago I presented a talk called "Why a Semantic Model is the LLM's Best Data Source." It wasn't a contentious position in

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How to Choose an ERP: Where Do You Even Start?

13 Jun 2026 · 7 min read

How to Choose an ERP: Where Do You Even Start?

Choosing the wrong ERP is one of the most expensive mistakes a business can make. A company sits through a slick demo, falls for the system that looks great, signs

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The budget dashboard I promised you three years ago

28 May 2026 · 3 min read

The budget dashboard I promised you three years ago

In November 2021, I wrote a post about leaving YNAB. Near the end of it I made two promises: that I'd write properly about Buckets once I'

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Four apps and a Mac Mini under the stairs

24 May 2026 · 3 min read

Four apps and a Mac Mini under the stairs

I have a Mac Mini that runs 24/7. It's called stoa — after the Stoa Poikile, the painted porch in Athens where Zeno taught, which is either a

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21 May 2026 · 5 min read

Upgrade or Migrate? How to Tell Which Your ERP Project Really Is

Every ERP project ends up at the same fork in the road. Upgrade what you have, or migrate to something new. Most teams pick badly — not because they pick the

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15 May 2026 · 5 min read

5 Conditions for a 6-Month ERP Implementation

Can you actually implement an ERP in six months? The short answer is yes — but only if five specific conditions are true. If any one of them is missing, you're not running a six-month ERP project. You're running a twelve-month one with a six-month deadline strapped to it.

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Teaching an LLM to use Acumatica

19 Apr 2026 · 4 min read

Teaching an LLM to use Acumatica

Most questions people ask of an ERP don't need a report. They need an answer. "Do we have stock of ABC-1234?" "Where's

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23 Mar 2026 · 5 min read

5 Reasons Your ERP Project Falls Apart Before Go-Live

Companies spend months selecting the right ERP. They go through procurement, get board approval, sign the contract, and everyone gets excited. Then, three months into the project, the wheels start

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Why Your ERP Training Isn’t Working (And How to Fix It)

10 Mar 2026 · 6 min read

Why Your ERP Training Isn’t Working (And How to Fix It)

What actually makes ERP training stick? Been through a few ERP implementations now, and training is always the phase that gets the least strategic thinking despite being the one that determines ROI more than almost anything else.

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5 Mar 2026 · 6 min read

The Shipping Team's Secret Weapon: What a Modern ERP Can Do for Your Logistics Operation

How a modern ERP transforms the shipping function — from carrier integrations and real-time inventory to smarter picking and tighter collaboration with sales.

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27 Feb 2026 · 6 min read

5 Reasons Your ERP Go-Live Will Fail (And How to Prevent It)

Five reasons ERP go-lives fail — from consultants who don't understand the business to underestimating that critical first week.

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20 Feb 2026 · 6 min read

Acumatica Summit 2026: What Actually Matters (And What's Still Hype)

My honest take on Acumatica Summit 2026 — what AI features are actually shipping, what's still catching up, and what matters for your business.

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20 Feb 2026 · 5 min read

Why Parallel Running Your ERP Systems Is Almost Never a Good Idea

Why keeping your old ERP running alongside your new one isn't the safety net it seems — and what to do instead to protect your go-live.

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