Consolidating locations onto one system
Each location works. The problem appears when you try to compare them — different products named differently, different reporting periods, and a head-office view that is really a spreadsheet somebody rebuilds every month.
Two sites, two systems, and figures that never quite agree
The real problem is the catalogue, not the software
When sites are consolidated, the migration people expect is technical and the migration they get is editorial. The same product is called three things, priced two ways and sits in different categories at each location — and until that is reconciled, a group-level report is arithmetic performed on things that are not comparable.
This is the one situation on this page where the mapping call takes real work, and where doing it properly is most of the value. The catalogue you agree becomes the thing that makes every subsequent question answerable in one place.
Sequencing across sites
Move one location first, run it for a full trading week, and let it be the template. The second site then inherits a catalogue that already works rather than negotiating its own, which is both faster and the reason the group figures line up afterwards.
Do not switch every site on the same day. There is no operational reason to, and it converts a manageable first week into a bad one.
What stays local
Prices, staff and stock stay per-site — consolidating systems is not the same as flattening how each location trades, and a group that quietly imposes one price list on a site with different costs will hear about it. What consolidates is the reporting, the product vocabulary and the administration.
The general guide
What comes across, what does not, and when switching is the wrong call this month — all of it applies whatever you are moving from.
Read the full switching guide