Realistic budgets

A quote that only shows the model price lies by omission. The model is the smallest line. The bill is understanding the flow, wiring what you already have, training two people, and running the first month without breaking Monday.

SMEs are surprised by the 3× because they compared a free demo with a project. They are not the same. Here is a breakdown you can ask for in any proposal, including ours.

Five lines that should be visible

• Flow design. Interviews, pilot sentence, data perimeter, success criteria. If this is zero, someone is giving it away or it will not happen.
• Implementation. Setup, templates, queues, validations. Hours from someone who has done this before.
• Integration. File, API, or — if there is no other way — RPA. This is the line that explodes when “the ERP will not play”.
• Training and support. Champions, review at day 14 and 45. Without this you pay for implementation twice.
• Operations. Licences, usage, logs, support, someone internal with protected time. This does not end at go-live.

The hidden 3×, named

Unbudgeted internal hours (“admin will glance at it”). Rework when the first scope was a wishlist. Connectors the salesperson assumed. A month of running both processes. A mid-stream vendor change because nobody read the clauses.

Also: the cost of no kill switch (a Friday undoing orders). And the cost of training the whole company instead of two champions. That does not show up in the licence. It shows up in the P&L.

How to read a quote

No week-2 deliverable: vapour. No volume assumption (documents, tickets): usage price is a drawing. Integration “to be defined”: budget double. Training as a one-day workshop with no review: budget another implementation.

Ask the cost of leaving: export, retention, hours. Ask what stays in your house if they vanish. If the answer is “the tool”, not the written process, you are buying lock-in.

Vouchers, public prices, honesty

Kit Consulting advisory services are listed on this site at 6,000 € each. Kit Digital depends on the solution and on size. A voucher does not make a pilot “free”: it may fund part of eligible work if there is adhesion and justification. Until Red.es decides, there is no accounting miracle.

Do not mix implementation with “we will also do the site, the ERP and the AI” on one line. Cut. An honest budget fits on one page.

An order so you do not pay twice

Priority matrix → pilot sentence → legal perimeter → quote with the five lines → yes or no. Reversing that (pick tool, find problem, then chase a voucher) is the road to 3×.

A sample breakdown (invoice extraction)

Flow design and perimeter: a few days. Queue, tax-ID/VAT rules and trays: more days. Integration: zero if it lands in a sheet; a separate block if an API must be opened. Training two people and two reviews: not an extra. Licence and usage at 80 PDFs/week: the small line. Internal admin hours: the ones they already spent typing, now reviewing — still in the budget, different nature.

If a quote gives you one closed “turnkey” number without those lines, ask what happens when the ERP will not export. The silence is the 3×.

We quote when there is a sentence and a volume. Before that, the conversation is orientation, not an invented price.

Internal hours: how not to lie to ourselves

Count the hours already going into the process (typing, searching, rework). The pilot does not delete them on day one: it moves them (review, exceptions, the metrics sheet). If leadership expects “zero internal hours”, they are buying magic and they will be angry on Friday.

Put those hours on the same page as the vendor invoice. If you do not, the 3× comes back as “we have no time” and the tool gets the blame.

Put a “coexistence” line on the page: one month with both processes in parallel. It is not a luxury. It is the insurance that Monday can be rolled back. Anyone who cuts it to “make the voucher fit” is buying the 3× under another name.

And write down who pays the hours if the ERP vendor takes a month. That limbo cannot fall on admin alone.

Frequently asked questions

How much is “a pilot” in the abstract?

There is no universal number. There is a range once you have a sentence, a volume and a system. Without that, any figure is marketing.

Cheaper in-house?

Cheaper on the invoice, dearer on the calendar if nobody has protected time. Internal hours are budget too.

Can we go licence-only?

You can. Almost nobody runs a habit that way. A licence without a flow is a subscription to frustration.

Next: prioritising and the start checklist. Ask for a quote with volume and current system.