The Presentation Layer Gap: What Your ERP Vendor Won't Tell You

When you bought your ERP, the sales deck probably included a slide about "powerful reporting capabilities." Built-in dashboards. Custom report writer. Real-time visibility.

Here you are, three years later, still exporting to Excel every month.

What happened?

The Promise vs. Reality

ERP vendors sell reporting as a feature. And technically, it is. ERPs have reporting modules. They generate reports. They can even be customized.

But there's a gap between "can generate reports" and "produces the reports stakeholders actually need."

That gap is the presentation layer—and your ERP vendor won't tell you it's missing.

What ERPs Actually Produce

ERP reports are designed for operational needs:

Transaction listings: Every invoice, every payment, every journal entry.

Aging reports: Who owes money, how long they've owed it.

Trial balances: Every account, every balance, at a point in time.

Standard financials: Income statement, balance sheet, cash flow—in standard formats.

These are useful. They're also not what boards and executives need.

What Stakeholders Actually Need

Board members and executives need:

Management views: P&L by business unit, not by natural account. Revenue by product line, not by customer.

Variance analysis: Budget vs. actual vs. prior year, with explanations.

Trend visualization: Charts showing trajectory, not just current numbers.

Narrative context: What does this mean? Why did it change? What should we do?

Consistent formatting: Same structure every period. Same presentation every time.

ERPs don't produce this. They produce the raw material. The transformation is up to you.

The Presentation Layer Gap

Between ERP output and stakeholder needs, there's a gap. That gap includes:

Data transformation: Mapping GL accounts to management categories.

Period handling: Roll-forwards, comparatives, historical views.

Calculation layer: Variances, percentages, trend calculations.

Visualization: Charts, graphs, visual communication.

Narrative space: Commentary, explanations, recommendations.

Workflow: Draft → review → approve → publish.

None of this exists in your ERP. All of it exists in your reporting reality.

Why Vendors Don't Mention This

ERP vendors don't highlight the presentation layer gap for several reasons:

Scope limitation: They sell transaction systems. Presentation is outside their focus.

Upsell opportunity: That gap is filled by expensive add-on modules or consulting services.

Market positioning: Admitting the gap makes the product look incomplete.

Customer blindness: Buyers focus on operational needs during selection. Reporting gaps emerge later.

The result: you discover the gap after implementation, when it's too late to revisit the decision.

How Teams Currently Fill the Gap

Most teams fill the presentation layer gap with manual work:

Export data from ERP
Transform in Excel
Build visualizations
Add commentary
Format for distribution
Repeat monthly

This works. It's also expensive, error-prone, and non-scalable.

The Intentional Solution

Filling the gap intentionally means acknowledging that:

Your ERP is for transactions
Your BI tool is for dashboards
Neither is designed for recurring management reports

And therefore:

You need a presentation layer
That layer should be purpose-built
Or explicitly constructed from other tools

The worst outcome is filling the gap accidentally with spreadsheets that weren't designed to be a system.

Evaluating Your Gap

Ask these questions:

What happens between ERP close and board deck distribution?
How many hours does that process take?
How much is manual vs. automated?
What breaks and needs fixing each month?
Where do errors typically occur?

The answers reveal your gap. The gap reveals your opportunity.

The Vendor Conversation

When your ERP vendor asks about reporting needs, get specific:

"Show me how to produce a P&L by business unit with budget variance and prior year comparison."

"Show me how to generate a waterfall chart of EBITDA variance drivers."

"Show me how to archive monthly commentary with the numbers it explains."

Watch their response. The hesitation tells you where their product ends and your problem begins.

The presentation layer gap is real. Your ERP vendor won't tell you about it.

Now you know.