Product brief — Strategic diagnostic

Unit4 X-Ray

A fixed-price, three-week strategic diagnostic of a Unit4 Business World installation. Configuration drift, defect inventory, control gaps, undocumented architecture, capability deficit — assessed end-to-end and delivered as an executive-grade report with prioritised remediation roadmap.

Price

£14,750fixed, all-inclusive

Duration

3 weekselapsed

Approval

Single officerbelow committee threshold

Output

Executive report+ technical blueprint

When a Unit4 X-Ray is the right next step

Most UK councils running Unit4 Business World are carrying years of accumulated configuration debt, undocumented architecture, and quiet control gaps. Nobody knows the full picture. The original implementation team has long since left. The current support team firefights tickets without seeing the system end-to-end.

Unit4 X-Ray exists to surface what is actually inside the system before a council commits to its next major decision — cloud migration, ERP replacement, payroll transformation, or external audit response. You cannot make a strategic Unit4 decision against a system you do not currently understand.

The output is not a sales pitch for further consulting. It is an executive-grade written assessment that the S.151 Officer, Director of Financial Management, or Head of Systems can take to their leadership team and act on.

What the diagnostic covers

Six assessment domains. Every one is a known source of strategic risk in council Unit4 estates.

Domain 01

Configuration drift

What has been changed since go-live, by whom, with what authorisation trail, and what the cumulative effect is on system behaviour.

Domain 02

Defect inventory

Known and unknown defects affecting calculations, workflow, integrations and reporting. Severity-ranked with root-cause attribution.

Domain 03

Control gaps

Audit-grade controls that are missing, broken, or bypassed. Particular focus on segregation of duties, change governance, and direct table edits.

Domain 04

Undocumented architecture

Workflow rules, scheduled processes, custom forms and integrations that nobody currently understands. Reverse-engineered against live data.

Domain 05

Capability deficit

Where the council's internal team can and cannot operate the system without external escalation. Tied to remediation cost and risk.

Domain 06

Cloud-readiness posture

What in the current estate will and will not survive a Unit4 ERPx migration without remediation. Critical input to any go/no-go decision.

What you receive

Three deliverables. Each one usable on its own, with each audience.

Deliverable 01 — Executive report

Plain-English strategic assessment for council leadership

Written for the S.151 Officer, Director of Financial Management, Head of HR or equivalent. Pyramid-structured, navy-palette, McKinsey-style. The reader extracts the strategic position from the first paragraph and the headings alone, with full evidence available below.

Deliverable 02 — Technical configuration blueprint

Full technical assessment for the systems team

Configuration inventory, workflow architecture, defect register, control map, schema annotations. Written so the council's internal Unit4 team can act on findings directly, without needing the consultant to interpret.

Deliverable 03 — Prioritised remediation roadmap

Sequenced action plan with effort and risk profile

Every finding ranked by strategic risk, audit exposure, and remediation cost. Clear distinction between fixes the council can take in-house, fixes that need targeted specialist support, and fixes that wait for the next major programme.

Process & timeline

Three weeks elapsed. Embedded delivery, not a remote audit.

Week 01 — Discovery

System access, stakeholder interviews, evidence collection

Read-only access to the Unit4 environment, interviews with HR, payroll, finance, systems, and audit stakeholders. Initial defect and control evidence collected.

Week 02 — Analysis

Diagnostic queries, configuration trace, root-cause attribution

Embedded analysis of system tables, workflow architecture, scheduled processes, and control implementation. Findings traced from raw data to strategic implication.

Week 03 — Synthesis & delivery

Executive report drafted, technical blueprint written, roadmap sequenced

All three deliverables produced, reviewed with the sponsor, and presented to council leadership. Findings, evidence and recommendations land together.

Pricing & procurement

Priced deliberately so it can be authorised by the right person, at the right level, without going through committee.

Unit4 X-Ray — fixed price

£14,750

All-inclusive. Three weeks elapsed. No expenses, no extras, no scope creep.

Below typical single-officer authorisation thresholds in UK local government
Procurable without competitive tender at most councils
Fixed scope, fixed price, fixed timeline — sponsor sees full deliverable list at engagement
Three executive-grade deliverables, all reusable internally
SQL evidence pack and diagnostic queries handed over for internal reuse

Commission a Unit4 X-Ray

If your council is approaching a strategic decision against a Unit4 estate that nobody currently understands end-to-end, start here. A thirty-minute scoping call confirms the engagement is right for the council, and the engagement itself runs three weeks from start.

Discuss an engagement See PolicyAI