After Go-Live: What Post-Implementation Support Really Covers for Production Finance Teams

Go-live is the day a new finance system starts doing real work. For most teams, it is also the day the project plan ends. The trainers move on, the consultants hand over, and the finance team is left to run month-end on software it has only used for a few weeks.

That is when post-go-live support starts to matter. This post looks at what tends to come up in the weeks and months after go-live, the difference between fixing problems and preventing them, and why production finance teams need more ongoing help than most.

What comes up in the weeks and months after go-live

No implementation can predict every question a team will have once a system is in daily use. Testing covers the scenarios you know about. Real productions bring the ones you don't.

Post-go-live requests tend to fall into four groups.

• New starters needing training. Production finance teams change often. A production accountant joins for one series, an assistant moves across from another show, a freelancer covers a busy block. Each person needs to learn how your system is set up, not just how the software works. Microsoft's own Business Central documentation covers the basics, but it can't show someone your coding structure or your approval routes.
• Edge-case reporting requests. A financier asks for spend split a new way. A broadcaster wants a cost report in its own template. Tax relief claims under HMRC's Audio-Visual Expenditure Credits need costs broken down between UK and non-UK spend. These requests rarely appear during scoping, and they usually arrive with a deadline attached.
• System updates. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central online is updated on a fixed cycle, with two major releases a year, in April and October, and minor updates in the other months. Each one can change screens, add features or affect extensions, so someone needs to check that your setup still behaves as expected.
• Process changes. As the team settles in, it starts to spot steps that could be quicker: a new approval stage, a different way of handling petty cash, an automated bank feed. Changes like these are worth making, but they need someone who understands both the software and the knock-on effect on the rest of the system.

Reactive support and proactive support

Most people picture support as a helpdesk. Something breaks, you raise it, someone fixes it. That is reactive support, and it is essential. When a payment run fails the day before crew are paid, you need a fast answer from someone who knows your system.

Reactive support has limits, though. It only starts once a problem has already cost you time. And if the fix only treats the symptom, the same issue comes back next month.

Proactive support looks for problems before they land. In practice, that can mean:

• Testing updates early. Microsoft opens preview sandbox environments about a month before each major release, so extensions and processes can be checked before the update reaches your live system.
• Reviewing how workflows are really used. If invoices are regularly coded to the wrong account, that may point to a gap in setup or training rather than user error.
• Spotting reporting strain. If the team exports figures into spreadsheets to answer the same question every month, a report built in Power BI or within the system could save hours.
• Preparing for new productions. The structure for the next show can be ready before its first invoice arrives.

The two work best together. A good support partner fixes the issue in front of you, then asks why it happened. CTM's support services follow a first time fix approach for exactly this reason: finding the root cause stops a repeat problem from disrupting the next month-end.

Why ongoing support matters more for production finance

A typical business sets up its chart of accounts once and changes it rarely. Production finance does not work like that.

Every new production brings its own budget, cost structure and reporting requirements. A drama series may be split into blocks and episodes. A feature may have several financiers, each wanting a different view. A factual strand may run alongside a scripted series in the same company. In Business Central, much of this is handled with dimensions, which tag transactions by production, episode or department. Each new production means new dimension values, new budgets and often new reports.

The level of activity adds to this. According to the BFI's official statistics, film and high-end TV production spend in the UK reached £6.8 billion in 2025, across 193 films and 168 high-end TV shows. Each of those titles needed finance processes in place quickly, often run by people brought together for that production alone.

So a production finance system is never really finished. It is reshaped production by production. That makes the Business Central support behind it part of everyday operations, rather than an insurance policy you hope never to use.

Before and after: a reporting snag mid-production

The example below is a simplified scenario to show the difference in workflow. It is not based on a specific client.

A production company is six weeks into filming an eight-part drama. The financier asks for a revised cost report showing spend by episode against the latest budget, ahead of a funding drawdown at the end of the week.

Before: no clear support path

The finance team starts building the report. Episode codes were not applied consistently in the first two weeks of filming, so the figures don't add up. Nobody is sure whether the problem sits in the data, the report or the setup.

The team raises a ticket with a general IT provider, who doesn't know how production budgets work and asks for screenshots and a full explanation. Two days pass. Meanwhile, the production accountant rebuilds the report in a spreadsheet, recoding hundreds of transactions by hand.

The report goes out late, with manual adjustments that don't match the ledger. The financier queries the figures. At the next drawdown, the same problem appears again, because its cause was never fixed.

After: CTM support in place

The production accountant calls CTM's in-house support team and speaks to someone who understands production finance. On the call, they find the issue: a batch of early transactions is missing the episode dimension.

Support helps the team correct the coding in the system rather than in a spreadsheet, so the ledger and the report agree. The report runs from live data and reaches the financier on time.

Then comes the proactive step. The account manager looks at why the codes were missed and suggests making the episode dimension mandatory on relevant postings. A short refresher is set up for two assistant accountants who joined mid-shoot. The next drawdown report runs without a hitch.

Both teams hit the same snag. The difference is how much time it costs them, and whether it happens twice.

What to look for in an ERP support partner

If you are reviewing your current ERP support, these questions are a useful starting point:

• Do you speak to someone who understands production finance, or a general helpdesk?
• Are you limited by a ticket allowance, or can you get help when you need it?
• Are updates tested before they reach your live system?
• When something goes wrong, does anyone look at why it happened?
• Do you have a named contact who knows your setup and your upcoming slate?

CTM offers unlimited support with no restrictive ticketing system, an in-house team with more than 125 years of combined TV and film experience, and a dedicated account manager for each customer. That support covers CTM's Just-TV production accounting software and the wider Business Central platform it runs on.

Talk to CTM about support services

Go-live should be the point where your system starts paying back the effort of implementation. With the right support behind it, the system keeps pace as each new production changes what you need from it.

Get in touch with CTM to ask about support service options for your team.