How we sequence a payment platform replatform
Replatforming the billing system and the payment gateway at the same time is a brave decision and usually the wrong one. The two changes have different risk profiles. The billing replatform touches finance reporting and customer-facing invoices. The gateway change touches authorisation rates and recovery. Doing both at once doubles the surface area for things to go wrong.
When a client is set on doing both, we sequence them. Gateway first, with a stable billing platform absorbing any wobble. Then billing, with the new gateway now treated as known good. The total elapsed time is longer than a parallel programme on paper. In practice it is shorter, because each step can be diagnosed cleanly when something behaves unexpectedly.
The other reason to sequence is human. Asking a finance team to validate two new systems in parallel produces a tired finance team and unreliable validation. Sequencing protects the people who will be living with the result.
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