The 90-day implementation runbook
This is what implementation actually looks like, week by week. We have refined this plan across multiple deployments. Use it to set expectations with your board, your IT team, and your auditor.
Sprint at a glance
Weeks 1 to 2: foundations. Project kickoff, configuration workshops, integration discovery. Weeks 3 to 6: configuration and integration. SquareNow configured for your products, integrations live. Weeks 7 to 9: parallel run and UAT. Live data flowing, exceptions identified and resolved. Weeks 10 to 11: training and rehearsal. Field officers, ops team, finance, audit functions trained. Week 12: cutover. Live disbursement on SquareNow. Weeks 13 to 16: hypercare. Daily standups, real-time issue resolution, optimisation.
Week by week
Week 1
Project kickoff. Steering committee constituted. Roles assigned. Integration discovery: list of systems SquareNow needs to connect with on day 1. Configuration workshops scheduled.
Week 2
Configuration workshops. Loan products mapped. Credit policy translated into the rule engine. User roles and access matrix designed. Reporting templates identified.
Week 3
Integration build begins. KYC, payment, bureau connectors configured. Core banking integration scoped.
Week 4
Configuration completed in development environment. First end-to-end test transaction processed.
Week 5
Core banking integration goes live in test. Reconciliation rules configured. AI agent rule sets calibrated against your credit policy.
Week 6
Internal smoke test pass. All integrations stable in test environment. Ready for parallel run.
Week 7
Parallel run begins. Live data flows into SquareNow alongside your existing system. Exceptions logged daily.
Week 8
Parallel run continues. Exception resolution. Data migration plan finalised for legacy book.
Week 9
UAT with your core team. Acceptance criteria signed off.
Week 10
Training begins. Field officers trained on the mobile app. Ops team trained on the back office. Finance trained on the reporting layer.
Week 11
Cutover rehearsal. Final UAT pass. Migration of legacy loan book scheduled.
Week 12
Cutover. Live disbursement on SquareNow. Legacy system runs in read-only mode for 30 days.
Weeks 13 to 16
Hypercare. Daily standup with our team. Issue resolution within 24 hours. Performance and process optimisation.
What you need to bring
An executive sponsor. A project manager. A core team of 4 to 6 people across credit, ops, IT, and finance. Time on calendars for the workshops in weeks 1 to 4.
What we bring
Implementation lead. Solutions architect. Integration engineers. Training team. Customer success manager.
Common reasons implementations slip
Three. Underestimating the field officer training window — fix it by allocating 2 weeks for parallel run instead of 1. Under-scoping reporting — fix it by picking the 8 reports your CFO actually looks at and ignoring the other 40 until post-launch. Treating it as an IT project instead of an operations project — fix it by giving the COO ownership and IT support, not the other way around.
We have seen these three slip every implementation. We will tell you about them on day 1.
After cutover
Monthly business review for the first 90 days. Quarterly executive review thereafter. Customer success manager remains your day-to-day contact.