For many businesses, Quickbooks or Sage 50 is the first and only accounting solution they will ever need. That’s understandable because those applications do their job very well. They both also have a large eco system of add-ons to expand their capabilities. But as your business grows, you may find that you need something more.
Most businesses grow. Their size and complexity can reach a point where those financial management solutions start holding back the growth of the organization. When these organizations realise their financial management system is holding them back, they start to look for a cloud-based ERP system.
Your business runs better when there is seamless collaboration between finance and the other departments/functions in the business. Some accounting systems don’t integrate well with other tools and systems. These systems leave you managing manual processes, spreadsheets and workarounds that only produce slower workflows because you need to rekey the same data in multiple places and systems.
How do you know it is the right time to move to a comprehensive system with a single point of entry?
There are several key problem areas you can look for that indicate the time has come to upgrade your systems and graduate from Quickbooks or Sage 50. Here’s a look at the major pain points you can use as a guide.
Re-keying data
To run your business, you need to re key data into multiple systems. For example, your eCommerce system is not integrated with your inventory or financial system, so every order needs to have your inventory manually updated then the order needs to be manually entered into your financial management system.
Without integrated systems the friction of re keying data seems inexpensive but it’s actually very expensive because of the labour cost and the friction created makes it even more difficult to grow your business. Why make a difficult thing even more difficult and spend more money than you need to?
Excel is increasingly the source of your reports
As your business grows so does your need for information. In the beginning you are involved in everything but over time you begin to lose that hands-on knowledge and need to rely on reports.
Your reporting needs often outpace what your financial system provides. Unbeknownst to you and behind the scenes your people are taking multiple reports then manually mashing them together in Excel to give you what you need. This is not a good use of time. It certainly is not interesting work.
They may be taking reports from two different systems then merging that data in Excel to provide that single report. Or, maybe the data needs to be sliced and diced but your software doesn’t collect the data necessary to do that. This is why reports are often manually built in Excel.
Reports are slow to arrive or arrive late
If 40 to 60% of your reports are manually created in Excel each time they are needed, you are probably experiencing delays receiving them.
Today, your business has grown such that more people need better reports and they expect those reports faster than ever. Real time dashboards that show your key metrics and enable drill down into the details would really help too.
If 40 to 60% of your reports are manually created in Excel each time they are needed, you are probably experiencing delays receiving them.
You are managing multiple companies
Quickbooks and Sage 50 were developed as desktop solutions. They were not designed to handle the needs of businesses with multiple companies. This means each new entity feels like starting from the beginning. Customizations need to be reconfigured, the chart of accounts created from the start and all companies are distinct silos from each other.
Because of this, inter-entity transactions must be manually keyed into each company to ensure the books are balanced. It also means consolidated reports take hours to refresh. Ultimately, these things delay your month end and month end reports. It can feel like running on a treadmill: always running but never going anywhere.
You need to be in the office to access your financial system
With on-premises software, you have two choices: work in the office or set up remote access. In our current environment, working remotely is critical because we don’t know when we can have a normal office routine.
Modern cloud ERP systems give you and your team the ability to be very effective when working remotely. And, best of all a cloud ERP software system allows you to manage and monitor your business from anywhere, any time.
Are any of these pain points familiar? If this is you and you would like a way out, get in touch for a no-obligation discussion to learn about your options.
