Bigger pants are not always a bad thing
Remember when you first went out and bought Quickbooks and figured out how to use it? Great tool to help me keep track of the financial piece of the business you thought, especially when first starting out and things are relatively simple.
Now, through your brilliance and exemplary business management skills, the business has changed through growth. Maybe you have a multiple company structure, or your org chart has a lot more boxes listing different departments, each with their own systems in place managing their own operations and data. You wince in pain as you realize the heads of each of those departments need to take that data and rekey it into the central system. Or it might even be more painful because you have to do it yourself.
Here are some more signs that your business is ready for an upgrade:
(click link to see how to make the switch)
Product limitation frustration-Small business accounting software such as Quickbooks is designed for very basic accounting functions and financial tracking necessary for a business. Once you get to the point where you realize that you want the data from all departments in one place, where everyone on the system can enter, use and see that data in real time to create reports or combine data from multiple departments, it is time to look for a scalable platform as opposed to an “accounting lite” off the shelf product.
Inefficiency and bad data-If you are in fact pulling spreadsheets from multiple departments and rekeying that data into Quickbooks, this is more like a billboard than a sign. You are a business owner and you understand the cost of personnel taking time to do this when they could be performing other activities conducive to profitability. And then you add not the possibility, but the inevitability of data entry mistakes causing data corruptions that could have a serious impact on your business. This is when it becomes more of an urgent imperative than a “maybe I should think about upgrading my financial system”
Business Chokepoints-The worst aspect of being at the point of outgrowing Quickbooks is that it can actually stifle additional growth. You try to make due because you see have done some due diligence and come to the conclusion that the real answer is ERP, and you see this as a large expense compared to your three figure investment in Quickbooks. There is where lost opportunity cost and return on investment come into play. The efficiencies, data visibility and reporting flexibility within an ERP system designed for small to midsized businesses such as Sage 300 ERP very often trump the investment cost through ROI, or return on investment. It also eliminates the lost opportunity costs that arise when your financial and business management systems are not aligned with the real needs of your business.
Sage 300 ERP (formerly ACCPAC) is a solid answer to these problems
Yes, here at Equation Technologies, we represent Sage 300 ERP as a reseller so we have interests in promoting it. On the other hand, we have a very keen understanding of its value to small businesses that grow into the need for its functionality. We take the approach of educating and carefully selecting our clients based on their needs and matching those needs with the right pieces of functionality that exist within the solution.
We encourage you to find out more about Sage 300 ERP with the information throughout our site, and to visit our client case studies page to find out more about how we have been able to help businesses leverage the power of the Sage 300 solution.
