Have You Outgrown Your Accounting Software? Here's How to Tell.

Is your accounting software putting your business at risk? Watch out for these warning signs.

Is Your Accounting Software Putting Your Business at Risk?

Many businesses start with a simple accounting system like QuickBooks to manage their financial data. They supplement their basic system with third-party tools like Microsoft Excel to track inventory and Outlook to manage contacts and appointments. It’s a good way to get your operations up and running quickly and on the cheap, as you just start out. But is your accounting system still up to the job?

As your business grows in complexity and transaction volumes, and your customers expect better and faster service, the tools that once supported you may now be standing in your way. How do you know if your accounting-only software is risking your business and keeping you from growth? Here are some common challenges that indicate your SMB has outgrown its accounting software and is ready to take the plunge and adopt an ERP system.

Signs That You Have Outgrown Your Accounting Software

You're wasting time dealing with multiple systems that can’t talk to each other.

If you are using multiple separate software systems to manage different aspects of your business, you understand firsthand how frustrating it can be when the systems don’t link up. If your accounting software could ‘talk’ to your database, your business processes would likely be much more efficient. Instead, your team is stuck with manually re-entering and reconciling data across various systems. That’s a lot of time and effort wasted on manual data entry. Then there is also the risk that all that manual work could lead to errors, which can add up in costs if you must find and fix it. At the end of the day, if you don’t have a central source of real-time data, chances are high that you have duplicate or conflicting data.

You rely on spreadsheets for inventory tracking.

If you find yourself using spreadsheets to track and update inventory records, it may be time to upgrade from your accounting software. Managing stock with spreadsheets can be risky because of human error. Not only are mistakes, like incorrect items being shipped out, costly but they could also affect your customer relationships and brand image. If you want to improve your inventory management, adopting an ERP solution is key. It allows you to monitor everything from one platform, track the movement of each item through its lifecycle, and even help predict demand, allocate resources, and optimize your stock.

Creating reports is complicated and doesn’t give you the information you need.

Your accounting software can generate reports on your financials. Suppose you want to know which product is selling the best, which region is performing well, or how that stock shortage affected sales? That kind of visibility will be difficult to achieve. You may try to work around this by exporting your financial data to Excel and cross-referencing those with data from other business areas – but this takes up a lot of time. It’s also not the most accurate way to go about it. What’s needed here is detailed and accurate business intelligence. BI dashboards can give you real-time reporting and analytics across the business and are often included as part of an ERP software solution, such as Dynamics 365 Business Central.

There is no forecasting or budgeting, and you rely a lot on guesswork.

Business instincts are all well and good, but at a certain stage, you need hard cold facts to help you make better business decisions. If you have data sitting in different systems or documents, it’s difficult to get accurate information to do the proper analysis. Accounting software only goes so far. To get access to features like intelligent sales and inventory forecasting, you’ll need an ERP solution.

Other Signs to Watch Out For:

• Incomplete or incorrect data results in customer dissatisfaction and lost sales.

• You are losing productivity by spending time switching back and forth between multiple applications and disconnected systems.

• Manual processes are causing errors and you are unable to keep up with increasing customer demand.

• Custom workarounds are a regular and time-consuming occurrence.

• Closing the month takes too much time and more effort

• Your team is drowning in paperwork and it is hard to keep track of invoices.

How a Cloud ERP Solution Can Help

The decision to adopt an ERP solution is critical if you are facing these challenges and you want to keep growing your business. A cloud ERP solution can help your growing business by streamlining all your processes, unifying business areas, improving decision-making with real-time reporting, increasing efficiency, and more. And by selecting a cloud ERP solution, you can get your business up and running in no time – without requiring a significant upfront investment. Learn more about how an ERP can help your business.

Once you’ve determined it is time to adopt a cloud ERP solution, the next step is choosing the right solution. That’s where Kwixand Solutions comes in. We can evaluate your business and help you choose the best solution for your needs. Book a free consultation with us today to get started.