Your business is growing. Like most small businesses, you rely on QuickBooks to run your business. You’ve been tracking your expenses, staying in sync with your bank, emailing professional invoices and paying your employees with QuickBooks for some time now and all is balanced.
Still, you have that aching feeling that something is not quite right. Maybe. . .
- You realize you need a better way to create consolidated financial reports and the flexibility to format reports to meet your requirements.
- You just added an additional location and you realize that QuickBooks is not providing the reports you need to keep up with your growth.
- You will be adding more locations in six months, and you would like to be able to analyze sales based on a combination of location, size and order — spreadsheets would be great.
- Plus, you know that your invoicing is too simplistic and needs to be upgraded to accurately reflect your services.
- Not to mention you just hired two new employees, bringing your full-time employee count to 37, with 12 personnel logging transactions throughout the day. You feel a loyalty to QuickBooks — even an appreciation. You launched your business with QuickBooks, but times have changed, your business has grown and you would like to adopt a more robust system designed to take your accounting to the next level.
If that’s the case, then congratulations! You are ready for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP).
ERP software applications help growing businesses to manage and connect information from all core areas of the enterprise with the aim of improving effective decision making and streamlining accounting and related operational tasks. ERP software solutions promote visibility throughout the entire organization, allowing decision makers to streamline accounting as well as inventory management, order management, human resources, supply chain, product lifecycle, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and more.
With an advanced ERP system, you can boost accounting and related business management processes through built-in visual process flows that allow for ease of use, and flexible personalization. You can establish a strong business management foundation with powerful core accounting and financial modules that streamline everyday chores into simple tasks. You can even customize options — streamlining your entire accounting and purchasing process from order to receipt.
Still Wondering if You Are Ready for ERP?
If any of this sounds familiar, you may be ready to graduate from QuickBooks.
- You are tired of manual processes and basic spreadsheets. You would like a more organized way of automating accounting processes and reducing manual tasks, especially duplicate data entry tasks.
- You want greater efficiency — and control. It’s not enough to pull an Excel report. You want a better way to analyze and track your data. You want quick access to greater information so that you and your team can be more productive and effectual. You find yourself more intrigued by the promise of business intelligence.
- You want to be able to import data from outside systems, like customized billing entries, and you need to enter more than a few transactions a month. A flexible, automated workflow for vendor invoices would be nice. QuickBooks just seems a little too small these days in terms of meeting your accounting requirements.
Outgrowing QuickBooks is a Badge of Honor — You are Successful
QuickBooks did a terrific job in organizing the early days of your business. Now, you are ready for the path to ERP. Evaluating potential ERP solutions for your enterprise can be time-consuming, but essential. The best ERP systems are those with open module architecture and support for everything from purchase management to project management. The expense and time required to adopt an ERP system will be quickly justified when you realize the benefits of managing your business at peak efficiency — ready to face your next stage of growth.
ERP Sign Photo via Shutterstock
Like in other forms of technology, it may take some time to adjust – but it will be worth it.
What you need is not ERP it’s xero.com