Finding the right ERP solution allows you to run your business efficiently in a way that isn't possible with QuickBooks. Learn how to know when it's time to upgrade.
Your small business is no longer small, and that's a good thing. But if you're still using QuickBooks, you're wasting time and money trying to make this entry-level software keep up.
QuickBooks is popular, easy to use, and offers basic accounting functionality. But it fails when meaningful growth and operational complexity occurs. As you expand geographically, add warehouses, create new entities, welcome new team members, and offer more products and services, QuickBooks inefficiencies will drain your resources and shift your focus away from strategy and innovation.
You might think moving from QuickBooks to an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution is complicated and expensive, but it's not—especially compared to wasting money and effort on an outdated and inadequate system.
Here are seven surefire signs that QuickBooks has run its course for your business.
Information in QuickBooks is spread across multiple applications and has no central location for data analysis. That means spreadsheets become an inevitable—and dangerous—solution. Importing data and manipulating it in Excel wastes time and leads to expensive errors, out-of-date data, and security risks.
Integration outside the core QuickBooks application is weak or non-existent. And without vital connections to other critical business applications, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and eCommerce, you have to manually research, enter, re-enter, and verify data in multiple locations.
QuickBooks cannot provide deep financial and operational insights, handle complex needs such as multi-entity consolidation, or provide real-time information. It also can't customize slice and dice reports or data, preventing you from making bold decisions quickly.
If you're working with multiple systems and cluttering spreadsheets, it's difficult to make accurate forecasts—and without accurate forecasts, you can't make quick strategic decisions to outsmart your competitors. You need to be able to continually predict when revenue will be recognized and when cash will come in.
As your data volume increases, you will notice menu and screen delays in QuickBooks. It will take longer to print reports, and the software will crash during queries and other basic functions. Crunching more numbers will cause QuickBooks to become sluggish and force users to exit the program to maintain data files. Worst case scenario? QuickBooks crashes and loses your data.
QuickBooks only provides basic reporting functionality suitable for the average user, and its lack of dashboards limits visibility into your financial and operational performance. If your executive team wants answers, you don't have time to debate information. And if customers, suppliers, and regulators ask for unique reports, you can't find them in QuickBooks—and you don't have the tools to create them.
Former QuickBooks users stated that the negative effect on customers was the main reason for switching to ERP. When customers experience wrong orders, late deliveries, and overall dissatisfaction, revenue drops, and your brand suffers.
Unlike QuickBooks, ERP solutions are designed for growing small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). With ERP, every aspect of your business—including finance, human resources, CRM, procurement, projects, and supply chain—comes together in one powerful, easy-to-use platform.
ERP solutions allow you to share information across all business departments. That means your accounting team can easily report money coming in and going out. Your executive team has real-time information for future planning. Your sales team knows how much inventory is available—or, if inventory is out, when it will be available. Your purchasing managers know what to buy, and what future demand will look like. From the workers in your warehouse to your CEO, ERP solutions provide complete visibility into your operations by centralizing your information in one database.
ERP adapts to the way you run your business, not the other way around. You can deploy an ERP solution on-premises, in the cloud, or a combination of both. Depending on the ERP solution, cloud deployments can be in multi-tenant environments (MTE) or single-tenant environments (STE).
With the right ERP solution, you can integrate seamlessly with other applications, automate critical processes, better serve your customers, and run your business efficiently in ways that aren't possible with QuickBooks.
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