Business constantly evolves. As it does, it needs the right team and the correct accounting solution to support it.
One of the core needs of any business is to have a solid accounting system to help it understand its profitability, cash flows, send & record invoices, etc.
At some point, a business outgrows or has different demands for its current accounting package, at this point a decision needs to be made for the next step.
The choice is not simple as there are so many options:
• Stay as we are and try to cope (possibly with more people)
• Buy additional software or use spreadsheets to bridge the gap
• Upgrade the existing system
• Go out and replace what we have
• Re-evaluate what we need and then find a new solution
Every business is different and as a result, has different requirements from an accounting solution. It is therefore important that you identify what you want and perhaps more importantly, what you need.
It is not just about what you need now but what you will need in the future to support the long-term goals of your business. You can choose to have all those needs met at once (the big bang approach) or you stagger the project to build up features to meet your vision over time (the phased approach).
Your business will have several goals/targets that you want to achieve over the short to medium term (1-5 years). It is therefore vital that you consider these goals when identifying your ideal accounting solution; a good choice will help you meet these with greater ease.
We have included a few examples for you:
| Company Goal | Functionality / Capability |
|---|---|
| Increase revenues | Manage 30% more transactions per month |
| Enable Effective Homeworking | Single solution rather than multiple disparate systems/spreadsheets |
| Maintain a lean IT team | Run-on the cloud and be vendor managed |
| Improve reporting | Enable more sophisticated reporting and deliver these rapidly |
| Increase funding | Ability to consolidate financial data to report on business activities and growth trends |
| Sell more online | Integrate with Shopify |
In addition to the goals and targets of your business, it is also essential to consider the crucial requirements you have from a new accountancy solution.
Part of sustainable growth is being honest with what tasks you can handle and which ones to ask external suppliers to help address. With the correct accounting solution, you should be able to automate many of the daily tasks of your finance team, improving processes and reducing the need to employ more staff as your business grows.
The following checklist should help with your decision-making process.
| Requirement | Important | Reasonably Important | Not Important |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do I want a cloud solution or want one on my server? | |||
| Help the business work (operate processes) the way I want | |||
| Make sure data is held securely | |||
| Get better reporting and / or dashboards | |||
| Help me see what is going on in the business | |||
| Cope with high numbers of transactions | |||
| Can I connect it to other systems to save on data entry | |||
| Will it work on PCs, Macs, Mobile devices, etc. | |||
| Can it be adapted to meet new requirements | |||
| Can it be used away from the office | |||
| Is there a vision for the product and can I contribute to that | |||
| Will users find it easy to use |
Our next blog post will be looking at the technology trends that are transforming finance departments. To keep up to date with our latest blog posts, please subscribe to our newsletter.