You chose QuickBooks Pro or Premier as the accounting solution for your small business because it met your needs.
But is it still doing that?
Maybe the time has come to replace your accounting solution with an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution. Properly implemented, an ERP solution can change those growing pains to growth gains.
An ERP solution can be the tool your small business needs to:
1) Manage inventory more efficiently.
ERP solutions are built on more robust databases, so they have the power to handle larger inventories. If you have thousands of items in your inventory and it’s still growing, an ERP system can handle it – and make your inventory more manageable by making your data more accessible.
Rick Rolater of By Nature Gallery found an accounting system that was the perfect solution to his inventory problems. With over 85,000 items on file and more arriving daily from all different suppliers, he needed a solution that would fit his business’s unique needs.
Now Rick knows his exact inventory and profitability.
“Vendors are always trying to sell you things they think are going to sell,” he says. “It’s very easy for inventory to creep up without you realizing it, so it’s critical to have this information up-to-date and at your fingertips”.
2) Allow more users to access your accounting system.
Has your business been adding staff or even new business divisions as it grows? ERP and some accounting systems are designed for multiple users, typically being sold with five or more user licenses.
And because an ERP system contains all of the essential data for running a business, not just accounting data, you’ll find that more people within your organization will be using your ERP system, not just for entering and recording data, but to find and use the data they need to make decisions.
Xenex Healthcare Systems, for instance, was able to grow revenue by 600% without adding new supply chain or financials staff because their new accounting system streamlined their inventory management processes and provided more accurate data, giving them more accurate cost analysis.
3) Limit user access to specific areas of your company’s data files.
Of course, having more staff using your business’s financial data increases the need to control who’s able to access what data. ERP systems have the security controls to create user permissions to limit what areas particular individuals are able to see and use.
Being able to control access was one of the main reasons Greenbelt Land Trust moved up to an advanced accounting solution after using QuickBooks Premier for years. The non-profit organization dedicated to preserving over 1,800 acres of green space in the Mid-Willamette Valley has grown tremendously over the last five years, according to Office Administrator Stephan Friedt. They needed more clerical assistance on data entry – but didn’t want all those users to have access to all their business data.
4) Network your accounting solution between two (or more) remote locations.
The ability to keep remote workers connected is another key feature for Greenbelt Land Trust. Many of their staff work different jobs out in the field. The accounting solution Stephan Friedt chose made it possible to set up remote access for his company’s CPA to do journal entries from her home office, give direct access to their Executive Director so he can pull up his own reports and let staff in the field log their own hours from wherever they are.
Are These the Things You Want to Do?
The common theme with the businesses mentioned is they all chose QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions rather than an ERP as their solution.
QuickBooks isn’t looking to match Microsoft Dynamics GP, Sage 100 or NetSuite ERP feature for feature. The goal is to give growing companies only what they really need at a reasonable price instead of having businesses spend $100,000 or more for a functionality implementation they don’t use.
If your business could benefit from better inventory management and financial management and you need to have more staff accessing your data than your current accounting solution allows, it’s time to take a serious look at QuickBooks Enterprise.
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