QuickBooks is a popular entry-level accounting software. It helps small and medium-sized businesses execute basic accounting and financial management tasks. These tasks include generating invoices, tracking expenses, managing payroll, and receiving payments. QuickBooks offers ease of use for those without an accounting background. A variety of plans are available to fit a variety of budgets and requirements. Increased functionality is available while the business experiences growth.
However, organizations like yours may begin to encounter growing pains with this solution. Eventually, you may need a holistic solution with deeper functionality, more sophisticated reporting, and capabilities to streamline complex business processes.
You need to expand your capabilities to accomplish your day-to-day tasks more efficiently. You are looking to add a third-party application to extend QuickBooks’s functionality beyond accounting. For example, you would like to add an inventory system. You quickly realize that with QuickBooks, integration is not possible. Furthermore, configuration issues will disconnect your data across the different systems. Additionally, dependence on a third-party app increases the cost of the overall solution. It requires additional maintenance and training, and further complicates business processes.
You are using the basic reporting and generic insights available through QuickBooks. You need better information to make data-driven decisions. You are spending countless hours consolidating, importing, and exporting data between systems and correcting data entry errors. Your time should be spent on valuable analysis and practical activities to grow the business. We call these manual analytics. It refers to the time-consuming process of downloading, copying, and pasting data into Excel, performing complex calculations, manually merging data from multiple systems, and finally formatting the data into reports used to assess business performance.
As your organization grows, more individuals have access to critical data. You realize that QuickBooks’s weak user permissions can limit some users or provide too much access to others. Their easy setup also means fewer accounting and audit controls as the system fails to keep a consistent audit trail of changes to master records or user logins. Combining this lack of controls with the fact that some activities are being done outside the system in spreadsheets or other avenues, you may be setting yourself up for an issue with regulatory compliance.
You find yourself needing centralized data between business units, subsidiaries, divisions, or brands. QuickBooks is excellent for smaller businesses but once a company grows to include new products/services, more employees, additional companies, etc., it is unable to handle the complexities of additional business processes.
As your organization grows to include more customers, products, revenue, and sales channels, you are frustrated at being unable to make informed, data-driven decisions. Disparate tools, manual processes, and multiple entries make closing your books at the end of each month a lengthy task. You know you need a solution that eliminates manual analytics and increases your reporting capabilities efficiently, while not compromising accuracy.
If any of these challenges sound familiar, the good news is that outgrowing QuickBooks is a sign of success for your business, and you are ready for the next step in your journey of growth. Oftentimes companies that have outgrown their QuickBooks solution make the transition to a full-scale Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (Business Central).
Much more than just accounting and financial management, Business Central allows organizations to connect sales, services, finance, and operations and manage their entire business from one comprehensive cloud-based platform that offers:
Microsoft’s cloud-based Business Central enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a solution for small to mid-sized businesses that automates and streamlines business processes. It is designed to adapt to a growing company and gives them the flexibility to customize the application to fit their current business needs.
If you are ready to integrate your financials with the rest of your business and streamline processes, reach out to our team to learn more about our QuickBooks to Business Central migration process and services.
Not sure if Microsoft Dynamics 365 BC is the right ERP for your business? Contact us today to schedule a call with our business applications team to explore your business’s ERP requirements.
In his role as Director of Business Applications, Loren and his team specialize in positioning organizations up for growth by implementing Microsoft centralized platforms like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
Visit our Business Applications page to learn how an ERP Solution can transform your organization and propel future growth. Our consulting team is available to discuss your specific needs. Let’s start a conversation.
