Is your accounting software doing enough?

Accounting is about managing your financial processes.

Accounting solutions automate these basic financial tasks, like invoicing, receipts, payments and in some cases, simple tracking of inventory.

No doubt accounting solutions provide you with some reports like income statement, balance sheet, aging reports, but is that sufficient to support your growing business?

Support like helping your business processes run more efficiently, and ultimately, serving your customers better.

As a business grows, it becomes increasingly more difficult to keep track of what’s going on in all areas.

More people are involved, collaboration becomes inefficient, and the business growth tends to stagnate after a certain point.

Many businesses get by with an accounting solution thinking that’s all that is needed in managing a business.

If the business is small, then that would be true.

As the business grows however, and operations expand, the accounting solution itself will not be sufficient.

Business growing pains

As a business grows, much like us, it experiences growing pains.

Sales increase, more people need to be employed to handle the increased transactions, functions need to be delegated.

Then it starts to feel like the business is moving in slow motion.

It takes more time to verify information, the type of information the accounting system can no longer provide on a timely basis.

Why?

The simple answer is your business has grown and the accounting system has reached it’s capacity, or it does not have the features needed to extend functionality beyond financial processes.

Features like advanced inventory tracking, purchasing management, order fulfillment, and more.

In terms of capacity, think along the lines of the number of users that can access the accounting system, the optimal size of the database, both of which eventually leads to slow response.

Imagine taking one full minute to save an invoice!

This in turn affects the business response time to customers and the quality of service is affected.

So what?

In current times, when a business competes in a digital world, it is of the utmost importance to stay competitive.

Customers become more demanding and impatient, because they want it now and they know that if you cannot fulfill their requirements they can easily find another business that can.

Customers want good, cheap and fast.

Let’s face it, we are all like that.

Who honestly does not want something that is good, we want it cheap, and we want it like yesterday!

So how?

As the business grows, it needs more people, functions need to be delegated, and at the same time, it should examine if there is a need to streamline and automate certain process to remain lean and efficient.

Can the current system cater for the growth? 

One key area that stands out is collaboration.

With more people coming in, and functions being delegated, is it becoming more difficult for the different departments to communicate?

Is important information available to the relevant people in the organisation as and when it is needed?

If the answer is no, then it is time to look at the systems that are currently in place, both manual and automated.

Can your current system cope with the needs, both in terms of capacity and functionality?

Another factor to consider would be whether there are several diverse systems in place, systems that are not integrated.

Multiple systems can lead not only to duplication of work, does not allow for ease of information sharing between departments, and can also cause clerical errors.

It is essential for internal systems to keep pace with the growth of the business.

If the systems in place cannot cater for the growth it will most certainly hold the business back.

The best run businesses have a system in place that not only caters for growth, but also can have functionalities added and extended seamlessly.

In our current competitive marketplace, implementing solutions that streamline operational processes can make the difference between a business that struggles and one that grows steadily.
Businesses need to automate processes as they grow, with features tailored to their unique practices.