Thursday, January 23, 2014

21 Ways Manufacturing, Distribution, and Service Companies Can Tell They Have Outgrown QuickBooks and Are Ready for ERP

JLee for e2b Enterprise writes: We have been working with manufacturing, distribution, and service companies for many years, and we have found one thing to be true. Many companies who begin with QuickBooks eventually find themselves busting the seams of the software due to their growth, and that can lead to some serious headaches.  Starting with QuickBooks is great for companies that are just getting started, but QuickBooks was not designed to handle the complex requirements of companies who grow beyond a certain point.
Are you at that point yet? If you are familiar with the following scenerios, it may be you have outgrown QuickBooks and its time to make the switch…
1. You use a lot of spreadsheets to manage your data.
2. You have a lack of control and visibility over and into your financial data.
3. You have more add-on software solutions than ever before and things are just    getting messy.
4. You can’t get reports on a timely basis.
5. You need more specific reporting capabilities.
6. Your employees are wasting time doing redundant data entry.
7. Compliance and quality has become an issue due to complex and specific reporting requirements that is very difficult or impossible in QuickBooks.
8. You’re dealing with multi-currency transactions.
9. You need more control over security and the ability to make some users read-only while others have full access.
10. You need audit controls.
11. You need to pull in data from outside systems.
12. The number of transactions you process has increased.
13. You require revenue and expense tracking.
14. It takes much longer than it should to bill clients.
15. Month-end closing takes a very long time because you cannot capture the data you need.
16. You need more users (generally more than 5).
17. You require double-entry accounting to comply with government regulations, industry standards, and quality initiatives.
18. QuickBooks itself just doesn’t seem to be working quickly. Generally you will notice this when the file size reaches 250MB , your number of transactions exceeds 32,000, or when your lists (customers, vendors, employees) goes beyond 10,000.
19. See errors in reporting due to manual procedures.
20. Lack audit procedures.
21. Need real-time visibility into revenue, profitability and costs.
If you see a reflection of your processes and your struggles in many the above statements, it may be time for you to ditch QuickBooks and find an ERP system that is better suited for your company’s current size and future goals.There are a number of things to know about making this move, from cost considerations, making a proper budget,keeping in mind your return on investment, deciding if you need a small, medium, or large system, and much more.
We have taken all of that and put it into one comprehensive guide for manufacturing, distribution, and service companies who are ready to make the leap from QuickBooks to a more robust ERP system. The guide answers common questions asked by companies moving from QuickBooks to ERP and discusses topics including:
• Accounting and ERP system cost comparison.
• Entry- level accounting systems.
• Entry-Level ERP systems.
• Mid-Market ERP systems.
• Enterprise ERP systems.
• ERP budgeting tips.
The white paper also provides links to additional resources and tools that will be helpful in making the move including our ERP Return on Investment Calculator, a powerful tool developed to calculate ROI based on a company’s sector, whether it operates in manufacturing, distribution, services, or financials.

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