The right accounting software for enterprise resource planning can have a significant impact on the productivity, efficiency and success of an organization.
It may be time to choose a new ERP accounting software if your business is struggling with:
- Reporting takes too much time
- Inefficient, error-prone manual processes
- Use of spreadsheets to analyze performance can lead to reporting errors or versioning problems
- Backward-looking reports that are no longer valid for making decisions
- Lack of real-time data visibility in your organization
Our team will help you to assess and implement the best software for your organization.
How do you choose the best accounting software for your business?
Searching for new software solutions involves six steps:
- Securing Executive Buy-In : Before you start, ensure that the executives and board are onboard with the new system.
- Give Leadership: Designate a leader in the accounting department who has the authority to guide and direct the evaluation team.
- Establish clear goals: Identify your objectives, taking into account process improvements, performance upgrades, and desired outcomes.
- Assemble a Project Team: To drive the evaluation process you will need a diverse group of people from both management and staff.
- Participate End Users: Identify requirements for the new system, and involve the end users both in defining these requirements as well as evaluating vendors.
- Create a Project Plan: Establish a schedule for the selection of the new system that is tailored to the size and complexity of your organization.
Define your requirements
A well-defined set of requirements will ensure that the ERP accounting software is aligned with your business objectives and needs. Determining your requirements is not always easy. Parr & Ibarra can answer your questions, such as:
- What are your goals with the new system?
- What information is needed to improve decision-making?
- What is the number of users and their roles?
- What processes should you automate and why?
- What other applications do we use (e.g. fundraising, CRM or church management, grants management)? Do we need the accounting system to be integrated with these applications?
Delivering Real-Time Visualization
Accounting software is more than just a way to save time and reduce data entry. The best system should provide both real-time transparency and deeper insights for better decision-making.
Chief financial officers of today need to increase productivity by determining the areas where an organization spends its most time. For better and faster decisions, financial leaders need more detailed insight. They need to know, for example, if they are using outdated information to make their decisions or if they have a problem accessing the data. Also, they must know which other systems or financial aspects are crucial to the organization.
Understanding your delivery model options
Early in the evaluation process, choosing the right software delivery method will be an important decision. These models offer three choices for where to store your accounting information:
- On-premises software: This type is installed on your servers, and the IT department maintains and updates it. This model allows you to customize your infrastructure and data.
- Hosted Cloud: The software is physically located in a remote datacenter operated by a third party hosting provider. This model scales much more easily than on-premises. The hosting provider also handles the infrastructure maintenance.
- Native Cloud (SaaS): This is a shared and scalable system that’s maintained by the vendor of the application. It can be accessed securely via the Internet. The system is easy to deploy and use. All maintenance and updates are handled by the provider. The subscription plans are flexible and highly scalable.
Outlining functional requirements
When choosing software, functional requirements are important because they specify what the software must do to satisfy the needs of users and stakeholders. Here are some questions you should answer to determine functional requirements.
- Accounting: Does your company need software that focuses on general ledgers, bank reconciliation, account reconciliation and project accounting?
- Finance: Does your company need tools to manage cash, perform financial analysis, consolidate and roll up assets, or track fixed assets?
- Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable: Does your organization need to improve in accounts payable, accounts receivable, billing and invoicing, collections management or purchase orders?
- Inventory and Order Management: Does your company need better software for batch processing, inventory management, order entry and more?
- Reporting: Does your company need to improve your reporting capabilities? Multi-currency, customized timely reports, and other features are available.
- Employee Management: Does your company need to improve your time tracking, expense tracking and payroll integration in order to better manage your employees?
Contact Us
Parr & Ibarra CPA is interested in meeting with you if your organization struggles with inefficiency because of an outdated accounting system. Call us today to find out how our accounting professionals can help you choose the best enterprise resource planning software for your business.
