How do you know when your growing business has grown to the point where you need an (ERP) accounting system?
When you started out, you may have done just fine relying on spreadsheets and Quick Books to run your business. But as you’ve grown, no doubt you’ve found that these introductory tools can no longer keep up with the level of reporting, automation, data integrity, and security that you now need. It’s quite possible that a fully functioning ERP solution is becoming a necessity.
We’ve identified 7 indications that your business is ready for and can benefit from a new or upgraded enterprise-level ERP software solution:
Do you have executive dashboards and KPI reporting?
Without real-time visibility into your business operations and Key Performance Indicators, you can’t be in a position to make decisions and adapt quickly to changes in the marketplace. An ERP system will ensure that you have this important data available to you whenever and wherever you need it.
The bottom line: By centrally managing the data and operations of the business, ERP systems provide executive-level, real-time dashboard views of critical business data, across business units.
Are you always in firefighting mode?
If you are constantly reacting to critical issues and putting out fires, it will be hard to concentrate on growing your business. With an up-to-date ERP solution’s data organization and programmed alerts, you will be able to see not only where you stand, but you’ll be able to identify potential issues and deal with them before they become problems.
The bottom line: By monitoring critical business processes with defined alert thresholds, ERP systems give your team the time and resources they need to respond proactively to problems before they become critical.
Are you drowning in manual processes and paper?
If you still rely on paper data collection and manual entry into spreadsheets, you realize that these processes not only use up all of your employees’ resources, but they are fraught with the risk of error. Often, spreadsheet information is outdated before it can be fully entered, and spreadsheets lack the complexity needed to manage all of the data and complex formulas a growing business needs.
The bottom Line: ERP systems allow your business to automate its electronic recordkeeping and data storage, bringing efficiency to data collection and organization and increasing accuracy and accessibility.
Do minor changes throw you for a loop?
Is your present system balanced so precariously that minor changes cause problems? If your team is spending all its time troubleshooting or concocting workarounds, you are wasting time and losing productivity. When all is taken into account, the total cost of owning an efficient ERP solution may work out better for you in the long run.
The bottom line: Today’s ERP systems are designed for enterprises and offer a stable codebase for your day-to-day operations. ERP vendors provide the highest level of support for their products, including Help Desk support, ticketing, and bug tracking.
Do you have duplicate or even triplicate data entry?
If you have to enter information about customers, products, and vendors several times in several different places, you are going to find yourself drowning in redundant and quite likely incorrect data. A centralized, connected ERP system will manage your data and ensure that everyone on your team is working with the same up-to-date information.
The bottom line: ERP systems allow organizations to maintain a single source of record for their enterprise data, reducing redundancies and saving time in data entry. By using a relational database model, critical data only needs to be entered and stored once to be accessible across the organization.
Do your critical business applications interact and share data?
Without a modern integrated ERP solution, your team may find themselves sharing business critical data via email or memos. Information can get stuck in one application and not be accessible where it is needed. ERP systems eliminate the need for running siloed enterprise applications by centralizing the applications into one integrated platform that can also encompass financial systems like Sage or Quickbooks if you find it is necessary to retain these.
The bottom line: By providing integration across the entire enterprise, ERP systems help organizations efficiently manage their people, processes, and data without the need for constant data exports and imports.
Are you confident about your user controls and security?
Are you completely confident about who has access to what enterprise data in your organization? Different roles in the organization require different levels of access, but without the ability to properly secure data and assign user access, organizations are left vulnerable. Modern ERP systems allow full control over who views what data in the system.
The bottom line: an ERP system can provide security across your entire organization and control access to critical business data.
Are you still wondering if your business is ready for and can benefit from a new or upgraded enterprise-level ERP software solution? (800-632-0573) and let’s talk about your options.
By iNECTA
