Intuit boasts over 2.2 million users on their most popular accounting system, QuickBooks. It is arguably the world’s most popular accounting system. QuickBooks’ popularity is due to it’s user friendly interface, reasonable pricing and provision of a nice assortment of features that cater to the needs of smaller businesses. That being said… QuickBooks has its limitations, and more often than not, companies reach a point where it can no longer accommodate their needs.

We wrote this blog to outline How To Tell If Your Company Has Outgrown QuickBooks for companies who use QuickBooks and are unsure if it still meeting their needs.

There are some common telltale signs/symptoms that you are beginning to outgrow QuickBooks.

Signs You Have Outgrown QuickBooks

Performance Delays – This is perhaps the biggest overall sign that you need to migrate to a more advanced system. Here are a few examples: your company has added some employees and QuickBooks just isn’t capable of coping with the higher throughput needed in a larger organization. Or, you might notice unacceptable menu and screen delays occurring as you navigate through QuickBooks, or a general slowing down of the product. Another sign of outgrowing QuickBooks is when your reports begin taking an unacceptable and increased amount of time to print.

If you are experiencing any of the above problems it might be time to speak to someone about the pros and cons of moving to a more advanced and powerful system. Here are just a few benefits of moving to an ERP system…

Why An ERP System Might Be Better For You

Why a move to an integrated database is better – Smaller companies do everything they can to keep up.  That means a lot of manual processes and spreadsheets.  Eventually, the pain of this extra work gets to be too much as the volume of work expands.  A high quality mid-market ERP system allows an organization to keep virtually all of the required information in one database, which reduces duplicate data entry and related errors.

Quick access to information – all the information goes in and it can be difficult to get it out of QuickBooks using its processes. The new Excel exports help a lot but it is still not an efficient way to analyze information.  Pulling information out through SQL Services Reporting Services or Business Intelligence data cubes allows staff to keep on top of critical metrics and KPI’s.

Ability to customize – I know this is a bad word for some people but the reality is that businesses often have some unique processes that comprise a competitive advantage. As an example, we have one very large ERP customer who has refused for years to act as a reference in their industry because they believed the customizations we were able to do for them gave them such a competitive advantage they wanted to keep that knowledge away from their competitors.

Industrial strength – Even with the massive amounts of research and development put into the QuickBooks product, it is still possible to find data inconsistencies and miss key features found in a higher end system.

Moving off of QuickBooks doesn’t have to be a painful process, and we can help you decide if it’s time for your company to migrate.

The bottom line: Enjoy QuickBooks while it makes sense for your growing business.  It’s a great system, but just like savings account you started when you were 22… you have to plan ahead so you are prepared to move on when you need more.

For more information on true ERP/accounting systems, click here.