The software industry is ever-changing. As companies strive to keep pace with these frantic pivots that happen in the market, it can be easy to fall behind if you’re not staying apprised of technological evolutions. Although most companies recognize the need to be innovative and evolve with the times, many are strapped to find the bandwidth to actually carry out transitions that will lead them to future successes.
Startups are often forced to rely on systems that are dangerously unreliable and limited. This is usually where QuickBooks often enters into the equation. Young companies look for big-named brands that seem to fit all their needs when they’re starting out, but they soon figure out that options such as QuickBooks don’t offer the flexibility and agility needed for sustainable growth within an organization.
Sure, it doesn’t cost a lot to sign on to or maintain a QuickBooks account, but is this platform really giving you what you need? Don’t be fooled by the relatively low cost of being a QuickBooks customer; you could be losing money as a result of inefficiencies in routine tasks that QB simply can’t handle. And, don’t be surprised if you do some digging, only to find out that your employees are using supplemental sticky notes to help them figure out how to manage their own individual processes. For obvious reasons, this is not the path to success. Spreadsheets, sticky notes, and disparate systems simply can’t handle the complex revenue recognition and fluid pricing models that are necessary today.
Ask yourself:
- What was your new business ARR or MRR?
- Did you expand ARR through customer upsells?
- How much ARR was missed out on as a result of downgrades?
- How many clients churned?
These are essential questions, but QuickBooks often isn’t capable of answering them. This is just one reason QuickBooks financials are holding your growing business back.
Pain Points Associated with QuickBooks
If you’re company signed onto QB in its infancy, you probably did so because it was a workable, inexpensive tool that was “good enough for the time being.” As you’ve grown, you’re probably looking for other solutions that better suit your business landscape on today’s terms. Do any of the following pain points sound familiar?
1. You can’t really figure out what’s happening across the organization in real-time
Legacy systems are designed for times when companies were able to wait until the end of the month to get the information they needed. That’s certainly not the case today—consolidated views and real-time reporting make a big difference when you’re trying to showcase to your stakeholders how you’re thriving (versus surviving).
2. Your team is wasting time wading through spreadsheets
If your employees have to rely on spreadsheets to fill in information gaps, you’re losing vital time and resources to systems that aren’t working—not to mention, you’re opening yourself up to human errors that can be quite costly in the long run. When you rely on spreadsheets or an inadequate system such as QuickBooks, your team members will likely spend more time hunting down data than actually reviewing it as part of a decision-making process.
3. Financial consolidation takes far too long
If you’ve found that it takes ages for you to compile all the transactional data necessary to run reports, QuickBooks is holding you back. You should have a system in place that allows your finance team to run weekly, monthly, or even daily reports as necessary.
4. Your budgeting and forecasting processes rely on a lot of guesswork
QuickBooks can make it difficult—if not impossible—to gather historical data in a timely manner. As such, you’re probably finding that it’s hard to perform trend analysis, forcing employees to guesstimate forecasts, rather than using actual data.
5. More accounting is done outside of QuickBooks than in it
As a standalone financial platform, QuickBooks was designed to automate a limited set of core accounting functions. As such, it limits the way your operations can be run. As your company grows, you need to adapt your processes to fit QuickBooks’ application, which often leads to much of the work being performed outside of the application. If this sounds like you, it’s time to employ a flexible, scalable system that can accommodate growth.
6. It’s too difficult to add new sales channels, product lines, or revenue streams
Every time there’s a change in your business, your employees have to spend time finding workarounds to accommodate it. QuickBooks doesn’t have built-in support for everyday functions that might be added to your operations. Processes that desperately need to be automated must be done manually or in spreadsheets.
Make the Move From QuickBooks to NetSuite With MIBAR
Our team here at MIBAR can help you transition from QuickBooks to a NetSuite platform that’s designed for growth and success. Hosted on the cloud and available to anyone necessary in your organization, NetSuite can provide you with real-time data, as well as historical information, so you can run reports on a whim.
With enhanced automation, your team will be freed from the manual processes that are so time consuming, while your leadership enjoys reports that are less fraught with human errors.
If you’re ready to streamline your billing and invoicing processes, lower your audit costs, and involve technological innovation that will help you scale, we’re ready to show you how. Touch base with our team today!
Additional QuickBooks to NetSuite Resources
8 Signs QuickBooks is Holding Your Business Back
