Upgrading QuickBooks as Your Business Grows Makes Sense… Until, One Day, You’ve Outgrown It.

QuickBooks has a well-defined upgrade path that continually provides the “next step” to support business growth. In your early years, updating QuickBooks was a mark of success because it showed that your company was on the rise. Eventually, your company graduated to QuickBooks Enterprise, the pinnacle of QuickBooks solutions… and your business kept growing. What is the “next step” now?

Fact: At a certain point, successful companies outgrow QuickBooks Enterprise. When QuickBooks stops working for you, the next step is to switch to an Enterprise Resource Planning solution (ERP).

Think you might be at that stage? Here are the top warning signs that let you know when it is time to quit QuickBooks and move on up to an ERP.

Top Warning Signs to Watch Out For

We all know that it can be hard to recognize when it is time to make a change. Often, change is required precisely when you find yourself overwhelmed with tasks. At these times, it helps to have a list you can refer to, so you can clearly and quickly identify issues.

Note: If you are experiencing any of these warning signs at your company, we recommend that you speak with the experts at Accounting Business Solutions (ABS) about your alternatives.

1. You have workdays where you rarely use QuickBooks. You should never do the bulk of your work outside of your business management software, even if you are spending your time in Excel or integrated software that helps you manage production, costing, shipping, compliance reporting, or other key business tasks. In truth, one system should handle all of this and you should use it every day.
2. You know the workaround for when each of your integrations break. We all know that updating QuickBooks results in broken integrations, but it is an extra problem when your integrations are so fragile that they often stop working for no reason at all. You should be able to trust your integrations and get work done.
3. You have to copy and paste data from multiple entities into Excel to view your consolidated financials. Successful businesses often have a few entities, so consolidations are an important stage of growth. You should not have to schedule time on your calendar for regular import / export tasks; seamless data consolidation should be built into your software.
4. You dread training new people on your processes. When you jump in and out of QuickBooks all day to perform routine business tasks (#1 on this list), it gets very difficult to train new people on processes. Getting them all the logins they need can be its own headache. Being able to customize processes and workflows in a single program saves a lot of time.
5. You personally tweak the work of your subordinates to incorporate new data. It may also be a hassle to train experienced employees to adjust key steps in their already-complex processes. It is a big warning sign when you hear yourself saying the forbidden words: “It’s probably easier if I just do it myself.” Ouch.
6. You schedule a call-back to answer a customer question. If you usually have to contact multiple staff members because you cannot view end-to-end customer data, those many call-backs you schedule will waste time and lead to poor customer satisfaction. If you could view all order and customer data in one system, you could answer questions immediately.
7. Your user licenses and user counts do not match. Perhaps you have too many user licenses from having to purchase in costly 10-packs, or perhaps you have too few licenses and cannot add seasonal or read-only employees to QuickBooks. Many businesses prefer a resource-based model that allows them to add unlimited users.
8. You pay a full-time IT expert to install and update QuickBooks on employee PCs. Or maybe you work with an outsourced IT management firm. Either way, installing and updating QuickBooks is a hassle, and you know it is a waste of limited time, money, and IT resources that could be spent on more value-added activities.

9. You know the usernames of your go-to experts in the QuickBooks Community. If you have spent enough time searching out support tips from QuickBooks’s user community that you know exactly which experts you prefer… well, that means you have spent too much time doing your own troubleshooting. Good ERP partners handle support for you, thankfully.
10. You puzzle over financial irregularities – and sometimes cannot find the cause. One of the biggest issues in QuickBooks is its lack of an audit trail. Without this, you cannot track down who made a change and when, much less why. This can lead to accounting fraud because anyone with access to your QuickBooks system can cut themselves a check and then later cover their tracks by changing that entry to a vendor payment.
11. You cannot imagine how people get work done away from their desks. When you use multiple programs and multiple spreadsheets to manage business tasks, you really need those multiple screens at your desk. When you can handle all your tasks in a single program, suddenly those multiple monitors are no longer necessary because you can do all your work from your tablet. We’re not kidding.
12. Your regular reports take a few hours to compile. Though you have custom QuickBooks reports, you still have to compile data from multiple sources into Excel to see the big picture. You cannot do this every day, so your data is always a week (or a month) old. In an uncertain economy, you know that real-time data would make you more agile.
13. Lenders tell you to “come back when you have a real accounting solution.” Speaking of that uncertain economy, our current time period presents a lot of opportunity for savvy business leaders to seize new growth. This usually takes additional funding. Sadly, that missing audit trail on QuickBooks (#10 on this list) can make you look risky to potential lenders. They prefer that you use an ERP.

Has the Time Come for Your Business to Stop Upgrading QuickBooks?

The ideal solution for your next growth phase is Acumatica Cloud ERP. This advanced software is designed to serve as your single source of truth. With Acumatica, all of your business data is consolidated and readily accessible in one place, anytime on any web-enabled device. This eliminates the need for disparate systems and promotes seamless collaboration across departments.

One standout feature is Acumatica’s unlimited user licensing model. Unlike many ERP systems that charge per user, Acumatica allows you to add as many users as you need without additional cost. This can make a substantial difference in your bottom line as your business grows and more users need access to your ERP system.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of partnering with Accounting Business Solutions is the easy, all-inclusive monthly payment structure. This payment plan incorporates the cost of the Acumatica software, implementation, training, and support, making it an affordable solution for businesses of all sizes. The plan eliminates surprise costs and ensures that you always know what you’re paying for.

As you take the step beyond QuickBooks, remember the aim is not just an upgrade, but to revolutionize your business operations and resources. Partner with ABS, an experienced Acumatica provider, to ensure a smooth transition. With Acumatica, you get the powerful tools and reliable support you need for your business to not just grow, but to thrive in today’s dynamic marketplace.

Continue to grow with Acumatica, a modern, adaptable ERP.