How Do You Know If You Have Outgrown Your QuickBooks? 10 Warning Signs and a Solution

Accounting software is an extremely important tool for every business. For many small companies or start-ups QuickBooks is a great system. As time goes on and the company grows, processes can become more complicated, or if your company operates in an industry which requires Sarbanes-Oxley or other compliance regulations, it may be time for you to graduate from QuickBooks and move onto a stronger system with the functionality your growing business needs.

So how can you tell if/when you need to make the switch?

1. You’re transaction volume increases significantly: QuickBooks is great if you have a small amount of simple transactions on a daily basis. If your company is growing and taking on more transactions a new system that is designed for that kind of activity.
2. You need better control over security: QuickBooks has very simple security; again this is not a problem if you have a smaller company with a small accounting team of 1-2 people. Larger more robust accounting systems will allow you separate duties and authorizations for access to different accounting information as your accounting team grows with your company.
3. You have more employees who need access to the system: an accounting department run by 1 or 2 people can be perfectly functional with QuickBooks, but as your accounting department grows to 5 people or more, you will want to consider moving to a new system. QuickBooks operates well with up to 5 business users, but if you go beyond that number there can be a lot of problems with users being disconnected while working in the system and corrupted databases.
4. The amount of data in the system has grown beyond what QuickBooks can handle: you may notice that your QuickBooks performance may begin to decline and lag (especially in solutions menus and reporting functions). This could be because you have exceeded the maximum amount of data that QuickBooks is equipped to handle. This could mean your file sizes are too large or your amount of transactions has exceeded 32,000 (which is where many companies begin to have these problems)
5. You have multi-currency needs: QuickBooks will not support your needs as it does not have the functionality to support multiple currencies. Global business has become a reality for many companies, small and large; the right accounting system will allow you to serve your market- no matter where it is.
6. You need better reporting capabilities: if you suffer, as many companies do, from spreadsheet nightmares and data re-entry trauma that means you probably have inefficient (and maybe incorrect) reporting. If you are pulling information from spreadsheets and manually entering the information in to QuickBooks over and over again to produce a report there is a huge opportunity for mistakes during data entry and this also means you have an employee (s) devoting hours upon hours of their time to this reporting process when they could be spending that time doing something much more important to the company.
7. If your business complexity increases: as your transaction complexity increases you will need to track different aspects of that in your accounting system for instance: detailed tracking on revenue and expense, than you may want to consider a system designed for this type of use.
8. You have too many disparate systems: as an example; if you have customer information in both your CRM and your QuickBooks…when you need to update customer information you have to enter that in 2 places otherwise your systems will not be accurate. This can lead to data re-entry errors or could just plain drive you crazy! The problem with QuickBooks is that it has limited ability to interface or integrate with other systems leading a company to have multiple and redundant systems that slow down productivity, breed data entry errors, and bring down efficiency levels.
9. You need double-entry accounting capabilities in your system: if you need your growing company to be able to comply with government regulations, industry standards, quality standards, etc. QuickBooks is not the right system for you. QuickBooks is a single-entry accounting system which does not allow for that kind of functionality. You need a system which allows you to keep record of every transaction entered into your accounting system so you can trace your balance back to the transactions from which that balance originated.
10. You need to access your accounting system remotely: QuickBooks online is a way to work around this- but you will be limited as QuickBooks online has few features than the desktop version and may not be able to fulfill all of the requirements your company needs. A cloud-based accounting system is the best route to go if you plan on accessing your accounting system remotely.

In short, If you need visibility across your organization and into all of your accounting information, if you have a growing and/or complex accounting system, if you or your employees are bogged down by hours of manual processes which make them less productive, if you have reporting problems due to data entry errors, if you lack control and cannot secure your information, if you are drowning in spreadsheets, if you need to do business in multiple currencies, or If you have redundant systems- it’s time to graduate from QuickBooks.
This is not a bad thing, in fact, it’s great! It shows that your company is growing to a point where you are in need of a more robust system to allow you to efficiently and accurately handle all of that revenue and profit derived from your increased business activity.

So what now?

Enter intacct financials. Intacct cloud-based financial management and accounting software is a perfect fit for QuickBooks graduates.

Intacct cloud accounting software makes managing finances easy while giving its users a rapid, relevant and measurable Return on Investment. Available on the cloud, Intacct’s accounting solution offers software as a service to companies of every size; with a sweet spot for smaller businesses. Intacct cloud accounting software will have you up and running in just a few weeks without the hassle of hardware and software installations.

You can count of Intacct for:

• Professional-strength, game-changing financial applications
• Rapid deployment with unlimited flexibility to adapt to your business needs
• Infinite, real-time visibility into business performance, giving you the ability to gain deep insight into your business at any time
• Superior return on investment and the lowest total cost of ownership
• A perfect solution for Salesforce.com users and QuickBooks graduates
• Industry-leading customer satisfaction
• An award-winning product line

Contact an Intacct expert at e2b teknologies today for more information.

About e2b teknologies:
Founded in 2002 and headquartered in Chardon, OH, e2b teknologies provides ERP, accounting applications, custom cloud-based software development services, AR collections management software, and calibration services through its three business units – e2b anytime apps, e2b enterprise, and e2b calibration. e2b enterprise develops custom cloud-based business applications and resells leading ERP accounting software, CRM, HRMS, and other enterprise business software applications from Sage Software, Epicor, Intacct, Sugar CRM, and other publishers.e2b anytime apps is the publisher of Anytime Collect, Anytime Assets, Anytime 500, and related Anytime brand products. e2b calibration is an ISO/IEC 17025 accredited calibration laboratory.

Our goal is to provide customers with great products backed by world-class support, development services, and business consulting to help them achieve their goals – on-time, and on-budget. Contact us today for more information or to speak with one of our software experts.
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