1/7/2022
At Daston, we pride ourselves on making accounting as quick and easy as possible for our clients. Companies often seek us out a few years after launching because although QuickBooks seemed an easy way to track basic finances at the outset, they have found that as they grow, they require more robust systems. QuickBooks often is creating more work for their team, adding up to hundreds of hours lost instead of saving time.
Here are eight signs that QuickBooks is putting your business at risk and that it’s time to leverage a more comprehensive solution such as NetSuite.
Too much business data is locked away in spreadsheets
With QuickBooks, employees often spend hours on manual processes such as creating invoices or filling out spreadsheets to track deferred revenue, accrued expenses, and depreciation. NetSuite, however, automates payment schedule processes, eliminating the risk of errors and giving your employees more time to focus on value-added work.
Manual processes are creating errors
When you’re using a system that doesn’t have a concept of revenue recognition, you must do it entirely off the books. Not only is manual data entry time-consuming, but it also leads to human error, which renders data unreliable and leaves month-end reconciliation up to chance.
Bad data and limited reporting prevent informed decision-making
Are unreliable data and a lack of reporting putting your business at risk? In today’s environment, forecasting and budgeting are more important than ever, but leaders are unable to gain comprehensive and valuable business insights without accurate data.
Audits pose concerns
Are you chasing down documents to verify compliance? Without sufficient internal controls around approval workflows, audit logs, or separate roles, QuickBooks has audibility concerns. If you are looking at going public, need a loan, or are pursuing funding from investors, you need a rock-solid set of numbers. In NetSuite, your team can easily enter a lot number when shipping, receiving, and moving products. When it comes time for an audit, your employees can run simple reports.
Customizations are getting complicated
QuickBooks can work for a growing business, but not for long. If you want to add customizations, it may require an army of consultants or a tangle of complex workarounds. This can be costly and time-consuming.
You can’t see what’s happening across your organization in real-time
Is it nearly impossible to get a clear real-time view of operations because you keep one set of data in QuickBooks and store other information elsewhere? If you use QuickBooks for financials but manage your inventory in spreadsheets or add-on systems, your inventory counts could be inaccurate. In the case of NetSuite, having inventory and financials on the same system provides a real-time view to accurately track and value inventory.
Billing processes affect your forecasts and cash flow
Being able to accurately forecast future payments and cash flow is especially crucial today. For services companies, subscription billing and project accounting are manual processes in QuickBooks. Subscription billing in this way can get complicated, even for relatively small software companies. Like creating payment schedules, you are relying on employees to remember to send a bill every month.
Reports take hours (or days) to pull
QuickBooks also doesn’t allow customers to see stock levels in real-time, confirm delivery schedules while they place their order, or allow calls to customer service minutes after the order is placed. With NetSuite, all employees are using the same data, updated in real-time for both employee and customer benefit. If your business is experiencing any of these limitations, reduce your risk by graduating to NetSuite.
Are you ready to boost productivity, simplify core processes, and increase efficiency? Daston can help! Contact 703-288-3200 for a consultation today!