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The biggest mistake is to begin researching software before you take a good long look at your business. Veda Snyman, product marketing manager at Microsoft Business Solutions says before you think about researching out in the market you should look closely at you own business to decide what you need to do and what you want to do going forwards.
“You should ask yourself what are the pain points, what information you need, what information you are lacking in your business,” says Snyman. “The pain points could be manual processes which could be automated or processes such as order taking which could be simplified.”
The trick here is to involve your staff at early stage and ask them what they need and what problems they are currently facing rather than trying to impose a solution on them. Whether you are a large or small business you should be looking to get input from heads of department such as your finance director, sales director and purchasing manager.
That way you will be able to answer honestly what your needs are and get a full view not just of the accounting process but other functions which may have a need for data. This will help you decide the scope of the project: that is whether you simply want a system to supply useful financial information or whether you want something more sophisticated that can integrate with areas including invoicing, order processing and payroll; whether you can upgrade or whether you need a completely new system.
If you feel daunted by this process it is possible to get help through an IT appraisal. Many accountancy firms now have specialists who will do this for you. Failing that you can go to an independent IT consultant or a reseller. Either way you get a valuable external view of your business and its processes from someone who is well-placed to identify the issues affecting your business and recommend areas of best practice which you may not be following.
Whichever way you go about appraising your needs you should have the aim of keeping it simple. Nick Hood, senior partner at insolvency specialists Begbies Traynor is one of many who advises businesses to air on the side of caution when you are drawing up your wish list.
In his view these days most accounts packages will extract information and give you the key figures you need. The thing to think about is what level of sophistication your business actually demands.
"You can overdo it. Having too much financial information is worse than not having enough," he says.
So, bear in mind the size and complexity of the reports you want from your software. Fifty pages of data may look impressive, but four or five pages may be sufficient for a regular overview of performance.
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