Accounting Software Upgrades Can Be a Tricky Affair

Migrating your business or finance team to a new accounting software suite? Use our pre-migration checklist to ensure you’re upgrading to the right software

accountant software

 

Is your organization’s accounting and bookkeeping software outdated? Thinking about migrating your finance team to a new accounting software or enterprise resource planning system? Tread cautiously.

As your business grows and its financial accounting and reporting becomes increasingly complex, not only do you need to pick the right software to replace your current system, you also need to ensure your systems integrator understands your precise business needs.

Before you commit funds to a new system and systems integrator, consider these important points:

Is your team ready to make a switch? By nature, human beings resist change. Your employees, business partners, and clients are accustomed to doing business via your current accounting software. Do an in-depth study of that system and your business processes to know what’s working well and what isn’t. Engage your staff and other stakeholders and get their insights. Where are your current accounting software processes failing to meet expectations? Don’t change things up for the sake of it. Be certain you need to spend the funds to replace all or part of your current system.

Which vendor’s solution is right for you? This can be a toughie and it depends on the size of your company and the number of software seats you require. You also need to know what your business’s minimum requirements are. What features and capabilities does your entire staff need insofar as an accounting software suite goes? How will the new software you’re considering integrate with all of your other existing software and hardware systems? Will you need to reformat all of your older data to work with this news system? Detail exactly what your company needs and thoroughly investigate different vendors’ offerings. Engage in free trial offers. Don’t let splashy marketing campaigns sway you into making a final call.

Is the new accounting software system desktop-based, online, or both? It’s a mobile world nowadays. If you have staff members working in remote locations or who are frequently on the road, accounting software that’s strictly desktop-based might not be the right choice for your team. Online accounting ecosystems based in the cloud can provide your company with anywhere access via any device, but be advised if your team has no Internet access, they won’t be able to access the system. On the other hand, with online systems data sharing is quick and easy, and they typically allow for multiple users to be working on the same document simultaneously.

To what extent will your technology partner assist in this migration? This is a critical question you need to know the answer to. You need to know exactly how your technology partner or systems integrator will implement this new system, how long it will take, the amount of downtime that’s involved and how testing will be conducted. Furthermore, will they train your staff on the new system? What ongoing, post-deployment support will they provide and at what cost? These are just a few questions you should ask your IT support provider. If you find their responses underwhelming, look elsewhere for a new technology partner that will cater to your business’s specific needs.

Need professional IT-related consulting to help you choose the right accounting system? M.I.T. Consulting has been helping businesses in Toronto, Ottawa, and Kingston meet their strategic goals. Call us at {phone} or email us at {email}.

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