How To Select The Correct Accounting Software(Part 2of2)

How to choose/select accounting software

In earlier part 1, we learn the importance of choosing the correct business accounting software.

This part 2 deals with the importance of planning ahead when buying the correct business accounting software as this will later save us time and money in the future.

Plan ahead by making sure that your chosen business accounting software are able to be:

Modular/ Scalability:

The company business will inevitably expand hence whichever selected business accounting software should also change accordingly. Example are the increase in products and services offered and the number of employees.

Always try to choose an business accounting package by visualizing the business in 3 or 5 years time and how different it will be. Use this information to guide the purchase decision. Ironically, it might be wise to pay a little more now for the accounting software knowing that it can be easily upgraded when needed with minimum disruption and cost to our business

The Importance of Interfacing with the Accountant

Ensure that the accountant is involved. Sometimes, we might see that a company’s MIS might take a more important role in selecting the t business accounting software. There is the need to ensure what business accounting software are accounts used to working with and what do they prefer? Can data and reports from our business accounting package be easily available without the need for any extra work

Support:

It is important that any software has great support for when something goes wrong (and it always does).

Secondly, we should ensure that the support should be local or as close as possible to us. Imagine that things need done with the software by someone trying to help you over the phone.

Wherever possible, make some enquiries with other businesses about the package they use and who helps them.

Best Value For Money

Once we have selected the right package for your business the most logical step is to shop for the best value for money.

Shop around as the price can vary greatly and the product is exactly the same unless the price differential is with good support or installation assistance.

Major Brands

Wherever possible, we should choose the most popular and major brand to avoid the hussle of dealing with some unknown accounting software house.

Furthermore by choosing a major brand we can get regular updates and also know that the company will be around as long as your business needs them.

Ease Of Use

Always remember to get the person who will be the main user to test the software as well. Next, consider how well the package can interact with other software we are using. Nowadays, the modern accounting software should come with the import and export data function where the import and export of data to spreadsheet or vice versa are easily done. With these capabilities, just in case, there can more detailed analysis be able to be done. ( For example, SunSystem Accounting System using its user friendly “Vision” which can very easily manipulate data exported to Excel Worksheet)

Features Needed

Most accounting software packages come in several different versions.

If we don’t need certain features now and can’t see a need for them in the future then we need not buy them.

The major differences are usually – number of users allowed, number of reports available and others..