Many small business manufacturing and distribution companies run some combination of QuickBooks for managing accounting transactions and Excel spreadsheets to maintain inventory levels and record production scheduling. For these companies, the mere thought of migrating from these widely used and recognized tools can be intimidating for even the most technologically savvy small business owners. That being said, with proper data migration and training, small business executives and employees can learn new, more efficient practices in a timely manner to help run a small business more profitably. Read More…
One common issue software users have as an impetus for migrating from QuickBooks to more sophisticated software solutions is changing the business’ costing methodology. QuickBooks, while highly intuitive, only allows for one costing methodology. Enterprise 21, however, offers more flexible costing methods to best suit each small business’ specific needs. Enterprise 21 small business ERP software allows for average, standard, LIFO, and FIFO costing as granular as on a product-by-product basis.
A relevant example of this is when a small business within the food and beverage industry migrates from their existing entry-level software package. Many start-up or small food processors do not have the ability to use FIFO-based costing, yet they require it in order to meet their accounting and costing needs more adequately.
In addition, small business owners are frequently concerned with moving their existing data maintained in QuickBooks, Excel spreadsheets, or other small business accounting software packages into more advanced software solutions. Though small businesses have fewer employees than larger organizations, that does not exclude them from often times having hundreds or even thousands of products, ingredients, parts, vendors, and customers.
The thought of spending employee time and resources to enter each individual record manually with this volume of data is simply not practical (or affordable) for a small business. Fortunately, TGI developers have standard routines and tools in place to load existing data contained in QuickBooks, Excel spreadsheets, and other small business software packages directly into the proper fields within Enterprise 21 with little to no manual data entry. The data is then rigorously tested (in a test environment) to check for accuracy and consistency, and to make sure no errors have occurred in the migration process. By migrating existing data rather than manually entering it into the new system results in substantial time and cost savings to the small business.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, small business owners question in what ways their day-to-day business operations must change in order to adopt a new, technologically- and functionally-sophisticated software package. To achieve a rational and sizable return on investment (ROI), both small business owners and employees must be flexible and open-minded in adopting new, more efficient business practices and processes with the implementation of a new software package. The goal in selecting a new manufacturing or distribution software package should be, ultimately, to enable daily business operations to run more effectively, efficiently, accurately, and profitably. A fully-integrated ERP software package can do this with ease.
A fully-integrated software package eliminates the need for data entry and transacting business in a multitude of software packages concurrently; every entry and transaction would be performed in only one software package, allowing for improved data accuracy and visibility. Initially, employees may struggle to grasp new methodologies because the way they perform their daily jobs and tasks could be radically different. They will, however, also be significantly better. The new manufacturing or distribution software system will offer process improvements and provide a structure for adopting best practices. With adequate training and practice, software users will adopt new, better business processes and practices that will ultimately result in better, more efficient operations and an increase in the productivity and bottom line for the entire organization, thus allowing for future and sustainable business growth.