Is there Life after Quick Books?

As a B2B CFO I am very familiar with QuickBooks.  I would say that 90% of my smaller clients use this popular accounting software.  And why not?  Intuit has done a great job with a product costing a few hundred dollars - cornering the market, educating users, building a huge body of unpaid consultants and reaching out to CPA firms.  Thus any start up company is likely to adopt QuickBooks and stick with it as they grow.  But there comes a point when financial management becomes more critical and more complex and then management needs to take a serious look at what comes next.

There are five factors that might affect the decision to move beyond Quick Books.

1. System Speed – many QuickBooks applications start to slow down as data builds up.  Sometimes this is due to lack of maintenance such as regular Company Clean Up.  But, it can also be because the database is getting overloaded with customers, transactions, vendors, bills, stock items etc.

2. Security – as a company grows there is a greater need for more staff to access the QuickBooks system.  Providing restricted acccess and need to know security can become more difficult, causing audit trails to be worthless.
3. Users – basic Quickbooks is designed for less than 5 users and can be troublesome when all users want to access it at the same time.  As a company grows quickly, the need for many more users with customized access becomes essential.

4. Reporting Needs – Although QuickBooks does a great job with reporting – and has set the standard for fast customization of basic reports, it starts to run pout of steam when corporate reporting requires consolidations, multiple companies, analysis of products, divisions, regions and even international.  While the data may be kept distinct, pulling it all togther can be become more and more time-consuming.

5. Auditability – As a company grows, management will become more concerned with auditability.  Most small companies are not audited and don’t have this issue.  But the larger concern is now thinking about potential acquirors and needs to be sure the system will pass muster.  QuickBooks is notorious for allowing entries to be changed, and for book-keepers who somehow affect prior closed periods.  Without exceptional discipline, QuickBooks accounts can rapidly become unauditable.

So, after reviewing these factors a decision can be made on whether a new accounting system should be implemented.  Now we know we have to make a change, we will have to consider cost, training and implementation as well as correct sizing for the future.  Implementation is very important – and I have seen several stalled projects or systems that limp along – because the client did not fully consider the potential costs and planning time required.  In another article I will look at QuickBooks Enterprise and other next stage solutions.