Aren’t ERPs more than accounting software? Have you used more than one cloud and traditional accounting software and ERPs? Are ERPs now in the cloud?
The answer to all of these questions is YES. I have been the Finance lead on three major ERPs implementations. These involved millions of dollars of services to get the system configured, months of testing, years worth of time on the entire project. This doesn’t cover the effort of refining what was done wrong!
What sets it apart for me with the Cloud ERPs is that a boring accountant like me can code/make adjustments. In the other larger ERPs you can use excel data reporting (thru crystal, BPC, FRx) but I needed a programer to touch the native code.
Someone who is comfortable with scripts might need to be involved, but changing invoices/PDFs/locations can all be done by the administrator; and I as an accountant was ours.
But i think the biggest positive with the cloud ERPs is the ecosystem.
Why is this important? Someone that has an Apple iphone or an Android phone you can find any app. Someone who has another ecosystem doesn’t have access to these apps. QuickBooks online, Intacc, Netsuite has this ecosystem.
The other ERPs I mentioned you can add functionality but a programer still needs to be involved. You can look to the ecosystem if the native code/app doesn’t work for you. It might not be advanced enough for you, it might not have the features you are looking for, or you need too much manual intervention.
For example when we started increasing our inventory the native Netsuite code didn’t work for the increased inventory we were working with. Before we went with increased costs, we did look at two or three process improvements, but we were still having miscounts. We meet in our Utah office about how we can improve, but this wasn’t possible given our headcount limitations.We wanted to look into bar coding as a solution.
So looking at their ecosystem there were five or six inventory control systems.
You will need to 1) pay for it 2) test it 3) implement it into the admin console, 4) might need to be additional computers and 5) change a process; it is the ecosystem that sold me.
Another example is sales taxes. The native code and the advanced code didn’t work so we looked into their ecosystem and found a solution. Yes we tested the heck out of it, but once again something was available. The advanced sales tax required us to choose a sales tax rate, per each item on an invoice. There was too much manual intervention.
Don’t get me wrong there are limitations. Lets focus on ERPs but the same drawbacks are the same for account systems.
Help desk and support might be the big ones for ERPs. Some ERPs’ documentation is bigger than a state phone book.
Changing emails when a team member starts/leaves is more difficult. Another negative, let’s say a change in accounting treatment this is more difficult, and in some cases might not be possible.
For example when Netsuite, which we used at FiveCubits, was our cloud ERP implemented before I started the only inventory costing was average cost. This is not GAAP. About half way thru they added FIFO, and LIFO. To change this method to GAAP we needed to recreate the 250 of items. We could default new items to FIFO but we couldn’t change without restating all our audited financials. As mentioned the documentation is lengthy and sometimes is not followed when quickly put thru.
An example of this is rolling over the retained earnings. With my larger ERPs you had to formally roll-over the retained earnings into accumulated deficit. On page 2,153 (not actual page #, but an example) of a 5,000 support document it specifically says do not roll over retained earnings. The system does this automatically. But I found this within months of starting at FiveCubits. Only found it at the end of the year as we had to do that with the other ERPs I used in the past. As mentioned I found it on page 2,153.
It did specifically mention manually rolling over the year is not recommended or necessary. But all of these drawbacks is offset by the flexibility of the ecosytem. In addition to the X version updates thru the year. That is all on their dime. You can vote on the new features which is also nice. Still should test it to make sure that any of your scripts are not broken.
With the Apple or Android phone if I want to add an app for banking. There is an app for it. If I wanted to add different apps as the native apps wasn’t meeting my needs there are apps for it. A good example of this is email. I used the native mail app but I wanted more. So I looked at Google Play or the App Store and added a new app for $1.99. I believe that is one of the reasons Blackberry and Microsoft has failed. There are no apps for it. The incentive for programmers to code the app is not worth the number of users that might purchase it. The bigger cloud ERPs have the applications.
I have implemented the larger ERPs and used a few different ERPs and at the end of the day I am SOLD on the cloud ERPs for smaller companies.
Recent Comments