It’s an exciting time when someone starts a new business. Setting up shop, hiring employees, finding new customers, establishing business processes - all things done with an eye toward the future and growing into a larger, successful enterprise.
With hard work, the business grows and, along with it, the need for more advanced business management capabilities develops. If the business is like most at this point, they use
QuickBooks and like it; they just need more power.
When does a business need more than QuickBooks?
QuickBooks became the most widely used accounting software for small businesses because it works. It’s affordable, easy to use, and a good platform for handling invoices, payments and other accounting functions.
But, when a business begins to expand and grow in complexity, other areas of the business need processes automated and controlled and everyone across the business needs access to real-time information and tools to improve productivity.
How do you know when it’s time for a business to add more functionality to a business? You can usually tell by the questions that begin to surface. Here are a few examples.
“We have a lot of inventory so why do we have so many out of stocks?”
Shelves filled with products that aren’t being sold, while having customers requesting items that aren’t in stock, is costly in many ways.
Inventory is normally the largest investment for a business so having tools to manage it is a necessity. Inventory obsolescence is like placing a pile of cash on the warehouse shelf and, as the dust collects, the pile simply depletes with time.
Meanwhile, customers are heading to competitors to purchase products that aren’t in stock and may never return.
Inventory management is much more than counting items in the warehouse – it is a process that begins with demand planning and proceeds with vendor management, inventory control, warehouse management and distribution.
Having tools to analyze trends and assist with forecasting enables purchasing of the right products in the right quantities and the right time.
“We shop around for a good price on products so why aren’t our profits higher?”
Much more than the price paid for a product factors into the true cost, or landed cost, of a product.
The ability to capture all costs, including shipping, duties, taxes, VAT fees, and overhead, enables a business to accurately calculate the real world, actual cost of acquiring products.
By assessing the true cost of product acquisition, a business can make informed vendor evaluation decisions on product sourcing based on profitability.
“Why does it take so long to process our ecommerce orders and why are there so many errors?”
Many businesses set up a web store only to discover it’s like running a second business. Most resort to rekeying the website orders so they are combined with their offline orders - a slow and error-prone process.
Web store integration allows all web orders to be combined on one integrated system, with one-click synchronization of orders, tracking information, product availability and customers between the offline and online world.
“Why is it with all this data that I can’t ever get a report for what I need to know?”
Analysis is the key to understanding and growing a business.
The basic reports available in QuickBooks usually lead to the creation of spreadsheets and more spreadsheets - and not to the capability of accessing real-time information for decision-making and business monitoring.
Placing the ability to create virtually any report or document using any data housed within the system in the hands of a small business is powerful. Add real-time dashboards to those capabilities and a business has the tools to support sustained growth.
Adding more power to QuickBooks
Imagine the relief of the growing business owner when they discover they can have these and many more capabilities - with Acctivate and without leaving QuickBooks.
Do you have a client or know of a business that needs more purchasing, inventory and distribution capabilities?
Let us know and we will provide them with more information and earn you a referral fee.
Jeff Edmonds is the consulting channel manager for the Acctivate Partner Program at Alterity, Inc., the creators of Acctivate Inventory Management Software. He has helped build the Partner Program from the ground up, establishing a strong structure for the channel, managing the channel and recruiting members. Jeff has experience working on both sides of a channel partner program. He previously worked at Intuit® for almost a decade, primarily as an Intuit Account Manager, including several years of working with partner accounts in the Intuit Solutions Provider Program. He also spent several years working for one of those partners in a business development role.