5 Steps for Selecting Your Company’s Accounting Software

Modern accounting software now boasts features that can significantly enhance your company’s financial operations and accuracy. Today’s organizations have tremendous opportunity to use tools that leverage artificial intelligence and automation to save time, improve efficiency and uncover valuable insights.

Unfortunately, despite these benefits, it’s all too easy to onboard a hyped-up accounting software solution that’s actually wrong for your organization, leading to lost time and wasted resources.

Proper software selection is the key to taking advantage of the benefits and avoiding mistakes. Whether you’ve outgrown your current ERP software or you’re looking to add new ancillary features in an additional tool, you can follow these five steps to identify an accounting software solution that’s the right fit for your organization.

1. Assess Your Current State

Before you begin the selection process, first outline your current state. What software are you using today? What general ledger package do you have (QuickBooks, NetSuite, Intacct, etc.)? And what ancillary software do you have that integrates with your general ledger package?

Beyond identifying your current tools, it’s also important to consider who your internal stakeholders are and what current processes they are using regarding your software.

With so many things to consider, you may find it helpful to create a map or a diagram to visually reflect all of these different aspects and how they relate to each other (what all software feeds into each other, whether it’s an automatic or manual feed, etc.).

Begin with noting your General Ledger package, and then start identifying the things that flow from that to document the full picture.

2. Define Your Needs

Use your visual outline to assess your entire operation and identify which pieces are the weakest. Look for red flags, inefficiencies, errors and poor experiences.

For example:

• Is your payroll processing delayed?
• Is making reconciliations of your different subledgers an inefficient process?
• Are payments to vendors delayed?
• Are your invoices commonly coded incorrectly?
• Is your financial reporting accurate?
• Are your team members compliant with expense policies?
• Are you putting forth significant manual effort in data entry?

This approach will help you to identify and prioritize where you could most benefit from an improved software solution.

3. Find Solution Options

Based on your identified priority and your specific need, you’ll then begin to identify specific options for a solution.

Because there are so many different software options out there, just collecting information about which ones would meet your defined needs and your organization is a significant step within itself.

Software is typically built for a target audience, a target company or a target entity, so, when creating a list of options, it’s important to consider how closely your company aligns with the type of company a software was ideally created for.

Is your company a small business? What industry do you operate in? How many locations do you have? Do you operate internationally? What is your business model? How many revenue streams does your company have? What does your organization value in your vendors?

All of these questions can help your company more effectively identify the right software solutions to consider.

4. Comparing the options

Using your list of vetted options, compare tools to identify which is right for you.

View tool demonstrations and even ask for feedback about the tool from other companies in your industry. Weigh costs with benefits, and make sure features align with your goals. Your selection should rely heavily on your unique company and your specific situation.

5. Introduce and implement your new solution

Once you’ve identified a solution, you may want to move straight into implementation, but it’s important to intentionally introduce it to your team. Begin with getting buy-in from your company’s leadership, then those who will be using the tool daily.

Clearly communicate why you’re recommending a change, how you identified inefficiencies in your current process and how a new tool would improve the organization. Taking the time to introduce the tool well will increase adoption and promote a positive attitude toward the tool for the long term.

Learn More about Selecting an Accounting Software

Selecting an individual accounting software is important, but it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Like a domino effect, each software decision you make will influence multiple other aspects of your business. That’s why any software selection should be in line with your organization’s overall software strategy to truly be effective.

To learn more about how you should select an accounting software that can benefit your business, connect with your Warren Averett advisor directly, or ask a member of our team to reach out to you.