Frazer Hardy, Customer Success Manager at Percipient, highlights the top 10 most important questions to ask when researching finance software.
Choosing the right accounting system can be a minefield. With so many different options on the market, each with varying functionality, geographical reach, and deployment options, what questions should finance professionals be asking, and crucially, what should they be looking for?
A New Era for Finance Software
We’ve come a long way since the reign of monolithic, one size fits all solutions, and thank goodness. The new breed of modern finance solutions bring with them huge benefits in the form of deep functionality and broad capabilities, combined with low TCO and easy to use interfaces.
But in selecting the right one for your business, it’s important to evaluate the specific need, downfalls of the current system, and future goals. Moreover, it’s important to do this with the needs of the wider business, not just the finance department in mind, and with the organisation’s longer term vision in mind.
Against this backdrop, we’ve highlighted our top 10 questions to ask:
1. What works/doesn’t work about your accounting processes and what pain points are you currently facing?
This could be anything from a reliance on manual intervention and spreadsheets, to an inability to view consolidated accounts across multiple entities. Often users become so accustomed to workarounds, taking a step back and fully evaluating shortfalls is crucial as a first step in identifying requirements.
2. What functionality would your ideal accounting solution provide?
This is obviously incredibly personal to your operations. For some, project accounting capabilities might be a non-negotiable, while others might be reliant on multi-currency, multi-lingual functionality which support the regulatory environments across global operations.
3. Where do you want your business to be in one, three, five and 10 years’ time?
Depending on the ambitions of the organisation, scale is likely to feature highly on the list of must-haves. In a world where uncertainty has become the norm, the ability to expand, extend services and pursue growth is dependent on having a robust, scalable platform at the helm.
4. Do you want to move to the cloud?
The benefits of cloud have more than made their way into the mainstream, but clouds come in many forms. For some a hosted approach might suit, while others are ready to embrace full multi-tenant cloud. Evaluating the best approach early on will hone the selection process and ensure the right model for your business.
5. What will a new system cost? How much are you willing to spend?
It’s important to frame this question within the context of value. Rather than looking at cost in isolation, review the value new software capabilities will bring, and ensure that you’re not investing in functionality which won’t be used. The good news is that there is now so much choice when it comes to cost, with software as a service and subscription models alleviating the need for large up-front investment in hardware or a perpetual licence.
6. What level of involvement will be required from us?
Depending on the available resources in-house, a project team will be constructed based on the demands of the deployment. While clear buy-in at a senior level, and commitment is of course required, working with a partner such as Percipient brings expertise, experience and resources, all of which take the pressure off in-house teams.
7. What integrations do you need?
Once upon a time integrations brought both cost and complexity in spades. Thanks to advances in the form of APIs, integration is typically more straightforward, quicker, and cost effective than in implementations associated with legacy systems. Earmarking business critical integrations from the outset is crucial in optimising the value of the new software as early as possible.
8. Can I keep my existing data and will it be secure?
This of course paramount, but it’s important to be realistic about the time it will take to migrate data, and ensure that it’s in a format which works to facilitate all-important business insights.
9. What type of support will we get one the new system is in place? How are future upgrades managed?
The level of support really depends on how much is required. For cloud-native solutions such as Sage Intacct, much of the support is contained within the system and upgrades occur as quarterly updates. For other solutions such as Sage X3, support frameworks can be scoped according to specific needs, and upgrades planned carefully to minimise disruption while maximising potential.
10. How long will the deployment take?
It’s important to get an idea of timescales in order to plan around potential peak periods and accounting windows. Deployment timeframes are dependent on so many internal and external factors, and for large complex projects can take up to 12 months. For cloud deployments timeframes are shrinking, and we’ve seen recent projects around Sage Intacct for example take a matter of weeks.
The Ultimate Guide to Finance Software
In today’s complex, fast-paced and ever-changing business climate, is your accounting software helping you to grow and compete, or is it actually holding you back?
With cloud technology rapidly becoming the default in financial management, this guide will help you to understand whether it’s time to not only make a change to your accounting software but to make a move to the cloud too.
Download the GuideAccounting Software Experts
If you would like to know more about Percipient or the benefits our software and services could bring to your business, get in touch or call us on 01606 871332.
