Many small chemical manufacturers and distributors utilize QuickBooks to manage their financial accounting needs because it’s a simple cost-effective solution. However, there comes a time when your business is growing and QuickBooks can begin to hinder the company’s success. Here are 3 signs that indicate your business has outgrown QuickBooks:
1. Data Entry Duplication
Have you noticed you and/or your staff are spending too much time manually entering data multiple times? This could be costing your business a lot because the amount of time being wasted on duplication of entering data. Additionally, you are more prone to data enter errors that can cause major problem down the road.
2. Lack of Functionality
As your business grows, so does your operational activity and your need for advanced analytics and features like Inventory Management, Manufacturing, Forecasting, Customer Relationship Management, Procurement, and much more. QuickBooks is not equipped to manage all these increased operational requirements. Some companies try to add on third party software vendors to integrate with QuickBooks to handle certain areas of operations. However, this is just covering up the problems and increases the chance for more complications and frustrations from your team.
3. Lack of Reporting Capabilities
QuickBooks is limited on its reporting capabilities and often times requires businesses to generate their own reports manually. This causes many delays on getting critical information needed to make informed business decisions. Additionally, the chemical industry is highly regulated and requires a certain level of reporting to the government. QuickBooks is not able to generate these complaint reports like SARA that are required by the government causing further pain and frustration.
If your company has been experiencing any of these difficulties, you mostly likely have outgrown QuickBooks and could be impeding the success of your business. Careful analysis of your chemical business operations can help you determine if it is time to switch to make the switch from QuickBooks to a more robust software solution like an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution.
