Are you stretching your finance system to breaking point

Are you stretching your finance system to breaking point due to a lack of affordable options?

There are 100’s of thousands of organisations globally using entry-level finance systems such as Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage50, pushing the limits of these systems to the very edge.

This is typically due to the high cost of the perceived alternative systems in the marketplace, with the likes of NetSuite, Intacct, and MS Dynamics often costing six-figure sums just to implement. Then there's the disruption to consider, which is often the best part of a year, if not considerably more, only to then have prohibitive annual charges when considering the annual cost of the entry-level system.

But there are costs to staying with these small systems too:

• Time taken to carry out manual processes every month

• Increased likelihood of error from rekeying data

• Increased audit costs and compliance risks

• Misinformed and misguided decisions formed by inaccurate data

• Talent retention due to unnecessarily mundane processes

A 2020 study carried out by PwC found that 30-40% of a typical finance team’s time can be saved through automation and behavioural change – this can equate to as many as 10 days or more, each and every month.

Audit costs are rising, and much of this is due to the time it takes for finance teams to meet audit requests – only exasperated by the expanding regulatory and compliance landscape. A powerful, mid-market finance system can potentially save hundreds of hours in audit time.

To compound concerns with regard to maintaining an entry-level proposition, a recent survey by Blackline identified the following points:

• Nearly 70% of finance leaders said significant decisions had been made based on inaccurate financials

• 55% of finance professionals said they were not confident they could identify financial errors in reporting results

• Only 38% of finance professionals said they trust the data presented by their own system and subsequent reports!

• Amongst the reasons, 41% blamed manual data input and 56% blamed a lack of controls and checks within their finance system

• The cost of inaccurate, out-of-date data is material and often negatively impacts an organisation's growth trajectory

The success of an organisation is driven directly by the talent it retains; this logic is applicable to all departments, including finance. Qualified finance professionals, can add material value to their organisation, if they are empowered with the right tools. But too often, they have to work with systems that not only hold them back but that require manual workarounds, and laborious tasks that demotivate the individuals having to carry them out – particularly when they realise that there is a 'smarter' way to do things. This often leads to a struggle in being able to retain good staff. It also makes it harder to acquire new talent too, if they’ve worked with better systems in previous roles.

With the above in mind (and there's nothing groundbreaking here), why is it that myriad organisations are still stretching their small finance systems so far? The primary reason is that they aren’t aware of any affordable alternatives – they have grown to this point on their current system and until they can afford something like NetSuite or Dynamics, they simply make do with what they have.

Until 2019, this logic was, unfortunately fairly accurate. However, since iplicit’s launch into the marketplace, and rapid ascent, acquiring thousands of users and multiple industry accolades, the market has been disrupted significantly.

Iplicit offers a comparable level of functionality to the enterprise players in the marketplace. At a price that is consumable for any mid-market organisation – putting the power of enterprise-level financial tooling in the hands of the masses. Not only is it affordable, but it’s also accessible – with start-to-finish timing for data migration, implementation, training, and go-live all happening within 15 days! It’s no longer a year-long disruption for a comprehensive system, it’s a painless process that can be started and finished within a single quarter.

ERP does not have to be complicated or price-prohibitive. It can, and should be accessible and empowering, to enable all organisations to benefit from the same foundations from which to drive success.