5 Signs You Need to Upgrade Your Accounting System

by Gina M. Costa


You are operating on an old platform.
The demise of DOS is evident – it isn’t compatible with many modern applications. Salt Lake City custom pool cover manufacturer, Cover Pools, tried with no avail to add a manufacturing package to their system. “We had an old mainframe computer that ran on DOS and we couldn’t find anything compatible,” explains vice president Kelly Ragsdale. They have since upgraded to Windows.


Your structure is inflexible
Socratic Technologies/Modalis, an expanding 35-employee market research firm in San Francisco, CA needed a scalable solution. “With our upgrade I can now set access levels and provide team members with company data,” states Ron Treleven, director of administration. With the new package, the team can also work seamlessly with their external CPA.


You have outgrown your current system.
Most companies, like Mantra Communications, a Germantown, Md. Software company, will come to expect more than their software can provide. Controller Joe Sanicola remarked, “We upgraded (and brought accounting in-house) because we needed a more robust system and wanted more control. For us, larger revenues meant bigger accounting issues.”


Your accounting system isn’t all-inclusive.
Wesco Signs, a 90-employee company in Conrad, N.C., that installs signs realized they weren’t seeing the bottom line. Chief operating officer Dan Woddell explains, “We need to be able to account for all costs and see what profit was made or what was lost by the customer or the product. Before we didn’t have that functionality but now we know what we can afford and what we can’t.”


Your customer service is lacking.
The textile finishing business of Partners in Textile Innovations in Piedmont, S.C., had a basic system that couldn’t track inventory. Customers weren’t happy. Controller Scott Key remarked, “If something shipped today, we wouldn’t know about it until tomorrow.” A new system with inventory tracking and invoicing options has greatly increased customer satisfaction and sales.

Small Business Computing Staff
Small Business Computing Staff
Small Business Computing addresses the technology needs of small businesses, which are defined as businesses with fewer than 500 employees and/or less than $7 million in annual sales.

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