5 Signs That Your Business Has Outgrown its Accounting Software

As a business expands, a competent CEO realizes that the previously reliable accounting system has become a burden. Many accounting packages are designed for small businesses, but as sales escalate over $2 million, CEOs may notice it’s not keeping up with financial management needs. As business needs increase, CEOs may consider hiring an outsourced accounting and bookkeeping provider to supply the financial support needed to run a successful firm. Here are five signs that you need to find an all-in-one financial management solution such as outsourced accounting and bookkeeping services, to streamline your accounting practices as your current accounting software becomes outdated.

1. Expanding Payroll

Expanding payroll due to hiring more staff may be supported by your software for a certain number of employees per payroll period, but once your firm exceeds 50, many accounting packages won’t support the additional numbers. Regardless of whether the bookkeeper is ready to update the software or not, the sooner it’s done, the better, as manually processing payroll checks is clunky at best.

2. Need for Elaborate Reports

Accounting software may include templates for the detailed financial reports that a CEO is required to present to the board, but as a corporation grows and considers acquisitions or going public, more elaborate corporate reports may be required to provide compliance with state regulations. These types of reports may not be available with standard accounting software packages, and it may be difficult to adapt templates in an existing system.

3. Inability to Customize

Some financial accounting reports may allow for a field change here and there, or minor table and column adjustments, but often provide limited customization for the detailed types of reports required by a corporation or state tax department. Many third-party software add-ons don’t work with all accounting packages. Staff may become bogged down with the need to manually create these reports, rather than providing the expertise they've been hired for. Having to purchase multiple software packages isn't cost-effective in the long run.

4. More Than 15,000 Transactions

A beginner’s accounting package may support transactions up to 15,000, but what happens after that amount is exceeded? It’s time to explore new software or to consider hiring an accounting services provider to handle the heavier load because a successful business will have rapidly increasing transactions in the future.

5. Sluggish System

Having to deal with the increasing number of transactions in the accounting system can also cause it to become sluggish and bogged down. Your bookkeeper could become frustrated waiting for lengthier load times. This can have a negative effect on productivity within the office and is certainly worth the time to look at hiring accounting service s rather than purchasing more expensive accounting packages.