Outgrowing Quickbooks Archives -

5 Signs And Symptoms You’ve Outgrown QuickBooks

Written by Mark Byrd on July 8, 2022. Posted in Trusted CFO Solutions Blog Posts.

QuickBooks is the preferred accounting solution for over five million users. It’s the industry standard for start-up businesses looking for a user-friendly, low-cost accounting solution. QuickBooks was likely your first purchase when you started your business, and you may still be using it.

Many businesses are quick to learn that as your company grows and you develop more demanding and varied business requirements like multi-currency and multiple entity businesses, QuickBooks is limited and no longer meets your business needs.

Suppose your business can identify with the following situations listed below. In that case, you are probably at a point where you have outgrown QuickBooks and need to consider shifting to a cloud-based accounting solution to handle the complexities of your growing business.

Financial Reporting

QuickBooks customers generally agree that QuickBooks is a good tool for financial reporting, but like most tools, it has limitations. While you can create reports in QuickBooks, it’s challenging to turn on and use features like classes or locations or add custom entries like inventory management information or revenue projections into your reports.

These limitations make QuickBooks report generation a tedious and time-consuming process that you can’t afford as your company continues to grow. Cloud-based accounting solutions can solve more complicated reporting issues like visibility across entities, multi-currency transactions, and compliance.

Lack Of Integration Causes Inefficiencies And Reduces Visibility Into Your Business

QuickBooks lacks the ability to integrate with most third-party software, which means users don’t have access to a single, unified database from which to pull and analyze all of their critical data. When you use spreadsheets or other non-integrated software with QuickBooks, those disconnected databases require users to input data manually, which causes data entry errors and also forces a lot of duplicate data entry in multiple databases, wasting time and effort. This is an inefficient approach, and as a business grows, it diverts resources away from more pressing concerns such as customer service, marketing initiatives, or in-depth financial analysis.

A lack of integration also eliminates instant access to data across the enterprise. If you need real-time visibility into your operations on a daily basis, then you can benefit from the automation a cloud-based accounting solution can offer. It will streamline your processes, eliminate duplicate entry, provide that real-time visibility at all levels of your business and across entities and save hours of time and productivity that can be better utilized in other activities.

Your Personnel Is Growing, And Access Issues Are Becoming More Frequent

As your business grows, so does your staffing. Unfortunately, QuickBooks has an upper limitation on the number of concurrent users who can access the QuickBooks Enterprise system, and that number is 30. If your business is near, at, or exceeding 30, then it is definitely time to look for a solution without that limitation and a cloud-based accounting solution that allows access anytime from anywhere.

Your Industry-Specific Niche Requires More Flexibility from Your Software

QuickBooks is a generic product. It was not built to handle the unique requirements of a specific industry.

Industries like Construction require project management capability, or manufacturing companies or restaurants with multiple locations require integration with 3rd party software in order to track inventory and expenses by specific criteria and across entities. These are things a cloud-based accounting solution like Sage Intacct can do with ease that QuickBooks cannot handle.

Multi-Currency

Although QuickBooks added Multi-currency functionality, it is a very limited application, and it is strange in the way it works. Some US versions cannot access this functionality, and once it is turned on, it cannot be turned off. The other issue with QuickBooks multi-currency is that your home currency cannot be changed.

If your business is global and you engage in many multi-currency transactions, that is a sure sign you need a more flexible cloud-based accounting solution that can handle all of your multi-currency transactions and provide accurate reporting and compliance.

If your company can identify with any of these scenarios, it is time to look for a cloud-based accounting solution that can scale with your company as it grows and deliver the automation and real-time visibility and reporting you to need to remain competitive. Sage Intacct has the flexibility and integrations you need to keep your company growing, whatever your niche or industry.

Is It Time To Change Your ERP System? Choose a Technology That DOESN’T Steal Your Soul!

Written by Mark Byrd on September 20, 2021. Posted in Uncategorized.

Imagine a world where financial reports are delivered in real-time without your direct involvement and you stop working late nights, weekends, and during your family vacations?

As the CFO or Venture Capitalist of a Private Equity Fund, you may already have an ERP system in place. Most companies are running Netsuite, Great Plains, or possibly QuickBooks.

But, you could be planning to change your direction this year by moving to a newer ERP system. If that’s the case, why not choose a system that quickly delivers what stakeholders want and also gives you more time to spend with your spouse and children during the various weekend trips and vacations that get squandered when an investment firm requests a report at the last minute? It’s a win-win for you and your clients.

Maybe you’ve considered a change but don’t yet have it in the budget. With the many systems your organization is using, managers are experiencing avoidable headaches. Does that include you?

Are You?

Struggling with consolidations and allocations on multiple funds?
Still using Quickbooks logging into numerous instances each day — as if you’re an adult wearing children’s clothes?
Frustrated with spreadsheets loaded with errors and mistakes?

How Do You Keep Up, Without Losing Your Soul?

As a company managing various funds, you have the complex task of creating reports, and quickly. The balance sheet tallies include incentive and management fees to the fund management costs. Unfortunately, in Quickbooks, these numbers must be manually tracked in a spreadsheet, consuming your highly paid people’s valuable time. And, when you have 35-40 funds, this becomes a nightmare, even if you’re willing to burn large stacks of money.

How do you keep up with contributions, distributions, co-investments, unique preferences, particular needs?

Your management company wants to receive reporting of the funds. How often do you give that to your clients? Is it once a year?

How will you ever hear that they tell their colleagues what a great job you are doing on their behalf?

What if you used an ERP Software that provides you the capacity to…

Report key financial performance indicators weekly?
Send weekly reports with a net asset value in practically real-time?

So many times, companies make considerable investments to build their software. Why? They are unaware that a solution already exists to resolve their problems.

What happens when a right-hand member of your staff goes on leave or vacation?

One client shared that when their right-hand person, who did everything, went on maternity leave, he didn’t know what to do. Then, he realized that it was a lot harder than he thought to keep up with everything for all their clients.

What was a beast to manage before became “completely unmanageable.”

But, this must be impossible, right?

That’s only possible for people who don’t have a life or a family… for those locked in the office?

How Many Weekends Are You Working or Vacations Have You Skipped to Generate Spreadsheet Reports?

How stressful and daunting is your work? Are you anticipating that next crunchtime project, the report you needed yesterday for the top-level management company lending you millions of dollars? Just like that?

How common is this story? You’re leaving for vacation this weekend, and you have to get all your work done before you go. So, you work 90 hours starting on Monday because you want to get everything done so you can take off. But, then Friday comes, and the managing director calls requesting a new last-minute report for Johnny at Goldman Sachs. As you look at the spreadsheet before you, you realize your vacation just got canceled, you’ll be working through Sunday night, and now you have to be the “bad cop” to your spouse and kids.

What If….?

What if we could show you a system where all you do is press a button, and you never have to work another weekend in your life?

Is that worth exploring?

No more working weekends while you miss your kid’s ballgames, time with your spouse, and vacations!

When large funds entrust you with money to manage, and they say they want this reporting, net asset value fund investments, at least quarterly, and you can’t deliver it, they get agitated. They are known to board a plane, meet you where you are, and harass you until you make it happen.

Your client demands excellent financial reporting, but when you hand them a cobbled-together spreadsheet, that isn’t going to be good enough to keep them happy and coming back to you. The reports you present to your client need to look world-class like they come from sophisticated software.

Your Product is the Yield You Give Your Investors

Do you know… What is your product?

Let us help. You manage funds. Fund owners will put their money where the yield is most substantial. There are many Private Equity Firms out there. What is going to make your product (yield report) stand apart?

It’s the packaging.

Consider how your reports look to your clients. For example, are you delivering your reports wrapped in a newspaper (Excel)? If so, your company’s value is under-presented, and under-presented value diminishes the perception of what you do.

Don’t you think that the business owners entrusting you with a billion dollars to manage for them deserve to have your product presented in a wrapper more valuable than a newspaper?

The Four Seasons Hotels and Chick-fil-A are two world-class service organizations. How about an Apple iPhone where the box is just as impressive as the phone?

What if you could save hundreds of hours and that savings could be transferred to your overall operating cost? What if that savings meant you could generate real-time reports? And what if, that report could be delivered in a way that’s reflective of the impressive work done by you and your team?

Sage Intacct Is An Excellent Wrapping — Trusted CFO Solutions is the Right Partner

There are multiple accounting firms like Trusted CFO Solutions that work with Sage Intacct. Many Sage Intacct partnerships will sell you the software, and that’s it.

Choosing Trusted CFO Solutions is choosing a company that understands your situation, your business, and your industry.

You can outsource your accounting to Trusted CFO Solutions. Or, you can hire us to help you set up Sage Intacct and support your internal accounting team who will use it. The team at Trusted CFO Solutions is apprised of accountants and entrepreneurs who do the implementation, hold your hand through the process, and answer your questions. That’s what we do here!

We understand your business and are ready to serve you. While engaged, you call us whenever you need to with your issues, and we get them fixed.

How is QuickBooks Working For You?

Let’s say you have 35 funds and their subsidiaries. In Quickbooks, you have to log in to 35 different companies every day to check cash balances and then plug the numbers into a spreadsheet to calculate them. How many hours are you spending logging in and out and transferring numbers to spreadsheets, which by the way, leaves room for significant error?

What happens when you IMMEDIATELY need those reports for the fund owners? There is no reporting in QuickBooks.

But you do have other options available that do provide reports. Sage Intacct dashboards are what CEOs have been asking for years.

It’s time to get out of Excel spreadsheets and have what you need so your boss no longer comes down on you. Then, when you have what he asks for, you are finally free.

What Makes Sage Intacct ERP Different?

Sage Intacct dashboards are what CEOs have been asking for years. This financial management solution is:

The number one in customer satisfaction
Able to consolidate 100s of entities in seconds
The AICPA preferred financial management solution
A Salesforce Platinum ISV Partner

It’s time to say goodbye to Excel spreadsheets and hello to the reporting you need so your boss no longer comes down on you. When you have what he asks for, you are free to take your family time, weekends, and vacations back.

For a deeper dive into Why Sage Intacct ERP is different, click here.

What Else? What Value Does Trusted CFO Solutions Deliver for Private Equity Firms?

We provide fully customized dashboards giving you advanced financial reporting for management and limited partners allowing management to perform continuous real-time consolidations and automation of multi-entity and inter-company transactions.

What we provide eliminates errors caused by manual projects done in Excel and allows finance and accounting teams to collaborate creating a robust audit trail for auditors.

Our team at Trusted CFO Solutions is here to help you rationalize your back office, get away from using spreadsheets, and give your weekends back to you.

To take the next step or learn more book your 30-minute complimentary consultation.

About The Author

Mark is an accountant at Trusted CFO Solutions who “combines his intellect with a very astute knowledge of the capital markets to deliver a winning combination to any business venture.”
>> Connect with Mark on Linkedin here.

What Is Financial Consolidation And How Can It Help My Portfolio of Businesses?

Written by Allison Miller on December 2, 2020. Posted in Trusted CFO Solutions Blog Posts.

Are you still working with Quickbooks and Excel spreadsheets, emailing back and forth, with countless employees working late to finish month-end financial reports only to find all the numbers changed the following morning? What about those problems you’ve had when finding errors weeks later?

Are all the companies in your business portfolio cobbled and thrown together, making it difficult to know the health of your companies? By the time you’re ready to pivot the company, are your reports already dated?

When You Are Outgrowing QuickBooks Sage Intacct Is The Best Solution

Written by Allison Miller on April 25, 2016. Posted in Trusted CFO Solutions Blog Posts.

In 2015 Creative Approach’s President and Co-Founder, Cale Kell realized their manual way of managing their finances on Excel spreadsheets was not going to work. With the 4x growth their company had experienced, they needed a better way. After using Quickbooks they quickly realized it was difficult to use, hard to understand, and fragmented for their business model, a one-stop-shop for print and social media marketing.

Sage Intacct Is The Best Solution When You Are Outgrowing QuickBooks

Written by Allison Miller on April 20, 2016. Posted in Trusted CFO Solutions Blog Posts.

CEO Mark Hornbuckle started HB Next, a Safety & Environmental Compliance Services company, in 1999 using Quickbooks for their financial management. An unusual CEO, Mark, was also the one in control of the books and financial reporting. As his company grew, he moved to Quickbooks Enterprise edition, where they soon faced an inevitable crash of their system due to the volume of transactions processed.

Tag: Outgrowing Quickbooks