Your accounting software

Simon Atkins, Technical Director at ScottAdam Systems, shares his insight on the latest technology for business.

Your accounting software forms the backbone of your business operations but are you and your staff getting the right financial information when you need it? Do you have a completely accurate picture of your business at any time?

If not, you may have outgrown your system and need to upgrade or replace it. These questions will help you to decide whether your accounting package is helping you to run your business or actually holding you back:

  1. Does your current software integrate with your other systems allowing staff to extract and input data easily via other applications? Or do they spend valuable time re-keying data which can lead to errors?
  2. Are all your managers receiving the financial information they need on a daily basis? Or are they unable to take the right decisions due to a lack of data?
  3. Is it easy for your staff to produce management accounts for meetings and mailshots? Or does this take up too much time with a less than professional end result?
  4. Can sales orders and timesheets be completed remotely and sent straight into your accounting system? Or do these have to be completed manually and the system updated periodically?
  5. Are you able to have a completely accurate picture of your business operations at any one time or do you have to wait for daily or weekly updates?
  6. Does your system alert you when an order comes in or a client goes on stop? Or do managers have to wait for weekly or monthly reports?
  7. Does your accounting software allow you to drill right down to transaction level? Or do you have to spend time searching through manual records?
  8. Is your system completely secure or do you lose valuable data if there is a power or hardware failure?
  9. Do remote workers have access to the accounting system or do they have to wait till they are next in the office?
  10. Can your system adapt to the needs of your growing business or do you spend more and more time and money trying to fix problems?

If you answered mainly "no" to the first part of these questions then it may be time review your current accounting system.

We’d be happy to do this for you at no cost if you’d like to email us on simonsays@scottadam.co.uk or call 020 8360 6600.