This can mean many things to many people. To some, just getting the software installed and getting it to start up may mean success. However, the end game for business management software is being able to produce accurate financial statements (P&L, Balance Sheet).
- Determining the accuracy of a software package can be a very difficult thing to do. However, when we are looking at business systems, financial statements are a good place to start. Financial statements pull information from many different areas of the software to create an overall picture of the company. If a software package can easily produce an accurate financial statement then you have a winner. The problem is how can you tell? Auditing financial statement is well beyond the capabilities of most floor covering dealers. We strongly recommend that you get help from others in the industry that have experience with this type of thing. Get feedback from other store owners, TM’s, floor covering groups and industry specific consultants that are familiar with these systems. Make sure that you are asking the right kind of questions like: Are you producing your own financial statements? Are the reports accurate and how easy is it to make them produce accurate information? How hard is it to be accurate in year end procedures for tax calculations?
- You may have noticed that one of the questions that we suggest that you ask is how easy is it to produce accurate information? Some packages can produce accurate reports but the hoops that one must jump through makes it very difficult and expensive to achieve (outside accounting help). For example, Quickbooks and Peachtree are able to produce accurate financial statements but aren’t designed for the floor covering industry. The accounting entries are accurate but the timing of the entries is off and in 28 states the sales tax module isn’t accurate. To make the financial statements accurate, regular manual adjustments are required. In order to make these adjustments, one must have a pretty in-depth understanding of the software and standard accounting procedures. Quickbooks is the most used software in the floor covering industry yet 95% of all users can’t produce financial statements on their own. Obviously it doesn’t work well for the floor covering industry.
|
