Choosing Accounting Software for your Business

Choosing the right accounting software is an important process for your business and involves matching your processes to various software packages and determining the best fit. “Best Fit” of the accounting software will set your business apart from your competition. To find the “Best Fit”, we’ve come up with the following questions:

1. Buy your software from reputable company. Make sure that the company is reputable and won’t disappear once you are done with implementation.

2. Check on company’s age. The longer the company has been on the market, higher the chance of it providing better quality product.

3. Buy from the company that specializes in accounting systems. Make sure that the company which created the software specializes in accounting systems. That will come in handy when new laws, such as Sarbanes Oxley Compliance requirements will be implemented in the system.

4. Look at several packages and compare them. Using spreadsheet program compile the list of criteria that is important to your business and score each software application on the scale from 1-10.

5. Does the software package you are looking at purchasing have good track record in the industry? Do some research and make sure that people, in general, are happy with the software.

6. Technical Support. Make sure that the software vendor has local technical support that, if necessary, can come to your office and address any issue right away. There is nothing more frustrating than having a system go down in the middle of a busy day and being on the phone with tech support person who is 3000 miles away walking you through the steps to recover the system.

7. Growth Capacity. Make sure the accounting package of your choice can keep up with your business growth.

8. Learning Tools. Make sure that the company from which you purchase your accounting software has classes, booklets and seminars that your employees can take to get proficient in utilizing the system to its fullest abilities.