When Should My Business Start Using Accounting Software?

Timing is important when you’re running a small business.

Do things too early and you risk not being ready. Too late, and your competitors may have already got there before you.

Timing becomes even more important when you’re looking at a major investment, like accounting software. You’ll likely ask yourself, “Is now the right time to get it?”.

While this varies a bit for everyone, there are some telltale signs that your business is ready to make the change. We’ll go through some of them in this article, and how accounting software can enhance your company’s long-term growth.

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Signs It’s Time to Invest in Accounting Software

You need faster access to your information

When you begin to run your business, there might not be much of a time pressure on accessing your data. After all, you’re not answering to many people.

This will change as your business beds in, however. Expanding your team and customer base means quick access to your financial data becomes crucial.

As experienced Excel users will tell you, it can be prone to crashing or otherwise taking an eternity to load. Accounting software doesn’t have this problem nearly as often. Makers guarantee uptime, such as 99.8% for Sage Intacct, ensuring your data is available whenever you need it.

This is beneficial for your business. Accessing your data quickly means you’ll have it to hand for important business decisions – and be able to make those decisions faster as a result.

You’re struggling to keep up with bookkeeping tasks

As we’ve mentioned before, spreadsheets are a fine solution when you’re just starting out, with maybe a handful of clients.

But as the number grows, so does your workload – from one spreadsheet to many, and from simple formulas to complex ones.

Even hiring more people may end up spreading the workload out, rather than decreasing it.

On the other hand, accounting software helps you do more from the start. Its automation means fewer tasks on your to-do list, with financial transactions and account reconciliation handled by the software.

You need wider access

Obviously, multiple-user access isn’t something you need to worry about in the very beginning. But as you bring on more people to help your business perform at its best, it can quickly become a necessity.

After all, sitting around and waiting for someone else to exit a file doesn’t do much to achieve goals!

Accounting software has multiple user access as standard, meaning no more of this. However, it can also help you beyond just allowing more than one person into a system at once.

It can give those people different types of access depending on their job roles. Tailored data views can reveal new insights that will do the opposite of those locked spreadsheets, and actually help your business to move forward.

You want to integrate with other software

If your business can be run from a single application, it’s one of the lucky ones. Even if they’re on the smaller side, most companies have to use different programmes.

It’s not hard to see why having one system that integrates with most others would be a good thing from a business standpoint. But the basic solutions (like Excel) just aren’t made with accounting in mind, so it’s unlikely they’ll have the integrations you need.

Modern accounting software is built to work with many large software vendors (including Microsoft 365). This means you don’t have to choose between upgrading your accounting or staying with other software you’re used to.

Making the Decision

So, you’ve noticed one (or more!) of these signs. What next?

Well, that’s simple – and complicated. Once you’ve identified there’s a need for accounting software, your instinct might be to jump into looking at providers, but you would be missing out a crucial step.

There are literally thousands of accounting software programmes out there – and knowing what your own business needs out of a solution will immediately narrow down that pool.

Want a more in-depth look at how to choose accounting software? We’ve got an article about that right here!

There’s no definitive timescale for when a business should start thinking about bringing in accounting software; it depends on a company’s needs and desires, as well as whether they have the time to put in the research.

One thing is for sure, though – with its range of features and flexibility, accounting software is the first step on the ladder to success for many businesses.

PKF Smith Cooper Systems has been working with businesses across the UK to implement Sage 200 and Sage Intacct for the last decade.

To learn more about why we’re “The Good Sage Guys to Deal With”, contact us on 01332 959008, or use the enquiry form.