While an accounting system is limited to accounting, an ERP system lets you manage all your firm’s operations. For architecture firms, this means you can benefit from specialized modules to help you overcome the challenges specific to your industry, integrated to your accounting and financial system. However, growing firms can have a hard time identifying the best time to move to an ERP system. After all, why change your entire system if the accounting system still works well?
Here are a few situations that may indicate you’ve reached the limits of your accounting system. If it’s the case, you should seriously consider adopting an ERP system more powerful in terms of functionality.
Issue #1: Lack of integration
A lack of integration between the products and applications used by your firm can result in wasted time and errors caused by manual manipulations. If your firm is using non-integrated Excel files, your users may be having a hard time obtaining the data they’re looking for. Invoicing is often complex and time-consuming, taking up a lot of your accounting team’s time.
See how A professional service firm can now process invoices 4 times faster with an integrated solution such as JOVACO’s. The time it frees up can then be invested into higher-value tasks.
Issue #2: Growing pains
A recent or anticipated growth can bring its share of challenges. If the size or number of your projects has increased but your tools remain the same, there’s a good chance you will have a hard time managing your projects and operations. For example, adding various currencies or new branches or companies can complicate project management. Your accounting team’s workload will also increase proportionally.
At this stage, growing firms often try to keep their costs low by adding a specialized solution to their existing accounting system. However, you may hit the limits of such a non-integrated system far sooner than you expect. By investing now in an ERP system that will meet your needs for many years, you will make huge savings in the long term.
Issue #3: Lack of reporting
Another issue that growing firms may encounter is a lack of reporting and difficulty to obtain the data they need. If your employees are doing all their manipulations in Excel, errors can easily find their way into your reports. This means you will not only waste time getting the data in question, but also correcting it. Worse, they may go unnoticed and lead to faulty conclusions. The information may also be difficult to share. The result is a lack of visibility on your data and projects, not to mention an increased risk of write-offs and client dissatisfaction.
Here are just a few situations that may indicate it’s time to replace your accounting system with an ERP. The time and resource involvement required by an ERP system should not be underestimated, so it may be interesting to launch this project before your firm grows even bigger. You will then have the necessary tools to support your growth, facilitate your processes, and improve project and cost control.
To learn more, read the blog posts our Director of Business Development has written to help growing firms:
Have any more questions? Contact JOVACO or register to our free webinar for architecture firms on Thursday, November 25, 2021, to find out how to support your firm’s growth with integrated project management tools (in French).
