Nobody changes their accounting software for the fun of it. It’s a big step – and it’s not as if you’re currently sitting around the office with nothing to do.
There are a host of apparently compelling reasons why, after weighing up a finance system upgrade, you might consider calling the whole thing off.
iplicit’s own research among 1,000 finance decision makers in medium-sized organisations reveals some of the reasons they hesitate to switch accounting software.
Here are five good reasons for NOT upgrading your finance system – along with some alternative ways to think about them.
Most finance teams are not short of work. Why change accounting systems when running things with the old system takes every available hour?
Our research confirmed this is a common barrier to switching accounting software. We found 24% feared the project would be a distraction from core responsibilities. A fifth were not convinced the outcome was worth the pain and 17% said the process was too complicated – suggesting quite a bit of concern about the disruption of changing.
If you allow plenty of time, avoid your busiest spells (do you really need to do this at year-end?) and perhaps consider bringing in external help, it is possible for the normal work of the team to continue uninterrupted.
Cost tends to be the best reason for not acting on any project – and nearly a quarter (23%) of decision makers in our study said expense was a barrier to changing finance systems.
All these things need to be part of the equation before you can know the cost of updating accounting software.
Time is often in even shorter supply than money. Our survey found 21% of respondents citing a lack of internal resources as a reason for not changing finance system.
In that guide, we mentioned the story related by author Stephen Covey about the man who’s trying to fell a tree with a blunt saw. Asked why he doesn’t sharpen the saw, he says: “Because I’m too busy sawing.”
Switching finance systems will require an investment of time – but not necessarily as much as you might think. For years, replacing legacy accounting software meant using systems designed for big corporates. These took months to implement and could disrupt an organisation for more than a year. Today, the best accounting software offers implementation times that add up to weeks rather than months, contained within a single calendar quarter.
More than a quarter (27%) of decision makers in our research feared that it would take too long to see a return on investment in new financial management software.
Accounting software implementation costs can be kept much lower than they are for those over-engineered corporate systems.
As a result, ROI on accounting software can happen in months rather than years, especially if you free up substantial amounts of staff time – and a succession of iplicit case studies have shown that time saved can run into days every month.
This was the top concern on the minds of finance decision makers in our research. We found 42% of respondents feared losing historical data when switching accounting software – while 32% cited the cost of a “right to use” licence to keep seeing data in their legacy software.
But modern cloud-based accounting software offers superior data security and accessibility – and data migration can be seamless, avoiding downtime.
What’s more, those right to use licences – which can often cost more than you were paying for the old software – are unnecessary. It’s possible to smoothly import past data into the new system, where it is available in a read-only version whenever you need it. The best accounting software also gives you the peace of mind that you can export the data again if you ever choose to change systems in the future.
If you’re using a legacy accounting system – or a cloud application designed for small businesses – you’ll be racking up hidden costs.
With a legacy system, those costs range from server hosting fees and inefficiencies to demotivated staff and increased cybersecurity risks.
Entry-level cloud software, on the other hand, is a great solution for many small organisations. Yet as a business grows, the software’s limitations can leave you spending many hours doing manual calculations and laboriously pulling together data to produce reports. On top of this, unstable app stacks can risk disruptions to your work.
In both these scenarios, the inadequacy of the system can make it harder to recruit, while manual processes increase the likelihood of errors or even fraud. Perhaps most critically, the lack of real-time financial data hinders good credit control, cost management, and strategic decision-making, leaving your organisation flying blind.
Investing in modern accounting software ensures streamlined processes, enhanced security, and up-to-date insights, empowering your organisation to operate efficiently and confidently.
To find out more about iplicit’s cloud accounting software, you can take a tour or get in touch for a demonstration.