What is so secretive about accounting software?
Have you tried to find accounting software lately? Have you tried to get a demo or establish a fixed price for the software? Can you actually talk to a human without having to go through a series of questions judging whether or not you are deemed worthy to talk to? Can you find someone who understands what your needs are? How about finding a sales rep who understands accounting? How about someone who knows the difference between accrual basis and cash basis? LIFO, FIFO, and Weighted Average? Is that too much to ask?
Just for kicks, go searching for accounting software; plug in what you are looking for; find a company, and call them just to test my theory that gatekeepers abound in this industry. Judge whether the software company’s response is ”Tell us everything we want to know about you, and we will decide whether we want to talk to you.”
Ask the company about its chart of account structure. How many General Ledger accounts does your software allow for? How many sub-accounts are for each GL account? How many SKUs does your inventory allow? Does your software come in modules?
Here’s the killer question: does your software come in modules? If so, must I reconcile the amounts in the modules to the amounts in the general ledger? For example, does every SKU in your Inventory module have to be reconciled to every SKU in the master file in the GL?
Here’s an important question to ask. Does your present software allow you to export your present data into an intermediary media such as Excel? And if so, can that data be imported into the new accounting software?
How about setup time and fees? Will there be a need for “Implementation Consultants?” If so, how many? How many hours will they consume? And what is the budgeted cost? Is there a cap on the implementation consultants’ cost? What is the estimated amount of time to get you up and running?
For kicks, you can call Plus & Minus and talk accounting with us. We love this stuff. We worship this stuff. Wallowing in the guts of a general ledger is like playing in a sandbox to us. It’s like happy hour without adult drinks.
