Why Small Businesses are Outgrowing QuickBooks in 2021

If you run a small, order-centric business, QuickBooks may be a practical finance and accounting solution. But if your company has recurring revenue or an assortment of billing models, you'll start to note limitations and growing pains as revenue schedules and invoices become amplified.

As your company scales and you're employed with multiple entities, it becomes increasingly important to possess improved financial visibility.

Having the proper information within the correct format and in real-time is required for achieving a rapid climb. QuickBooks accounting wasn't built to manage that.

With QuickBooks, you'd be missing out on various benefits that automation could bring, such as:

• Increasing company valuation with accurate predict for better business intelligence, project management, partner relationship management, and so on.
• Shortening your hour by the maximum amount as 30-75%.
• Freeing cash which will be redirected to investing in core business functionalities.
• Speeding up quote-to-cash cycles.

Apart from performance and speed problems, there are other signs that your business is outgrowing QuickBooks, and it is time to upgrade.

Inventory and warehouse problems, operational efficiencies, cost, and lack of third-party software integration are among the foremost common reasons why companies leave QuickBooks for specialized finance and accounting solutions.

Advantages and drawbacks of Using QuickBooks Online:

QuickBooks Online is an accounting solution developed by Intuit and is meant for small and growing companies. QuickBooks became fashionable small business owners who did not have formal finance and accounting training upon its release.

QuickBooks could boast about ten years ago having a 94% share within the retail unit within the business accounting sector. The corporate then discharge QuickBooks Online as a cloud solution where users pay a monthly subscription fee to use it.

It's a special product from the QuickBooks online version and offers integration with various third-party software and other financial services.

Advantages

Start-up and small business owners typically manage QuickBooks themselves. Otherwise, they need an outsourced person or dedicated in-house staffs that does its online bookkeeping services and online accounting services.

Let's take a glance at how businesses use QuickBooks.

1.     Expense tracking and bills

QuickBooks can automatically keep track of the company's expenses and bills. It's done by connecting credit cards and bank accounts to the software. All payments are categorized and downloaded, while other transactions are often recorded within the software directly.

2.     Payroll

QuickBooks features a payroll feature that automatically calculates and runs payroll for the enterprise. Alongside payroll tax tables, this feature offers the advantage of getting an updated budget.

3.     Managing company income and sales

QuickBooks allows you to manage income and sales by creating invoices to trace your company's sales. You'll do that individually for each customer, which helps you retain track of what proportion each customer owes.

You'll also check out your customers' assets reports to look at all the small print of past and current due invoices.

4.     Inventory tracking

 QuickBooks can automatically track and update unit costs and amounts of inventory.

5.     Business reporting

When business owners manage and record cash inflow/outflow activities using QuickBooks, they will generate pre-built reports with a few clicks. Also, the reports are updated in real-time as they enter and save transactions.

 Disadvantages

 According to user feedback, the disadvantages of QuickBooks include:

1.     Difficult to find out

If you're a beginner, QuickBooks' interface can cause you to feel overwhelmed. There's a learning curve that needs patience and time.

You'll encounter account-specific jargon that you must be conversant in to know what to try to do (otherwise, you'll feel lost). If you've got enough time to spend watching video tutorials, you'll get the hang of it quickly.

2.     Limited reports

Some users find that reporting isn't nearly as good in QuickBooks Online because it is within the desktop version. Cleaning up outdated QuickBooks reports is time-consuming, the report builder is restricted, and charts aren't customizable.

3.     Audit trail loopholes

The audit trail in QuickBooks is one of the first concerns of this software. Business owners and online accountants like having an in-depth and well-documented flow of monetary information. This type of monetary visibility allows them to form data-driven, strategic decisions.

QuickBooks provides an audit trail for much financial information, but there are situations where that information is often changed without leaving any documentation.

In other words, the software leaves a loophole that would allow an enterprise's financial records to be altered and exploited.

4.     Upgrade fees

To keep your software up-to-date, there are numerous upgrades that you will need to purchase, and therefore the promotions are pricey. The updates are typically required once a year to receive the foremost up-to-date features and other additional resources.

In many cases, larger enterprises would require a more customizable and adaptable platform. And as companies grow, they're going to demand several special attributes and extra options unique to their needs.

QuickBooks is restricted therein. There are only a particular number of licenses available, and a growing business may demand greater scalability power in their business accounting software to be as effective as possible.

The software cannot provide benefits like connected data, process and controls, and increased financial visibility that support your strategic leader's decisions.

But within the case of small businesses and bigger companies that perform uncomplicated accounting tasks, QuickBooks can still be an economical alternative to more robust finance and accounting solutions.

Signs Your Company Has Outgrown QuickBooks:

Have you outgrown QuickBooks? It all depends on what industry you're in, your company size, and the way quickly your enterprise is growing. QuickBooks may be a great entry-level solution, but it does accompany a myriad of limitations.

If you've got sights on growth and expansion, it'll not accommodate your company's needs within the long-run. Let's take a glance at a couple of tell-tale signs that your company is outgrowing QuickBooks and why you should move to a more comprehensive outsourced finance and accounting management solution.

1.     Your ERP requirements extend beyond accounting

You cannot do much with QuickBooks beyond basic accounting processes. If you're using it as a check writer and reporting with Excel, the time has come to go away QuickBooks for a more robust ERP solution. Also, it is time to ditch it if your transaction volume is increasing, and you'll enjoy CRM functions that integrate your processes with those serving your customers.

2.     You're entering duplicate data into multiple systems

As an enterprise grows, there are increasing volumes of knowledge that it must handle. If your staff is spending time entering data into QuickBooks then re-entering it again into other systems, QuickBooks doesn't contribute to your business efficiency.

Some solutions update data altogether systems whenever you create a change. That permits you to ascertain the newest financial record or document version, wherever they're entered.

3.     Spending much time outside QuickBooks

QuickBooks users know that their financials' most in-depth analysis happens in software or a spreadsheet. This unplanned workflow incurs switching costs, and it's likely to make disparate sourced data that eventually become granary.

If you add on systems or drowning in spreadsheets to urge the work done, you should consolidate all the processes into an all-in-one solution to tighten your processes.

4.     Your financial numbers are inaccurate

If it's difficult to work out your actual cash balance, or it takes too long to bill your clients, your business has outgrown QuickBooks. If consolidating financial reports from multiple divisions or meeting the new ASC 606 requirement may be a concern, you should consider switching to a singular solution that supports various report formats, multiple currencies, multi-currency transactions, etc.

5.     Number of users has become a drag

QuickBooks Enterprise supports up to 40 users, while QuickBooks' license allows up to 25 user licenses. This may suit a growing start-up or small business, but you'll likely need more people to be connected at some point.

It might be best if you had an answer which will be scaled as your enterprise grows to still use a well-known platform without requiring a reimplementation (which is often time-consuming and costly).

QuickBooks was designed to handle small volumes of knowledge and obtain overwhelmed relatively easily. If the info is getting corrupted, or the software is taking 15-20 minutes to load, you've probably hit its functional limit.

6.     You would like a multi-location accounting program

QuickBooks has a web version of the software. It's an economical option, but it prohibits any remote work, which is a problem if you ever got to perform daily tasks or access financial information outside the office.

7.     You would like a full, electronic database export

It isn't easy to import data from receivables, billing specialist, payroll, and other external systems because QuickBooks uses a proprietary database.

Which will hamper a business because it interferes with transactions and workflows? By switching to a FaaS solution that supports different types of databases (e.g., SAP HANA, Oracle, or Microsoft SQL Server), you'll better serve your partners and customers.

8.     Lacking versatility and automation

Automation is that the most sure-fire thanks to affecting accounting tasks associated with payments and billing. However, QuickBooks can automate nothing quite routine transactions.

The software often breaks down at the size, and errors can occur even when using the foremost basic automation features. Those errors can accumulate into countless wasted work hours and thousands of dollars in fraudulent payments.

Conclusion:

Are there solutions for a corporation outgrowing QuickBooks? The solution is yes! If you feel you are dalliance on an answer your company has outgrown, it's going to be time to upgrade.

It's crucial to note the primary signs that your business is outgrowing QuickBooks and make a timely change to at least one of the more integrated and robust accounting and business management software solutions.

QuickBooks is meant as a generic online accounting services and bookkeeping platform for a good business and it fulfills its purpose. However, the software lacks the functionality and features that companies got to increase their efficiency, profitability, and scalability. 

Business owners need a more robust finance and accounting software solution and trustworthy financial management guidance to watch and guide their enterprise's strategic directions.