Are you thinking more about ERPs in your practice, now more than ever, after reading Part 1 of this article? Have you noticed any adds in Insightful Accountant about the upcoming May 12 webinar? Are you thinking you had a way to learn more about ERPs than hunt and peck for bits and pieces on the Internet?
Last week, in Part 1 of this 2-part series, I left you saying to yourself, "I've seen a lot of my 'accounting platform' clients with just the few examples Murph already talked about." And if I were a betting man, I would wager that some of you are already seeing the benefits of an ERP over the accounting software you are currently supporting for your clients.
With those kinds of thoughts in your mind, we definitely need to get back where we left off. So, I will get back to my little chart (below) of reasons why your clients' accounting software may just not be able to keep up with their growing business, and the various troubles that inability presents to their business operations, as well as how those issues can be resolved with a new ERP.
Last time we talked about the lack of integration or too much integration most business encounter when they are using an accounting system designed for small to medium (actually medium-small) businesses. We also talked about App data creating silos that are segregated from users who need access to that data. A common source of siloed data is "good old Excel" where team members have copied data or reports and then manipulated that Excel-data to produce what they needed.
We looked at the hazards of that kind of data being stored on USB-drives or other non-network resources that make the date susceptible to cyber threats. And finally, we discussed how an ERP offers all of the needed functionality, specialization, and data collaboration tools your client's team needs, yet all with the ability to manage access, and control the flow of data properly. Each member of the team has what they need, how they need it, and can easily achieve the efficiencies that business requires to move forward rather than muddling through a cumbersome, segregated, existence. And that's pretty much where we left off in Part 1.
But that's only the first of my 'Accounting Software' issues. So now, let's talk about limited functionality. When your client's accounting software doesn't do XYZ, staff members create manual workarounds that make their jobs more cumbersome, less efficient, and in many instances more costly. For example, they send emails back and forth from the A/P team to office supervisors, office managers, the Purchasing Manager and the Finance Manager to garner approvals to issue a purchase order, acknowledge receipt of goods, acknowledge receipt of the vendor's bill, and garner authorizaiton to pay the vendor's bill. Oh yea, they also created a spreadsheet to track each of those emails sent, received, acknowledged and approved. More spreadsheets, with limited access.
At Insightful Accountant we spend about 20% of our time writing about, interviewing, and podcasting about Apps which are designed to help accounting software users overcome basic limitations in their accounting software. Well, maybe some of your clients read Insightful Accountant and noticed our A/P App Comparison and thought to themselves, one of those Apps was just what they needed.
You see, before your client's accounting software started offering an integrated way to 'pay vendor bills', the A/P staff convinced the boss to secure a 'Bill Payment' App that could streamline their workflow. It let them scan those vendor bills straight into the software, and let them authorize the Bill Pay App provider to pay vendor X, vendor Y and vendor Z either electronically, or mail a check on their behalf.
But I'm once again wagering that, with all that convenience, your client didn't layoff any of their A/P team even though the Bill Pay App company was doing about 40% of the work at an extra cost to the business. Afterall, nobody likes to discuss layoffs, even if it is a valid strategy to reduce costs when you can outsource a process for less cost and greater efficiency.
But why use a third-party App when an ERP can do all of that and more. No need to scan vendor bills, the vendor sends them to your designated email, and they immediately populate your accounts payable all matched up to the purchase order and receiving documentation. Approvals occur within the ERP alerting the appropriate personnel no matter where 'in the world' that person is currently vacationing (or working). And approvals trigger electronic payments using the payment method your vendor prefers. I venture to say you won't find an ERP that doesn't offer this kind of improved productivity, and your client should take advantage of that to reduce their 'AP manpower overhead'. The reality is that ERPs generate cost savings, but only if your client takes advantage of those savings.
I'm not going to take you through my third accounting software issue in the depth that I have with one and two. That's because all of you know too well the problems with 'excess data' and the kinds of 'data corruption' it can cause in standalone and cloud-based accounting systems. The primary problem is that these systems were never designed to scale on a perpetual basis. How many of you have heard the software's customer support tell you, "Well, you are going to need to start a new file, your existing file is just too big"?
I was in the business of solving 'data problems', migrating file components from old to new files, and such. It isn't cheap if it is done correctly. But still the same, most businesses 'don't want to give up their data.' And they do almost anything to hang onto it right up to the point it crashes and can't be recovered.
But while, the typical accounting software wasn't designed to scale perpetually, that isn't so for the vast majority of ERPs. They will grow and grow and grow and grow with a business from Small to Medium to Enterprise and beyond. Any typically, you are just adding more 'storage space' and perhaps a little more 'computing power' to support that growth.
And that brings us to what an ERP really is... it's a solution for businesses based on three key components, two of which I just mentioned. Data storage, computational power, and networking capacity (input speed and output speed to put it bluntly). All the rest of the ERP is 'bells and whistles' like the feature set, the functional capabilities and the interface those things operate within. Tack on more and more 'Artificial Intelligence' to streamline the work and summarize the data to the 99th-degree and you have yourself an ERP.
By now, you are asking, "Murph, where are you going with all of this?"
The answer is simple; I'm transitioning from Accounting Systems to ERPs. More and more of what I write and edit in the future will be related to ERP and those articles will soon be appearing under Insightful Accountant's new banner, "The ERP Update."
The ERP Update will start off kind of slow, just like Insightful Accountant did all those summers long ago. We will have some of my best ERP related stories featured within Insightful Accountant from the recent past. Soon thereafter readers will begin to see contributed features direct from major ERP developers including Acumatica, Intuit, Oracle and Sage with others coming onboard prior to year's end. We also will feature ERP co-developers who build fully integrated functionalities specific to meeting the needs of an ERPs customers. But one of the best aspects of this new banner is the success stories of customers who went from problem ridden, bloated, barely could computer accounting systems to an ERP solving all of their issues and far exceeding their expectations.
Now this doesn't mean I won't still be writing for Insightful Accountant, but those IA features I do write will soon be appearing in the new 'Premium' (registration required), or 'Pro' (paid subscription) or 'Be Insightful' (membership) offerings because much of my 'free' features will be in 'The ERP Update.'
So, if I've convinced you to start exploring ERP as an alternative for a client, or your 'advisory practice' stay tuned for the official launch of our new "The ERP Update" website on May 6, 2026.
You should also Register for 'The Buzz' at 4:00 PM Eastern on May 12, 2026, when Amiee Keenan and I will discuss 'The ERP Update' in-depth.
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