First and foremost, your accounting software should meet the major accounting needs of your business (needs analysis)
What do you want the accounting software to do for your business? Is it to
- Manage your inventory
- Track sales
- Create Estimates, invoices
- Manage your Payroll
- Report Business tax
- Create and track Budgets
- Customize reports
- Manage customer contacts or work with your current contact management software (Outlook, ACT!)
What information does your management need to make crucial decisions?
Therefore, only get accounting software that will do the major accounting work you want it to do and only pay for what you need
You Should Also
Consider accounting software that can be easily configured and tailored to reflect the way you do your business because it will produce reports that will reflect the way you do your business and those reports will help you make better financial decisions
Look for Software That Has a Big User Base
The big user base is a sign of software stability and common problems should have already been sorted. You will encounter less technical problems and in the end, you will have less downtime with your accounting software
Ease of Use
Get accounting software that is fairly easy to use and learn. You will almost immediately benefit from your investment in the accounting software
Consult Your Accountant And The Users of The System
They may recommend the best accounting software that may fit very well with your business or which they are already familiar with. In that way, you will not experience resistance to change when you are implementing the system.
Better still, the time taken for system implementation will be short
Does your business have multiple locations that need to be connected? If it does then the best accounting software is the one that can interlink all the locations
With interlinked business location, your company will have up to date reports on your financial performance. Timely reports will help in making quickly informed decision making.
If the operations of your business are complex in nature, like construction or mining, the best accounting software for such a business is the one that is specialized for that industry
Unlike off the self or general accounting software that may produce reports that may be too general, industry-specific accounting and sometimes tailor made software will produce relevant information for your business.
In choosing accounting software also look at what your competitors are using. They may already be using accounting software that may fit well with your needs in which case your research time for getting your accounting software implemented may be lessened.
You will, therefore, start enjoying the benefits of your accounting software as early as possible
Consider The Size of Your Business
There is accounting software for small and medium enterprises (SMES) and also for large enterprises
The best accounting software is the one that you can easily integrate with other software that you may already have or plan to have. You will not have to buy other software to integrate with your new accounting system and you will not spend more because of your new accounting system
On the same note, if you would like to connect your business to the bank then when choosing accounting software choose that which can easily connect your bank
Get software that can work with your existing hardware resources so that you spend only on what will maximize your already existing resources. If you may need to add hardware, you only add what is needed in addition to what you already have.
Ask accounting software consultants or your auditor on what kind of software they recommend for your business. They may already have worked with software that may be suitable for your business and may just recommend that which best fit your business
In Addition,
The best accounting software is that which can grow with your business. When your business grows you may need to add one or two modules to your already existing accounting modules. Therefore choose that which can easily grow with your business without having to buy a new accounting software altogether.
The best accounting software is the one that fits your financial budget. As much as possible, your core business functions must run without being interrupted due to the implementation of the accounting system.