Guide to Selecting a Business Accounting System by The Accounting Library

The key to selecting a new accounting system for your organization is based upon:

• Your ability to know what your organization needs to do very well in order to succeed.
• Your understanding of what role your accounting system needs to play.
• Defining specific functionality that will meet these requirements.
• Finding that single product which best suits your unique requirements.
• Installing and configuring that system with minimum disruption to your normal activities.
• Training your employees how to use the system to accomplish their specific job responsibilities.
• Creating manual and automated business processes which meet your organizations strategic and operational objectives.

The key concept here is that selecting an accounting system is a process, not an instantaneous decision or force fitting one product because someone recommended it or the only one of which you are aware. We have deliberately structured The Accounting Library to help you achieve all of these objectives. You could carry out this process manually, but it would take a great deal of time, and in the end you might miss the best product simply because you didn't know it existed. You might not be aware of specific functionality that might enable you to better control your business simply because you didn't ask the right questions of yourself.

Yes, you can probably find a product that comes fairly close; one that is a household name; one that seems to be fairly good because it has received extensive press coverage. However, my questions to you are quite simple.

• What is the cost of failure should you select the wrong system?
• What is the cost of your time and that of your staff if you were to spend hundreds or thousands of hours trying to do this manually?
• Even if you are already working with a consultant, doesn't it make sense to secure a second opinion, or do a lot of the work yourself so your consultant will understand better exactly what it is you need?
• If you are going to spend $5,000 or $15,000 or $150,000 or even $2,000,000 for a new accounting system, why not invest $395 (or even $1,295) making sure the system you select is really the best one for you and your employees?