With QuickBooks Desktop officially discontinued, now is a great time to take your business to the next level with a full-blown cloud enterprise resource planning system like NetSuite.
Change is never easy, but it can be especially challenging for organizations that have long relied on basic software systems to run their operations. Those applications can quickly become burdens as companies grow into new markets, serve new customer segments and expand their operations. Before long, those basic systems will start throttling growth and require entirely too many spreadsheets, workarounds and manual processes.
In other cases, core business systems may be sunsetted by their makers, leaving users scrambling to replace the solutions that they’ve relied on for years or even decades. This is exactly what happened earlier this year when QuickBooks Desktop 2021 was discontinued—a move that impacted all versions of an application that was originally introduced in 1998.
All versions of the application were impacted by the decision. “If you don't upgrade your QuickBooks Desktop 2021 by May 31, 2024, you won't have access to live technical support if you run into problems or any of the other Intuit services that can be integrated with QuickBooks Desktop,” the company warned on its QuickBooksHelp page. “This includes QuickBooks Desktop Payroll, QuickBooks Desktop Payments, and online bank feeds. Discontinued versions won't receive the latest critical security patches and updates.”
Finding themselves at a crossroads, many companies began asking themselves if this was the perfect time to break free of the basic accounting system they’d been using for years and upgrade to a more robust enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform like NetSuite. Users of Xero, QuickBooks and other basic programs ask themselves this question on a regular basis, but the discontinuation of QuickBooks Desktop created additional urgency among users of this fundamental accounting application.
A Framework to Build an Empire On
If 2024 is the year that your company sheds its basic business systems in favor of a full-fledged, modern ERP, a good starting point is to simply understand that this won’t be a “like for like” transition for your organization. The end result, in fact, will be a framework that you can build an empire on versus a software platform that you can use to manage your books.
“As you grow, the number of customers increase, you hire more employees, process more data and require greater automation,” NetSuite points out. “You need an accounting software solution that increases efficiency and serves as the foundation for your increasingly complex business.”
For example, NetSuite says one fintech company recently made the switch to prepare to enter markets in new countries. With their previous QuickBooks+Excel setup, company leaders had to manually pull monthly depreciation and amortization reports from spreadsheets. QuickBooks also forced the company to layer on even more systems or applications for specific purposes: revenue management, fixed assets, procurement, order management, billing, inventory management, services delivery, and more.
“These add costs,” NetSuite says. “And if these systems aren’t integrated, your finance staff must maintain half a dozen different applications and risk errors trying to transfer and consolidate data among disparate programs, each with its own configurations and end-to-end processes—and you’ll have to add personnel to manage it all.”
A Step-by-Step Approach
Devon Aubert, Solutions Architect and Delivery Leader at Vursor, works frequently with companies that are making the shift away from basic accounting solutions and over to NetSuite. He says the company kicks off those projects by conducting a thorough evaluation of the entire business—not just the books.
“That way, we can identify opportunities to consolidate some business processes and build efficiencies that the company itself may not have even considered,” Aubert says. “That is ultimately in the vein of cost savings and trying to reduce some of the IT capital that the company is committing to each year—all while enabling far more scalability for the organization itself.”
To best prepare for this holistic evaluation, Aubert tells companies to consider just how much historical data they want to be able to “look back on” and to align these goals across the organization. This is important because one department may not have the same data goals as the next. For example, the CEO or owner may have a different mission than the finance or marketing team does.
“It's good to be aligned on how much data you really need and what you’re hoping to get out of the future system that you don't have today,” says Aubert, “and despite the fact that your current system is going to be shuttered.”
Here are some additional steps that you can take to ensure a smooth transition to your new ERP:
- Evaluate your needs. What are your business needs, what functionalities are you missing and what capabilities do you want in your new system?
- Pick your data. Determine which QuickBooks or Xero data needs to be migrated to your new ERP (e.g., customer lists, vendor information, accounts, etc.)
- Clean the data. This helps ensure accuracy and avoid errors during the migration.
- Decide on customizations. Working with an experienced implementation partner like Vursor, explore the customization options that you’ll need for specific workflows or reports.
- Keep the lines of communication open. Throughout the planning and implementation process, be sure to maintain clear communication with all stakeholders—from leadership to the individuals who will be using the system, and all points in between.
Break Free of Basic Accounting Applications
QuickBooks and Xero may be the fallback systems for smaller operations, but as your company scales and grows those systems will struggle to keep pace. By migrating to a robust ERP like NetSuite, you can not only address issues like discontinued systems but you can also prepare your company for future success, reduce risk and improve its competitive advantage.
“As you look around at your competitors, there's a good chance that at least about half of them are either already running or evaluating a system like NetSuite,” Aubert concludes. “If you don't want to lose market share to them due to your own internal efficiencies, it’s time to move beyond basic solutions and unlock the full potential of a robust ERP.”