The Jump from QuickBooks to ERP Accounting: What Management Needs to Know – Part 1 Growth and Business Needs

By: Allan Lessing, Director of Customer Success

Part 1: Growth and Business Needs

Throughout my career, I’ve seen it countless times. Managers of growing small to midsize manufacturing businesses find that the capacity of their start-up applications often falls short. They need to make the strategic jump to more robust solutions. 

One common example is moving from QuickBooks to ERP for accounting and financials. This isn’t always an easy decision – multiple considerations come to play. 

While QuickBooks meets basic accounting needs when companies are first launched, they outgrow it quickly. As production processes become more complex and supply chains expand, manufacturers and distributors can no longer count on dozens or hundreds of spreadsheets and manual accounting processes to efficiently manage the growing business. To remain competitive, companies need the peak efficiencies delivered by manufacturing ERP accounting and financials, combined with the operational ERP functions that streamline manufacturing, CRM, planning, purchasing, quality, inventory, and more. 

This four-part blog series focuses on the eight considerations managers need to embrace before moving from QuickBooks to manufacturing ERP accounting and financials. Here in Part 1, we look at why growth is limited with QuickBooks and why enterprises need manufacturing ERP for accounting and financials. The remainder of the series will highlight: 

Part 2: Benefits and Value

Part 3: A Single Platform with Competitive Advantages

Part 4: Real-Time Insights and Benefits

Read our Guide to ERP Accounting and Financials: Grow Your Manufacturing Business Beyond QuickBooks

Why Growth is Limited with QuickBooks

QuickBooks is a straightforward and inexpensive bookkeeping software, targeted toward newly launched small businesses. However, as enterprises grow, they quickly discover that it lacks integration with operational processes and is unable to scale. Significant differences exist between accounting software and ERP. As the number of transactions grows and production expands, stand-alone software doesn’t provide the operational visibility growing enterprises need. 

In my work with manufacturers and distributors, I’ve encountered these limitations of QuickBooks: 

• No integration with manufacturing and shop floor operations
• No documented and GAAP-compliant audit trail of every transaction
• No simple invoice forecasting or company-wide forecasting for decision-makers
• No ability to scale with company growth

Why Businesses Need ERP Accounting and Financials

When manufacturers outgrow QuickBooks bookkeeping tools and look to move away from error-prone manual data entry processes, they quickly find the answer in ERP for their accounting and financials solution. Enterprises need ERP technology that will eliminate redundancy, increase accuracy by automating data entry, and increase efficiency across the business. Moreover, they need the means to capture data to produce regulatory compliant audit trails. 

Manufacturing ERP delivers real-time visibility into transactions, from quotes to orders to invoices, all on a single platform with built-in document control. As the supply chain grows and sales volumes increase, enterprises depend on integrated reporting, forecasting, planning, and operational management tools to optimize efficiency and maintain a competitive edge. 

Growing enterprises need accounting and financial management tools from manufacturing ERP that are fully integrated with operations, CRM, sales, e-commerce, and more – all on a single platform. By connecting accounting practices with dynamic manufacturing processes, companies achieve full visibility and real-time intelligence. 

Manufacturing ERP financials and accounting tools: 

• Connect financial operations, streamline and accelerate transactions and improve cash flow
• Automate accounting processes from journal entries, to receivables and payables, and more

• Accelerate banking, reconciliation and financial close processes
• Manage cash flow, control budgets, and monitor job costing
• Deliver real-time reporting options for planning and forecasting
• Automatically track fixed assets

Read our white paper, Future-Ready Financials for Manufacturers, which dives into the main components of how a modern, industry-specific ERP gives manufacturers future-ready accounting and financials.

Customer Story

Commercial espresso machine manufacturer Synesso recently moved from QuickBooks to OptiProERP’s manufacturing ERP solution. The manufacturer was looking for a fully integrated cloud solution that offered complete data and operational visibility in real time. The solution also had to offer manufacturing insights and scalability to support the company’s rapid growth and, at the same time, be easy to use. Because of the company’s expansion, management was looking specifically for inventory visibility and better supply chain alignment afforded by an end-to-end manufacturing ERP solution. The company needed improved accounting and financial processes. 

Up Next

The next blog in our four-part series focuses on the benefits and value achieved from moving from QuickBooks to manufacturing ERP for accounting and financials.

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