When it comes to selecting a new business technology to facilitate growth, an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) often isn’t the first thing that comes to mind for small business owners. And it’s easy to see why. In the early stages, small business owners are used to implementing lightweight systems that don’t require much specialist skills to use or maintain. The name ERP alone suggests that this type of software is designed for much larger organisations and may be difficult to manage within the constraints of a small growing business and without a dedicated resource.

But the truth is, a maturing and growing small business at some point needs to take the leap and level up its systems to enable further expansion. This also means saying goodbye to solutions that may have been a good initial stepping stone, but you have outgrown and are now standing in the way of further progress. In our experience, upgrading your accounting system is a critical factor to enable your next phase of growth.

So, when and why is an upgrade to an ERP such as Netsuite a good idea for a small business?

 

1. Your current systems lack proper integrations

At some point, the limited configuration capability of your system integrations will become a problem too. Basic accounting software just isn’t designed to deliver the depth of functionality required by more complex business processes. To plug that gap, organisations often look to third party applications. Eventually, most of the functionality is performed outside of the core accounting software. 

Or a few hasty integrations or add-ons are implemented. In this case, as more applications are integrated with the accounting software, the potential to form data islands increases, preventing a unified view of the business and adding to the existing reporting challenges of inaccessible, inaccurate insight. 

 In addition, every application brings its own lifecycle management and application dependency challenges. It creates more moving parts to oversee and manage, further reducing business control and visibility while exponentially raising the possibilities of failures, instability and downtime. Not to mention the risk of vulnerability to cyber threats.

2. You are looking to expand into new markets

For many small businesses, growth opportunities lie in new markets. This may involve establishing a foreign presence, selling to intermediaries or directly to customers via eCommerce channels.

Often, smaller accounting packages won’t have the capabilities to help you comply with the unique needs and requirements of each market. Managing multiple currencies, foreign tax, financial and accounting regulations and multi entities can quickly overwhelm a small business.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? If you’re struggling with any of the above you will need to start thinking about moving to a more sophisticated finance solution such as NetSuite.

3. Your business has complex reporting processes

If you’re noticing that your staff is spending a lot of time attempting to integrate reports across your business with ever more stores, outlets or products to account for, it might be time to consider an upgrade to an ERP. A typical warning sign is that your team is relying on manual and spreadsheet workarounds to get the job done which is not only cumbersome but also extremely error-prone. It’s a common scenario. In the end, reporting becomes frustrating and onerous, swallowing countless hours that could be better spent on more valuable endeavours that have a measurable impact on your business’ bottom line.

4. You don’t have the data to make confident business decisions

When small businesses start out, standard reports from a basic accounting system probably provide sufficient business insight to keep things moving. But as the business model, entity and data all become more complex, you will likely need access to customised reports to achieve deeper more detailed analysis. Again, the more entry-level accounting systems just can’t give you the real-time access to data analytics and reporting needed to make confident business decisions.

So, what does a growing small business looks like with NetSuite

If you are looking to grow your small business, Netsuite ERP is the perfect alternative. This cloud-based platform is designed to support small businesses on their growth journey. In a single solution, the platform delivers:

NetSuite ERP allows small business leaders to automate accounting for their core operations, provides functional depth to support complex business models and processes, and because it’s highly configurable and allows a greater depth of tailoring for unique business processes. The native unified data model and search and reporting also offers detailed insight across all functional capabilities.

 At Annexa we’ve partnered with many small Australian businesses who were struggling with the pain points mentioned and wanted to move to the next level. Following a successful NetSuite implementation, they gained the strong operational foundation needed to successfully transition from small businesses to a thriving organisation operating in multiple markets. You can explore our NetSuite case studies here.

It doesn’t have to be a lengthy implementation process either. To speed up the time to value, many customers choose to deploy NetSuite SuiteSuccess Starter Edition. This implementation model packages the experience gained from tens of thousands of deployments into a set of leading practices. This allows you to get up and running quickly with pre-configured roles and KPIs, workflows, reminders, reports, value-driven dashboards and 95+ pre-built reports.

 

 

To find out how NetSuite can help your small business level up, contact Annexa sales.

 

 

Annexa is a leading NetSuite partner with extensive experience designing and implementing comprehensive and customised business systems, including payroll solutions, financial management, warehouse management and ecommerce solutions.