They’re tight.  They’re uncomfortable.  They’re out of style. They’re not in keeping with a professional look.  Yes, they served you well many years ago.  They may even be in fine shape.  But it’s time to move on.  You need something that fits you and fits the part.

Financial accounting software is the same.  You need something that fits the business and fits the part.  There’s no denying that entry level accounting software like Peachtree and QuickBooks can serve a business well for many years.  But over the course of years, the business changes, it grows, it faces new demands.

Is it time for your business to upgrade to a new financial accounting solution?  Here are some questions to consider:

• Does your team spend a large amount of time outside of the accounting system, using spreadsheets, to get at critical business information?

• Are you increasingly having trouble providing your management team and other stakeholders with the information they need in a timely fashion?

• Do you need to manage complex requirements like revenue deferral and recognition?

• Would your teams and their managers benefit from integrated mission-critical systems like sales force automation, professional services automation to avoid rekeying data and the errors that come with duplicate entry?

• Would be an improvement if your system could handle your multi-currency and multi-entity requirements as you add locations and do business in multiple currencies?

• Are you looking to attract venture capitol funding?

If you’ve answered “yes” to most or all of these questions – you’ve outgrown your accounting system.

The organization’s we’ve worked with faced all the same problems and when it came time to evaluate new solutions, they also wanted to explore whether cloud-based, Software as a Service (SaaS) would make sense.  As long as they were upgrading features and functions – why not evaluate the advantages of cloud computing?

In addition to solving the problems they were currently facing, they felt that cloud-based financial accounting solutions like NetSuite and Intacct, gave them an additional slate of benefits such as anytime, anywhere access (no more goofing around with clunky VPN connections), top-notch security and disaster recovery, and freedom from the expense and maintenance of additional servers and other network concerns.

But far more than cost savings, what our clients benefit most from is integration –having their systems working in a true service resources planning (SRP) mode for the first time.

If you are struggling with your current system and would like to examine upgrading to the cloud, we’re here to help.

This is the first time we appeared on the list and, as the accompanying article mentions, this year shows a remarkable increase in the number of cloud-based financial accounting solutions and resellers.

This is not simply a list of who sells the most.  Selection is based on “growth, leadership in the industry and development and acceptance of important software products by the resellers…”

The selection of mid-market accounting software resellers for Bob Scott’s 2011 VAR Stars rests on one basic principal: quality, not revenue, as the deciding factor in picking the 100 businesses that are selected for this honor. VARs from one-person shops to the largest participants in the business have been selected in past years’ and in this year’s rendition.

We are honored to be among this group.

A recent report by Global Industry Analysts Inc. explains that the recession served as a “push” factor for cloud computing:

The recent economic recession saw hordes of companies take to cloud computing as a cost saving strategy. Cloud computing came as a boon for companies during tough economic and financial climate, given that the technology can potentially slash IT costs by over 35%. The bad economy fed the global cloud computing services market as cash, and revenue starved companies prowled for IT solutions that are cost-effective, require minimum to zero investments, and low management of computing resources. Technically, the feature of multi-tenancy, or the ability to scale up or scale down services on demand, makes fiscal sense in tough economic climate. And with cloud computing fitting the bill in every respect, the business case for the technology stands exemplified. In short, recession became the push factor, which tripped the market into the mass adoption stage.

Global Industry Analysts Inc. identified NetSuite as one of key players businesses turned to during the recession.  The report also states that given the critical mass of early adopters during the recession, cloud computing is poised for a post-recession boom.

InnoVergent is a cloud computing evangelist.  We have seen first hand the benefits that solutions like NetSuite and OpenAir have brought organizations – rapid deployment, streamlined processes stripped of time-consuming and error-prone duplicate data entry, customized dashboards that provide department leaders with key data on key performance indicators, and more.

Savvy business leaders realize that optimizing profitability while growing the business is a far more rewarding exercise than sweating out the cash flow month in and month out.  It’s a matter of thriving versus surviving.

The over-reliance on spreadsheets within finance and accounting departments is remarkable when you consider it’s time-consuming and unnecessary given today’s financial accounting solutions, but the most sobering drawback of reliance on spreadsheets is that they are prone to error, in fact riddled with errors.  Consider this:  “According to both PWC and KPMG more than 90 percent of corporate spreadsheets have material errors in them”  (The Register)

More than 90 percent!  How many spreadsheets do you rely on?  Does your department rely on?  Does the company rely on?

There are a variety of reasons for relying on an arsenal of spreadsheets – chief among them a collection of disparate software systems (one for accounting, one for CRM, one for project accounting, etc.) that don’t integrate.  The overlap of key information that needs to be in each system is usually rekeyed manually opening up yet another opportunity for error.

You really don’t have to live that way anymore.  Cloud computing technology makes new solution deployment affordable and fast.  Financial accounting solutions such as NetSuite and Intacct are either equipped with cross department functionality or are easily integrated with solution like Adaptive Planning and Salesforce.com.

Not only will these solutions rid you of dozens upon dozens of error-prone spreadsheets, chances are, they will also save your organization money.  In addition to alleviate a lot of procedural pain, these solutions are capable of providing you and other department leaders with relevant, real-time, key data customer by user.  Each individual views dashboards populated with data critical to their departmental budgets and KPIs.

Elimination of errors, time and money saved, and greater accountability throughout the company – all compelling reasons to find a better answer than spreadsheet reliance. Take a closer look at NetSuite and Intacct, and please know we’re here to answer any questions you might have.

So here’s how it goes. As a professional services or software company is starting up, the executive team looks for the least expensive software that will take care of immediate needs – often selecting QuickBooks on the finance side.

Wherever the Sales side begins, these days they’re likely to arrive fairly quickly at Salesforce.com for customer relationship management (CRM)  – a runaway hit in sales organizations small and large and in all kinds of verticals. And usually that’s it for sales. Once they get started with Salesforce.com, they’re hooked. Soon, as the business grows, Accounting starts feeling the inevitable pinch that comes of relying on QuickBooks – manual data entry and re-entry, slow closings, lost expense reports, errors, and all the rest. And so as they begin talking about finding a more sophisticated and integrated suite of solutions than QuickBooks, they often hear a familiar story from Sales. “Do what you want to,” the VP of Sales says, “But just see that whatever you buy plays nice with Salesforce.com, because we’re not changing that.”

And so this is how it falls to accounting to find a solution that can provide all of the powerful back office accounting and finance functions that can integrate with and match the strength of Salesforce.com’s proven management of leads, opportunities, quotes and front office functions. Plus they need to find the right company to help ensure seamless integration. What does effective integration mean for an organization? It means you have tools that automate management of accounts from opportunity to cash and beyond. It means you streamline your whole enterprise – you eliminate error-prone manual data entry and re-entry while you furnish both sales and finance the ability to easily have and share information in real time.

What this well-oiled machine means for the enterprise

When front and back office functions are well integrated, it streamlines and automates your entire process. Sales, with a single click of a mouse, transform quotes to orders instantly eliminating unnecessary paperwork and re-keying of data. With direct and easy access to “back office” data from finance directly in Salesforce.com, sales can understand exactly what’s going on with customers and their orders. They have access to order information, provisioning and shipping status, and billing and payment information. So sales sees potentially helpful data from finance’s domain – for instance about a shipping backlog or overdue invoices – all from within Salesforce.com.

At a service business with Salesforce.com well-integrated with its back office software, as contracts and subscriptions mature and begin to reach their expiration, the back office software generates alerts about the renewal sales opportunities in Salesforce.com – before the contract expires. So sales can efficiently manage renewal business. And because the information is being drawn from finance, the original terms can be customized by whatever adjustments are appropriate, and present all of that automatically to sales. You can even set it up so that emails go out to clients informing them about impending renewals and renewal terms, so that your sales team and customers are all working off of the same page.

Whether you decide on Intacct or NetSuite, either can be tightly integrated with Salesforce.com. But to get the most out of that integration, you need to find a team of professionals who understand your business and can help you make the installation and customization produce the kinds of efficiency and automation that will best serve your company. InnoVergent understands more than the solutions they implement, they also understand software and services businesses – and they have an experienced team that can make your back office and CRM software work its best for your business.

To avoid such unpleasantness business has always done its best to build plans based on the most accurate forecasts possible. Even before the information age, the principles were the same. A business gathered the best data it could manage to find, established strategic and tactical plans based on the data, and periodically made adjustments to its plans based on analysis of reports of differences between results and forecasts.

The sophistication of this process has grown with advances in computing. For instance, when mainframes emerged on the business landscape, companies that could afford it began investing in Decision Support Systems (DSS). And as business computing has evolved, so has the range and sophistication of the tools available for this fundamental function.

Now in the age of pervasive personal computers and the advent of the Cloud, more businesses than ever can take advantage of the most powerful and responsive planning tools yet. Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (also known as Business Performance Management, BPM), such as Adaptive Planning, now supply an affordable and extremely agile way to avoid surprises by providing a continuous, responsive loop of forecasting, planning, monitoring and analyzing progress and results, and adjusting forecasts and planning.

The approach used by many companies today relies heavily on spreadsheets. Reports are manually entered on spreadsheets which must then be collected, checked, collated, and integrated to create reports to finally be analyzed and acted on by finance and the executive team. This system relies on many hours of manually intensive data entry and manipulation and is generally cumbersome, slow, and error-prone. And the final product are goals and plans handed down periodically as directed, usually, by finance. Measuring results and making changes to plans requires this slow, unreliable and inefficient process of creating, collecting, and consolidating spreadsheets all over again.

The basic principle of CPM may make it sound deceptively similar: plan, execute, measure, adjust, repeat. The difference is that CPM automation streamlines and collapses these steps so that they happen instantly, automatically, and simultaneously — dramatically increasing speed, efficiency, responsiveness and efficacy.

Instead of waiting to work up and submit their reports up the line at budget time – often just once a year, managers throughout the business routinely enter results directly into the system using an interface that feels comfortably similar to a spreadsheets. And as data is entered, the CPM system generates up-to-the-minute rolling forecasts. These forecasts are shared with the manager and throughout relevant departments and the executive team instantly via easy-to-read dashboards and customizable scorecards.

In creating this kind of instant collaborative environment, Accounting becomes more a custodian of the process instead of its sole owner, while accountability and ownership are distributed throughout the enterprise to rest with managers. When CPM is implemented in concert with a sound management methodology, it transparently communicates that strategy throughout the enterprise. By automating costing of routine overhead and customizing the kinds of reports and results that managers see, managers throughout your company can be seamlessly focused on maximizing the metrics that are most closely relevant to your company’s strategic direction and helped to avoid wasting time on non-critical details or sidetracks.

To avoid surprises in the midst of rapidly changing economic and market conditions, it’s critical that you can anticipate what would happen to your business under various different conditions. CPM offers the ability to run and evaluate all kinds of what-if scenarios. For instance, what if you add five more resources to engineering? CPM automates evaluation of the case, taking into account all associated costs – from salary and benefits to office space to furniture to phone and beyond – quickly presenting answers. And no matter how you want to tweak the variables, CPM applications makes quick evaluation possible, generating alternative results instantly. What if your sales continue to grow at the current rate? How much net revenue will that mean to your bottom line? What if sales level off, or current customers start spending less with your firm? Possible “what ifs” are virtually limitless, and having quick access to answers can be invaluable as you plot your future plan.

In addition to competitive advantages of CPM, there are further advantages to a Cloud-based CPM solution such as Adaptive Planning. A Cloud-based solution lowers the total cost of ownership by eliminating expensive IT investments in infrastructure and maintenance costs. Without upfront IT costs, the risks are lowered as well. And when InnoVergent integrates Adaptive Planning into your company’s other enterprise applications such as NetSuite, Adaptive Planning can draw from and update relevant data, or can expose where data originates by bringing up the original source at the click of a mouse.

Coupling your strategic management goals to an integrated, Cloud-based CPM application such as Adaptive Planning gives you the power to let people throughout your company know exactly where things are, where they’ve been, and – importantly – where you’re taking them. And it helps you minimize troublesome surprises.

“Adaptive Planning is boasting of over 1000 customers and 25000 individual users. These sales have been delivered through over 200 partners, the highest profile of which is NetSuite. All of this has added up to a 100% compound annual growth rate between 2007 and 2010.

[Adaptive Planning’s]…new release focuses heavily on deep reporting capabilities. Also being catered for is team collaboration within reporting so that annotations and discussions can occur in real time and across an organization over real-time data.

NetSuite Rescues Companies From On-Premise ERP That’s “Frozen in Time”

Patented Upgrade Innovations, SuiteCloud Platform Innovations and Customer-Friendly Business Processes Eliminate Legacy Software Headaches and Version-Lock.

“…Companies running NetSuite benefit from NetSuite’s technological innovations that include a patented phased roll-out process, providing NetSuite customers the ability to adopt new functionality in accordance with their own individualized upgrade path. In addition, the company announced a new offering that allows businesses to select their own upgrade date from available dates to accommodate their unique business requirements and business cycles. And finally, the company announced new cloud-based lifecycle management technology that allows customers and partners to test their own custom-developed NetSuite features and applications before deploying them to their live NetSuite environment.”

NetSuite Powers Up Services Organizations with Advanced Mobility and Analytics

“For three consecutive years, NetSuite has been the leader in the Professional Services Automation market per SPI Research. Companies using NetSuite’s OpenAir professional services automation (PSA) and services resource planning (SRP) software are among the highest performing when evaluated side-by-side against peer organizations. According to SPI Research, NetSuite owns 20 percent of the market share, while the closest competitor has only 12 percent (Source: SPI Research 2011 Professional Services Maturity Benchmark Report).”

Clarizen and Intacct:  Partnership for end-to-end Project Accounting

“Clarizen was announced as a key best-of-breed partner at the Advantage Conference – Intacct‘s annual customer and partner conference.  In an opening keynote with Intacct executives, Clarizen was showcased in an end-to-end demo along with CRM leader Salesforce.com to highlight a complete Service Delivery Lifecycle, with seamless hand-offs involving sales, project delivery and project accounting.”

Six reasons to use cloud services for small business:

1. Save on Infrastructure
2. Save on Setup and Management
3. Save on Utilities
4. Get Better Performance, More Features
5. Increased Company Agility
6. Enjoy More Fault Tolerance

Have a great weekend!

Whether your company is small or large, the tracking of assets is an important business concern and it’s usually manual, cumbersome and time-consuming.  Our solution can help you track the location, quantity, condition, maintenance and depreciation of assets.

Fixed Asset Management

InnoVergent’s Fixed Asset Management Solution for Intacct helps you take advantage of depreciation schedules as well as better manage expenses through loss prevention, improved equipment maintenance and warranty usage, and reduce unnecessary equipment purchase.

Fixed Asset Management Solution features:

• Department, class, location, physical location, and assignment management
• Ability to post depreciation to GL
• Asset, asset types, and asset category management
• Auto-generation of assets through asset queuing
• Configurable asset, depreciation charge, write off, write down, and disposable costs accounts
• Integration with Intacct Standard Objects (AP, GL, Users, Ad-Hoc reporting)
• Insurance, warranties, and asset attachment management
• Automatic email and alert notifications
• Inspections, inspection intervals, and maintenance categories management
• Manage asset sale and disposal
• Standard reports as well as user-defined ad-hoc reporting
• Full audit trail

Are you ready to ditch the spreadsheets and the tedious tasks of passing paper between departments?  We can help!  For more information on InnoVergent’s Fixed Asset Management Solution for Intacct Financial Accounting, please call us at 866-287-8643.