Why QuickBooks Enterprise grows with you

A 35 percent average compounded annual growth rate is impressive for any business going on 10 years. Founded in 2008 by two entrepreneurs in California, Grab Green – a natural product company behind its eponymous eco-friendly laundry detergent pods – now operates worldwide with over 150 SKUs.

Using QuickBooks® Enterprise has made this possible in a way that operating with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution couldn’t have. Michael Edell, the company’s co-founder, knew this all too well. As an experienced entrepreneur, he’d run into the problem of using software that gets in the way of growth before.

“We didn’t want to spend $200,000 on an ERP solution and the complexity that comes with that. I’ve had other companies where I had to staff teams of five to eight people to run those types of systems,” he says.

Using software that meets your needs is as essential to business today as hiring the right people and having a good product. The wrong software can cause delays and losses, which can significantly impact growth over time.

QuickBooks Enterprise is designed to take your business growth into account by making sure the software grows as your company does. Here are some ways you can use QuickBooks Enterprise to take your business to the next level.

Integrate with industry-leading apps as you grow

You’ve got this software you’d like to use, but you can’t get it to work with your e-commerce platform or your payroll system. Manually importing and exporting data is time-consuming and a chore you’d like to avoid.

That’s why QuickBooks Enterprise offers integrations with more than 200 apps, ranging from sales and customer relationship software, such as Salesforce and Method:CRM, to e-commerce and HR platforms, such as Shopify and  TSheets by QuickBooks. As you grow and add more applications to meet your needs, its compatibility with existing systems will save significant time and hassle.

Jennifer Loi, the director of finance at Center City Public Charter Schools, chose QuickBooks Enterprise because she knew she’d be able to integrate it with other apps. “It’s a known product that’s been around for a long time, and we know that if other accessories and apps come out, [they] will be compatible with our system. That’s important to us because it saves time.” The school has purposefully set up applications that work with QuickBooks Enterprise so everything is now a seamless process.

Similarly, Grab Green operates with a lean team in part because bolt-ons such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) software can automatically send purchase and sales orders from QuickBooks directly to third-party warehouses, and marketing tools such as Klaviyo and Constant Contact also integrate with QuickBooks Enterprise.

Expand your footprint without limitation

Maybe, you start your business in one location. Over time, you might grow to several branches scattered across the country. As that happens, you’re also hiring more people, creating departments, and delegating tasks you once did all by yourself.

Centralizing information becomes trickier in this scenario. You don’t want to overwhelm people with data when they only need quick access to a specific data set. Sensitive information should be protected, yet available to the few who need it.

When Chuck Jones first started his coffee business, he had a 10×10 rental space inside a friend’s ice cream parlor. Today, Jones Coffee Roasters is a 25-year-old business with a total of seven stores. There were initial cash flow hurdles during their growth, but classifying different areas of the business with QuickBooks Enterprise made it a lot easier to manage.

“QuickBooks allowed us to produce financials for each business component, segment, or class. We also have subclassifications for each of the retail stores,” Chuck explains.

Classifications in QuickBooks Enterprise makes expanding the business a whole lot smoother, while user permissions enables businesses to separate duties and empower employees in different branches with the exact information they need at any given time. But, while each location operates as a separate business, the data still ties back into a unified system within QuickBooks Enterprise, making it easy to get both granular data and an overarching view of the business.

Create custom reports to meet your changing needs

Sometimes, a business starts out with a single product and launches more as it grows. Or, it works with one supplier or retailer, then several. These numerous components get more difficult to track the more you add them. But, track them you must. So, reporting and analytics become vital to business health.

Hair product company Mixed Chicks learned this firsthand when they found weak spots in their data through QuickBooks Enterprise. “We realized there were so many hidden costs that our supplier was not mentioning,” says Wendi Levy, one of the founders. Going through the data on the software, they could see the exact cost of goods for each SKU and assembly component. Identifying these details helped increase their profit margins.

Customizable reporting on QuickBooks lets you generate data on anything in the system. This flexibility can help your business not lose track of details as you grow. Moreover, you can also create GAAP-compliant reports with QuickBooks Statement Writer, which pulls reports from multiple company files and consolidates the data into one report.

More growth-friendly features

In addition to industry-leading apps, custom user permissions, and advanced reporting, QuickBooks Enterprise offers even more solutions for growing companies.

No large upfront costs

With QuickBooks Enterprise, there aren’t large upfront costs prohibiting growing businesses from adopting the software. You can save on annual plans or opt for a monthly subscription, whichever is best for your business. When you begin to grow and find yourself needing more features, simply upgrade your plan, as needed.

Even if you run a business that has industry-specific software options such as construction, the costs can often be prohibitive. Jennifer Speck, COO of Absolute Drywall , says of this trouble, “A custom home builder may have 40 different plans or models. Why would I want to spend $10,000 a year on software, and then buy extra modules, when I’ve got exactly what I need with QuickBooks Enterprise?”

Manage your expanding inventory

QuickBooks Enterprise comes with modern inventory management features such as mobile barcode scanning, sales order fulfillment, and landed cost functionality for manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors. Its capacity to handle large amounts of data means businesses can continue to use the software as they grow.

Gaurav Nanda, the founder of the furniture company Bend Goods , explains how they use Enterprise to track items in their inventory. “A customer may want a special color, so we have to take the product out of the warehouse and send it to a powder coater. We use QuickBooks Enterprise for the whole process of tracking where things are. When we get shipping quotes, we put that in QuickBooks. We put the product quantity, colors, and when they need it shipped as well.”

Access from anywhere you might be

Mobile, tablet, or desktop – QuickBooks Enterprise with Hosting enables you to access vital information in the office, in the field, during a business trip, or at home. After Center Drill, Inc. (an oil field equipment company), switched from Excel to QuickBooks, they grew their monthly revenue from $30,000 to six figures. But, another benefit was that they could work from their remote family ranch rather than in the office all the time.

“The way everything is set up here, I don’t see any reason why we won’t be in business forever if that’s what we want to do,” comments CFO Francie Vance.

Software that grows with you

As the aforementioned examples show, companies who use QuickBooks Enterprise from the start can attest to how the software grows along with their businesses. Why is this so important?

Choosing the right software as early as possible saves costs in the long run because there’s no learning curve, data transfers, employee onboarding, and other operational delays you experience when you have to adjust to a new system. With QuickBooks Enterprise as your partner, you can grow your business without disrupting it in the process.