“Why does my business have so many software applications? Why do things have to be so complicated?”
A long-time client who owns and operates a 200-person construction firm recently asked me about this age-old problem. For years, he’s been struggling with different systems to handle his accounting, project management, human resources, and customer relationship management needs.
“I have apps that don’t talk to each other and databases that aren’t integrated,” he said. “My employees are wasting too much time entering the same information in different places. Ever since I started this business I’ve struggled to find one solution that does it all.”
He’s not alone. Many growing companies have been on a quest to find the holy grail of technology: an integrated, consolidated business solution. But unfortunately, this has always seemed too out of their reach. Big companies can afford to hire developers and internal staff to build and then maintain their corporate systems, or justify the cost of a traditional ERP. But for smaller and mid-sized firms like my construction client, that’s been cost-prohibitive.
Until now.
Intuit, the technology provider known for its popular small business tax and accounting software applications, recently introduced a powerful new cloud-based solution for growing businesses that are looking to abandon all of those disparate and disconnected software systems in lieu of one consolidated platform that will ultimately do it all. It's called Intuit Enterprise Suite, and it's a potential game changer for many of my clients.
How so?
Intuit Enterprise Suite isn't just an accounting application or financial management software. It's a platform that aims to be the primary solution a company would use. It brings together all of the systems that a growing company relies on to operate—from instantly payable invoices to managing customer relationships and project financials, payroll and human resources, and multi-entity accounting, consolidation, and reporting. More importantly, it leverages the latest AI and automation tools to speed up the processing of transactions, reduce data errors, and ultimately increase productivity and profitability. And it operates on a shared database that minimizes inefficiencies and costs.
According to a recent survey from Intuit of growing companies with 10-99 employees, businesses on average reported using as many as 10 different applications and software programs to manage their operations, and spending as much as $10,000 per month on apps and software programs, which is equivalent to $120,000 per year.
Intuit Enterprise Suite helps fix this problem. It meets the needs of growing organizations requiring more powerful functionality. According to Intuit’s survey, companies on average overspend $3,000 a month on never or rarely used apps – having a configurable solution like Intuit Enterprise Suite can minimize these additional costs.
Intuit Enterprise Suite also improves the way companies report their results. Multi-dimensional reporting has always been a headache for growing enterprises with subsidiaries, divisions, and other entities. Intuit Enterprise Suite offers an efficient method to set up and partition data by custom dimensions using attributes such as departments, locations, and business units, as well as customer/vendor/employee segments, revenue category, and product types. The suite allows users to create up to 20 custom dimensions with unlimited values in up to five levels of hierarchy. They can tag line items and accounts payable and receivable transactions at the transaction level and/or line items by custom dimensions for granular reporting analysis.
Most of my smaller clients don’t have the need to do complex budgeting and forecasting. But this is not the case for growing and mid-sized companies, where managing planned costs and predicting future revenues, expenses, profits, and cash flow is crucial for managers and key stakeholders looking to build actionable insights to support the decision-making process for the business. The keys to this planning process include gathering data from financial statements and different business units, building forecasting models, creating budget plans, and running in-depth analysis and reporting. Intuit Enterprise Suite does this using AI to predict results for up to two years in the future using prior data and other factors.
Knowing that different industries have different needs, Intuit Enterprise Suite is offered in various vertical models, initially with a focus on construction, professional services, non-profit, and project-based businesses. It allows managers to set custom roles and permissions, allowing team members to automate change orders, workflows, and tasks. Managers can use business intelligence insights to project goals and manage project profitability with real-time job costing, profitability monitoring, and detailed reporting with custom fields.
Growing businesses know that migrating to, and implementing, a large-scale corporate system like Intuit Enterprise Suite can't be done in a vacuum. Intuit will be supporting solution implementation with expert assistance both internally and through their Professional Services team. Existing integrations with bank feeds, financial institutions, and third-party apps are all preserved in the migration from QuickBooks Online.
Which brings me back to my client’s age-old question: “Why does my business have so many software applications?”
It shouldn't, particularly if that business is using the right solution for growth. Intuit has that solution, and I expect to see many of my clients moving to Intuit Enterprise Suite over the next few years.
