Accounting & ERP Systems

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#1
deniz  
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I would like to hear thoughts on Accounting Systems and ERP

I am considering opening up an Accounting and ERP systems practice along with my tax practice with a colleague who has a more extensive systems background. Before getting into tax, I worked at Anderson as an ERP consultant, but have been very focused on tax since leaving them. Now I am wondering if I am leaving dollars on the table.

I understand the small market is dominated by Quickbooks, which is more of an intuitive GUI bookkeeper system that doesn't rely on double-entry accounting. While there seems to be an abundance of needs at the startup level, the cost-benefit of supporting a Quickbooks practice seems low. I also work primarily with small multinationals who need more robust foreign and consolidation reporting. It seems like Sage is the cheapest product a client can get into and still have a full system. Trying to run an Oracle ERP or Microsoft Dynamics 360 practice seems overwhelming.

Any thoughts or perspectives on the market or feasibility would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
 

#2
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FYI, I'm pretty sure QuickBooks uses double-entry accounting, at least the desktop version.

The market is a little rough, and many ERP consulting companies tend to specialize in a small number of ERPs and offer consulting year-round.

When I last used Sage 50, it was pretty much a harder-to-use version of QuickBooks but with better costing and department/segment capabilities. The higher Sages might be helpful with consolidations but they've been behind the curve for years and it's hard to not think of the entire brand being in a death spiral.

SAP has a product specific to small businesses (BusinessOne) and it's growing with a lot of 3rd party add-ons coming in, and is probably the better route for most companies outgrowing the QuickBooks/Sage 50 market than staying in the Sage system. I don't have enough E&O coverage to ever suggest Oracle, and I'm not familiar with MS Dynamics, so I can't add anything there.

The main thing to think about in entering any sector is what you can bring to the table that others can't. Maybe with your background, you can help clients evaluate the different solutions and hand them off to the right consultant for implementation? A few billable hours and a quick buck, while leaving the experts to the implementation. It's just an idea, it might be dumb, but you get what you pay for :lol:
 

#3
deniz  
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Thanks md. I was considering the higher Sages, but did not realize the brand is going down the tubes. I looked at SAP One previously and it does look interesting, but I heard it might not be strategic for SAP so there are questions as to its longevity in the market. If it is here to stay, it does seem like an interesting product and the type of niche product I would like to explore. I was Peoplesoft and Oracle, no SAP experience, but I dont intend to the hands-on implementer.
 

#4
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Quickbooks is indeed a double-entry accounting system and can be pretty robust, though certainly it has weaknesses for an off-the-shelf solution (perhaps you are thinking of QUICKEN, which is effectively a glorified check register). Many of them can be solved with integrations, but inevitably companies you are describing do move into full-fledged ERPs. ERPs are a nightmare, too, and very costly to get what you need out of them. They are not always superior to cheaper products in their basic versions.

I thought about getting into this years ago when I started transitioning a private company from Quickbooks w/ integrations to NetSuite (now an Oracle product, cannot remember if they rebranded it). I resigned before the migration was completed, but people I kept contact with said it went terribly and had SIGNIFICANT issues. We did not jump into it either, this was 18+ months of planning for what is still a small business ($40ish million now).

The ERPs are too complicated, so if you are going to consult, you really need to choose only a couple of options--perhaps one not quite as capable and one that is quite capable, or two at different price points--to truly be an effective consultant. Consultants and software companies are great at overpromising and underdelivering.
 

#5
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If SAP is not going to stay in the mid-sized market then Sage wouldn't be a bad recommendation. Deniz, I'm surprised to hear that you have longevity concerns about the product, but then again my information was based on an SAP consultant so they have an interest in it!

The problem I see with the Sage area is why would you spend the money and effort upgrading to Sage when the baby SAP product isn't that much more, and from what I've seen of SAP's 3rd party add-ons they are far superior. That's where the spiral comes in. SAP is on the upswing, so more 3rd party add-ons are made, which helps the SAP upswing... while Sage is on the downswing, so fewer 3rd party add-ons are made, which helps the Sage downswing... that's what my death spiral remark was about. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see Sage keeping up in the current market.
 

#6
deniz  
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md - you know more about SAP than I do; I will look into it more.

Cornerstone - I gathered that Netsuite is too big. The Quickbooks + 1 fancy system seems to be the business model be in the game profitably. I don't intend to do this alone, I just want to be clear about the business model before evaluating the techs capabilities.
 


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