3 Benefits of Using an ERP System for Your Accounting

An ERP (enterprise resource planning) system helps companies manage all aspects of their business operations, including finance, human resources, manufacturing, sales, marketing, customer service, and many others.

This interconnectedness is what gives an ERP system a holistic view of how your whole organization works together to get things done–and it’s why these systems are so powerful.

A well-designed, well-implemented ERP system brings benefits to every aspect of your business. The advantages for the accounting staff in particular are hard to overstate!

You Can Easily Access Relevant Information

A good ERP system will help you keep track of key metrics like revenue, expenses, inventory levels, carrying costs, and more.

Say you’re trying to track down a discrepancy between two sets of figures that were entered into separate areas of your accounting software. With some systems, you could spend hours searching through different files or even worse, have to call up the people who made the entries to find out what is going on.

With an ERP system, you can select the numbers that aren’t adding up and immediately pull up every sales order, purchase order, inventory record, etc. that was involved with that transaction. You’ll see exactly where the problem lies, and you won’t need anyone else’s input because everything has already been integrated into one place.

You Can Reduce Errors

By the same token, an ERP system provides a single source of truth for all your business data. That means everyone uses the same version of any given piece of information at any time, so there’s no confusion or room for error when someone enters new data.

For example, if you use a manual spreadsheet to enter invoices as they come in, you may end up entering the wrong invoice number by accident. If this happens repeatedly, eventually you’ll be sending out orders and bills for products that don’t actually exist.

That would never happen with an ERP system. Whenever a particular document gets referenced again, the system automatically accesses its internal records to check that what you’re trying to do is possible.

You Can Save Time And Effort

Manual entry is not only prone to errors; it also takes a lot of work.

When you start using an ERP system, you suddenly gain a ton of extra time and energy. Your team members won’t need to manually update spreadsheets anymore–they just log in to their account and make changes directly from within the program. They can then review and approve the updates before they go live.

All of these tasks take less time than doing them by hand. Plus, since the data is being stored centrally and updated constantly, it becomes much easier to compare previous versions of the same thing against current ones. This way, you know you haven’t accidentally changed something important.

 

To find out how AcctVantage ERP can support your ongoing business growth and success, click here to get in touch with us.