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The key to growing your business you might be missing

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If you’re a small business owner focused on growth, you’re already invested in marketing and scaling up your ability to deliver goods and services. One thing you might be overlooking, though, is a software-based tool that can support your company’s growth through data collection, sharing and workflow automation. This tool is known as an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, and it’s so important to modern businesses that the market share for ERP software is expected to grow to $49 billion by the year 2024. Here’s what you need to know about modern ERP solutions and how they can help your business grow.

What is enterprise resource planning?

Put simply, ERP systems are software solutions that bring processes from many different parts of a business operation together under a single roof. ERP solutions can be used to manage everything from finance and accounting to customer relations and product distribution. Tying these different departments together through a unified software solution allows for easier data collection and sharing between departments. All this leads to making your business more efficient and productive.

Keep your business growing

One of the most important advantages of implementing a modern ERP software in your business comes in the form of improved workflow. ERPs provide for automated workflows that will take your employees through tasks in a step-by-step manner, making it less-likely for oversights to occur. In this way, your SMB can exert higher levels of quality control on its processes and spend less time correcting human errors.

A modern ERP solution can also support your company’s growth by providing you with valuable marketing insights. Thanks to their ability to collect and share data, modern ERP platforms can be used to measure the effectiveness of growth strategies such as expanding into new markets or penetrating further into existing ones.

Using operational insights produced by an ERP solution, your business can refine its marketing, adjust pricing and even develop a more complete customer profile for future targeting.

Improve customer service

Of course, the benefits of a modern ERP solution aren’t limited to the back end of your business. ERP software can support the customer-facing side of your SMB by providing improved systems for inventory control, sales and even customer relations. When your team can communicate and collaborate easily through a unified ERP platform, your customers are likely to have a much better experience and encounter fewer difficulties.  

Cloud-based ERP solutions offer strong security protections that can be managed by a third-party vendor without draining your limited resources away from more critical tasks. If you want to keep your SMB on track for sustained growth by implementing good data security and cybersecurity practices, a cloud-based ERP solution can be a useful tool.

Conclusion

From improving efficiency and use of resources on the back end to supporting your marketing efforts and customer relations on the front end, ERP software solutions can provide incredibly useful tools for driving business growth. By making it easy to collect and share data between different departments, a modern ERP system can help your company make the best use of its resources and improve the customer experience it provides.

If you want to maximize the growth of your SMB, consider having your IT staff or managed services provider implement an ERP solution that will meet the needs of your company.

The Difference Between Accounting Software And ERP Solutions

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Businesses rely on accurate financial management and many describe finances as the very lifeblood of the company.  Many decisions are based on current financial figures, which is why reliable accounting software is such a necessity.  However, over time basic accounting software no longer fits the bill, so to speak, and an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution makes more sense.

Entry-level accounting software, such as QuickBooks, can work successfully for a time.  These solutions offer basic financial management activities such as monitoring income and expenses, populating bank statements, and paying bills.  You may be able to create invoices and print financial reports; however, there isn’t much more you can get out of entry-level accounting software.  A secondary problem often presents itself some time later – basic software can only handle a limited volume of data and a limited number of users.  With growth, your business generates more and more data that can quickly bog down the software, making it difficult to process data and reports.  Additional delays can occur as employees have to wait to enter or retrieve information needed to make important business decisions.  Before basic accounting software begins to stifle growth, make the change to a stronger business management solution.

You can manage all of your business operations with a modern ERP solution including financial transactions, supply chain and inventory, manufacturing and distribution operations, human resources and payroll activities, and other core business processes.  You can enter, access, and analyze data with greater efficiency when it’s located within a single, centralized solution.  In addition, data is seamlessly shared between processes. For example, you can create a proposal or contract for a customer and turn that data into a purchase order, and later, an invoice.  This and other time-saving automations reduces the time spent handling data and improves the productivity of your team.  Powerful ERP solutions also offer business intelligence and reporting features that make it easier to identify trends, uncover ways to control spending or reduce waste, and further improve business processes.
As your business grows, you need more than basic accounting software.  Choose a solution that can provide the insight you need to make data-driven decisions, improve productivity and profitability, and support superior customer service.

Contact AppSolute for more information about making the switch from entry-level accounting software to modern ERP.

By AppSolute Consulting Group, LLC, Microsoft, Accumatica and Sage Partner out of New York