Signs you need an ERP system (even with one entity)
Key takeaways:
- Signs you may need an ERP, even for a single-entity company on QuickBooks Desktop, include growing transaction volumes, more complex billing and budgeting, and a finance setup that becomes harder to keep connected as you grow.
- Repeated data entry, conflicting figures, and recurring handoff delays are signs to review your existing setup.
- Compare the time and cost of your current setup with an ERP to determine the business case for switching.
Across US businesses with revenue above $2.5 million, 64% of surveyed leaders said their month-end close takes too much time. The delay usually traces back to the same place: finance has to gather data from unconnected systems, then combine and reconcile it before the numbers are ready. Until that work is done, you and the board are waiting on the financial information your decisions depend on.
Even in a single-entity company on QuickBooks Desktop, the setup around it with spreadsheets, add-ons, and manual handoffs gets harder to keep connected and coordinated as volumes and reporting demands grow.
This is one of the most common signs you need an ERP system.
In this guide, find out how to tell when your financial operations have become too complex for your current setup and whether migrating to an ERP is worth the investment.
Why one entity can still develop enterprise-level financial complexity
Complexity in finance grows with transaction volume, the number of stakeholders, and information dependencies, like your finance team waiting on project managers for updates. This can all happen without adding entities or requiring group consolidation.
Even with just one set of books, more sophisticated finance functions, like cash flow forecasting and allocating shared costs, can require more management and coordination than a basic operating model was built to handle. Maintaining cash flow visibility, for example, depends on finance receiving up-to-date information on receipts and planned spending.
Consider a hypothetical sole-entity manufacturer that bills progress payments on hundreds of contracts and tracks budgets for dozens of departments. It might look simple from a multi-entity management perspective, as it keeps only one set of books.
Look at its operating model, though, and the business is complex. That’s because finance needs updates from contract managers and department heads to bill at the right stage and track spending against each budget.
Ask your finance team which updates they usually have to wait for, what causes the delays, and whether they can fix them with the tools they already use.
Intuit Enterprise Suite is allowing us to enter projects correctly and know our true costs before the first cable is even pulled.
Douglas Brown, Head of Accounting and Operations, CalData Communications
When an isolated workflow problem becomes an operating-model problem
A single clunky task, like a slow approval form, may be something you can fix by changing that one step.
A structural issue is different, because your team has to keep chasing information and reconciling figures across systems. Fixing one cog in the wheel won’t stop it from coming up again, because the way information is shared hasn’t changed.
Pick one purchase and note where someone has to export it, enter it again, or check it against another record.
As a hypothetical example, a distribution business may track its December purchasing in three places:
- A purchasing spreadsheet, where the team records each order once it’s raised.
- An approval record, which includes only orders a manager has signed off.
- The ledger, where supplier invoices are recorded as they’re booked.
Each total is right for its stage, but finance still has to connect the records to establish what’s been ordered, approved, received, and invoiced. At month-end, the controller waits for purchasing’s export and checks which goods have arrived without an invoice, then works out which costs to include in the close.
Ask whether finance can see the records as soon as the other teams have finished updating them. If they’re ready but someone still has to export and send them over, look for ways to connect the tools or, if there are many handoffs like this, bring the records finance needs into one system.
Signs your single-entity finance environment is still too fragmented
Signs of a fragmented setup include data spread across disconnected tools, spreadsheets used to bridge gaps between systems, and finance having to key in the same figures more than once.
Different departments may be using different figures, so finance has to work out which ones are up to date.
In Intuit’s Enterprise Technology Benchmark Report, 67% of surveyed leaders at US businesses with revenue above $2.5 million said their technology creates data silos that hinder informed decisions.
You can work out the staff cost of this extra work from the hours your team spends on it. There’s also an opportunity cost if you delay decisions because you don’t trust the figures. Record the hours spent and examples of decisions held up when you compare your current setup with an ERP.
What a scalable single-entity finance operating model should enable
A mature finance operating model keeps data connected across functions within a single system of record, such as a cloud ERP platform.
Your team works from a shared set of figures to manage billing, spending, budgets, and the close. Fewer spreadsheets and manual transfers are needed to keep everything up to date.
You can also set common finance controls like checking invoices and approving payments across the business. As transaction numbers grow and more people get involved, those rules make clear which checks they need to complete and who needs to sign off.
The factors to consider when choosing an ERP system include whether it can connect with the best-of-breed tools your teams already use and remain adaptable as your needs change. Choose a platform with an established app ecosystem, like Intuit Enterprise Suite’s, which includes 800+ integrations.
Case study: Lake Geneva Country Meats, a single-location Wisconsin butcher shop, ran on QuickBooks Desktop with manual spreadsheet exports for sales analysis, so answering the questions leadership needed meant pulling data out by hand and reconciling it. The team evaluated NetSuite, found the implementation too cumbersome, and moved to Intuit Enterprise Suite instead, converting its QuickBooks data without starting over.
Implementation took days rather than months and saved tens of thousands of dollars in the first year, and finance now works with real-time visibility across cash, payables, and receivables.
When ERP becomes relevant for single-entity complexity
An ERP isn’t worth the investment simply because you’ve reached an arbitrary number of employees or entities. Base your ERP vs accounting software decision on whether your current finance operating model can still handle the work the business needs it to do.
One test is whether finance can check project costs against budget without first gathering figures from separate systems.
For example, an eligible admin user can ask Intuit Intelligence chat how projects are performing against budget. Finance can then check with the project managers to find out what’s pushing up costs.
With that information, decide whether to approve more spending or ask for a revised budget. AI points you to what needs your attention, but you make the final decision.
Ask each ERP vendor on your shortlist to show how you’d get the figures you need to approve spending without your team having to export and reconcile them again.
How Intuit Enterprise Suite supports a connected finance operating model
For QuickBooks Desktop users who are concerned they’re outgrowing QuickBooks and considering an ERP system, Intuit Enterprise Suite integrates accounting with billing, spending, budgeting, and project costs. It’s an AI-native ERP that retains the key Desktop workflows you already know while handling more complex financial work, even if your business has just one entity.
Consider how the suite would fit the way your departments work together. Examine these five features as part of that assessment:
If the ERP solution you choose does a job that you currently pay another tool to do, you may be able to cancel that subscription.
Check which tools your team still needs for work that the suite doesn’t cover. Include their fees and any connection costs in your comparison, alongside what you could save by canceling other subscriptions and reducing manual handoffs.
Questions finance leaders should ask about their current operating model
Your current setup is the starting point for the questions to ask when buying ERP software. Review these five areas with your team:
- Spreadsheets between systems: Count those maintained to pass information between tools and the time spent updating them.
- Manual handoffs: Identify the exports and checks finance waits for at each close, including how long they delay it.
- The current financial position: Establish who has the latest figures and how much information they need from other departments to complete the picture.
- Twice the transaction volume: Identify which part of the setup would struggle first and what extra work it would create.
- Tools that don’t talk to each other: List the applications you pay for that still need someone to transfer information by hand.
Use your team’s findings to assess ERP readiness. They should show which changes you can make with your existing tools and which would need a different financial system.
Is your team ready for an ERP?
An ERP is worth considering when you can’t resolve recurring delays by changing individual tasks. Set out the changes you’d need to justify the investment, so you can compare the consultant’s proposal with what your business actually needs.
Schedule a call with an Intuit Enterprise Suite consultant to talk through what slows your finance team down and how the suite could help you close on time and make spending decisions from current figures.