Yes, ERP is supposed to make your life easier and eliminate manual tasks. No, it won’t work perfectly for everyone straight out of the box. For some businesses, you will an ERP add on to get the full automation that you need to truly run your business on auto pilot. This could include anything from managing sales and use tax in the different states you sell to automating all your invoices and accounts receivable processes. This is largely because every business operates differently. If you’re a smaller operation only selling to other businesses locally, you may not need sales tax automation.
Below we’ve highlighted four of the most commonly needed ERP add ons. See if any of them sound like something that would make your business more efficient and daily tasks easier.
Credit and Collections Management
Most ERP systems don’t do a great job at managing accounts receivable. A majority of businesses not using a credit and collections management ERP add on are using outdated methods such as spreadsheets and highlighters. This ERP add on will send invoices automatically to customers, keep you updated and alert you when a customer goes past due, allow you to manage customer credit and make better choices with credit terms and many other accounts receivable processes. If you have at least 100 customers or 1000 invoices a month, you could probably benefit from a credit and collections management ERP add on.
Sales Tax Management
With the advent of the Internet, selling outside of your own jurisdiction has become extremely easy and common. However, managing sales tax rates outside of your own jurisdiction can become a full time job and a pain for your accounting team. Sales tax management ERP add on keeps track of the ever-changing sales and use tax rules so that you are always in compliance. There are more than 12,000 taxing jurisdictions, all with their own rules. It is nearly impossible to manage that all manually and get it right. Instead of facing an audit where you will owe tens of thousands of dollars for being out of compliance, a sales tax automation ERP add on can do it for you correctly every time.
Business Intelligence
One of the most important aspects of growing a business is paying attention to data, but according to recent research 46 percent of CFOS are making their decisions off of gut feelings not data. Businesses struggle to keep data straight when it all exists on separate systems. They then have to pull all that data onto one spreadsheet, leaving room for error and not giving real-time updates. A business intelligence ERP add on pulls all the data you need into one space, giving full visibility and allowing for the best made decisions.
Document Management
Truly, with all the advances in technology, keeping everything on paper doesn’t make much sense and is clearly not very efficient. Businesses are wasting 150 hours and $1,250 annually looking for paper documents. A document management ERP add on keeps all of your important documents securely in the cloud so they can be easily searched when needed. If you have a lot of remote employees, this ERP add on can be extremely beneficial to you. Remote employees can get every document they need while working away from the office which allows for more efficient work days.
Since most out of the box ERP solutions won’t fully work for a business, using ERP add ons will make your business more efficient and work the way you want it to. There are some areas you simply need to have automation, or your team will spend way too much time doing simple, manual tasks. If you think your business could start working more efficiently, start by checking to see if you need one of these 4 ERP add ons.
This white paper will walk you through six of the biggest mistakes you can make in your ERP decision process and show you how you can avert them.Learn More Here
