The Small Biz Consultant

I will provide you with a few things to think about on why you should turn to the net for accounting and CRM systems. I wanted to avail you of the commercial risks associated with using SaaS applications in your business.

There is a growing trend to run key business systems on the web. There’s web based tools for multicurrency accounting, business planning, market research, CRM, expense form management, time tracking and sales force automation costing much less than traditional systems. Its possible to buy one system where all of this functionality is integrated. These systems can overall work out less expensive for example Salesorder dot com is very low cost but similar systems like Netsuite – will cost you a lot more. You should compare the lifetime and exit costs carefully of web and traditional systems.

Many web applications can be instantly trialed for free lowering the buyers risk. Some suppliers are happy to charge you monthly whereas others often insist on a longer term and therefore these players for example Netsuite – will cost you a lot more. Go talk to other people who have done this before proceeding.

Stop! before you rush headlong into an evaluation or choice of any of these systems consider these possible financial and operational risks often missed by others.

Web based software can have the same downstream expenses as you would find in traditional licensed software. Such as implementation, customisation and upgrades to newer versions. After all it is still software we are dealing with here.

You may not see the exit costs. Getting your information in a format you can easily transfer to a new system may have financial penalties. The business web application industry is still in its infancy and even well established players like Netsuite – will cost you a lot more than you expect to extricate your critical business data from their systems. This is a critical move make sure you understand everything thoroughly. More to come in future articles