ERP Functionality and Usability

Functionality and Usability: A Perfect Pairing for User Adoption

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For growing businesses, an ERP decision is a hefty, stressful decision. As a decision maker, you already know you can’t please everyone—especially when looking at a software as broadly used as ERP currently is. From gaining value to recouping costs, there are two factors that need to be well balanced to ensure users adopt and embrace a project.

As we begin to wrap up our series on the realizations you may have when outgrowing entry level accounting software like QuickBooks, we would today like to turn our attention to two critical factors in getting users to embrace a new software—functionality and usability.

One of the many considerations you need to make as you vet and select your ERP vendor and partner, the ability to deliver these two criteria may be one of the most important.

Catch up with our accounting to ERP series by reading our latest posts: The Hassles of Using Desktop Software in a Socially Distanced Business, Never Let a QuickBooks File Size Hold You Back: Grow with Confidence in the Cloud, and Are QuickBooks Workarounds Putting Your Business at Risk?

Are You Getting the Most of Your Software?

For many businesses, QuickBooks delivered both of these in the early days. One of the easiest to use platforms, this software was built for the early stage, low-user business who just needed the basics. The file size maximum once felt like an unreachable ceiling. The processing power was enough, and it did basic accounting tasks easily. Familiar and functional, there’s no denying that it made life easy for millions of businesses just starting out.

But times have changed. That once-unreachable file size? You passed the limit years ago. Now It either puts you at massive risk of corruption or slows you down. The processing power? It was great for 5 users. The basic accounting tasks? Still does those—just a lot slower. But for many growing businesses, this isn’t enough. It’s still just as easy to use as ever, if you’re willing to put up with slowdowns, happy with disconnected processes, and content with lackluster information.

Why Both Functionality and Usability Matter

Though QuickBooks does provide the usability, you’ve long since outgrown the functionality. This leaves you at a crossroads en route to new ERP, and finding a solution that’s not only easy to use but able to deliver matters.

However, this does present a challenge—finding a usable software. Though nearly every solution available provides a wealth of features, ERP is a complicated beast, and has historically been known for having a steep learning curve. That’s why it pays to find a solution that delivers both a comprehensive product and a flattened learning curve.

The best software in the world won’t do much for you if no one’s using it. The easiest software can’t help you if it doesn’t do anything you need. More often than not, if a product lacks one of these two factors, it’s likely to be ignored—leading to very expensive shelfware.

Nucleus ERP Value Matrix Looks to Guide Leaders to Functional, Usable ERP

Luckily, a recent analyst report from Nucleus sets out to help decision makers focus their software choices by striking a balance between functionality and usability.  Analysts note,

“The race to the cloud has been reignited as fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic caused an abrupt and permanent spike in the demand for the ability to work remotely. Cloud-native solutions stand to gain the most from this paradigm shift, but vendors with large on-premises deployment bases will have the chance to make good on their own transition roadmaps.”

An annual report on who’s who, the Nucleus Research ERP Technology Value Matrix 2020 lists eight Leaders—including Acumatica—and provides detailed profiles of 23 ERP vendors to enhance your research. Here are just a few things they had to say about Acumatica:

  • The Channel Model Delivers Innovation: “No competition among vendor and partner sales teams for similar customers, allowing Acumatica to focus on product development and customer support.”
  • Easy to Understand from the Start, Ready to Deliver What You Need: “Customers note that the solution’s usability is a differentiator during initial evaluation and implementation, but the software can then scale to handle complex and high-volume data processing as well. New users can be onboarded quickly and collaborate efficiently across departments and geographies.”
  • Still Improving, too: “Since the 2019 Value Matrix, Acumatica has maintained a regular product update pattern, with major releases arriving twice per year.” Nucleus notes that everything from Acumatica’s machine learning initiative to its better integration with even more tools will make life easier for users for years to come.

This report is provided to users free of charge by Acumatica, and will also discuss the following:

  • Nucleus Research’s rationale for categorizing 23 ERP vendors as Leaders, Facilitators, Experts, or Core Providers.
  • Why even long and costly cloud migrations may be essential for your company’s survival.
  • Which vendors are making significant product investments to deliver more value.
  • Why customers believe Acumatica delivers value by providing an ideal balance of usability and scalability.
  • The biggest benefits of Acumatica’s 2019 R2 release.

Click here to read the entire report.

The Right Partner Helps You Go Further: Just Call CCS

When companies move from accounting software to ERP, they are making a big decision that will impact the next decade of operations. If you’re looking for a local partner with the skills and expertise to make your ERP journey a reality, look no further than CCS Technology.

We were founded on the principle that technology should make it easier to run your business, and have spent our time in this industry ensuring our clients realize this.

We invite you to learn more about your journey from entry level to the cloud by reading Seven Signs You Need ERP Software, 5 Benefits of ERP for Accounting and Financial Management, and How to Improve Efficiency with a New ERP Solution. Read to learn even more? Contact us for a free consultation.