Explanation Of Customization In Accounting Software
Accounting software has been deployed by almost all sized organizations, whether larger ones or the start-ups. Various software available in the market is a complete pack containing features as well as functionalities as per your business requirements. Hence, all the business owners had purchased the ready-made packages available in the market. But, for instance, the requirements of the business are being modified, after installing the software across the company, then there would be no solution except that of changing the whole software, purchasing a new one, and again deploying it. It looks feasible once or twice, but what if the requirements change frequently? Will the organization change the software now and then? Would it be feasible? Not!
There is only one solution to this problem, go for customized accounting software. It would cost a bit more at the initial level, but it will save your credit balances in the future.
Now, what does exactly customization mean? Well, let’s get over it using an example. There is a vendor, whose business is to sell sports t-shirts for the players. He has only three different designs in a bulk quantity and has a variation in colors only. Whatever order he receives for the t-shirts, he dispatches them from the available stock and designs only. Hence, if the customer wishes to print his name on a t-shirt, the vendor does not provide the service and the customer is helpless and has no option but to change the t-shirt again.
Now consider another vendor, who has a variety of t-shirts and colors, but before finalizing any order placed by the customer, he takes the views of the requirements of the customer and prepares the t-shirts accordingly, and then dispatches the order.
So, in both the above-mentioned cases, the first vendor can be related to the ready-made software packages that cannot include the customization facilities, and the other vendor can be related to the software for accounting purposes, which would be made the requirements. Hence, the second type of business includes customization of its products, and from the example mentioned above, we can easily depict that the approach for deploying customized accounting software is a comparatively good option than going for a readily available package of the software.
In the case of customization of software, requirements might get changed, by varying clients. No two clients can have the exact features as well as functionalities. Since the businesses differ from each other, so as the customization needs so the software deployed in both of their organizations also varies.
Steps Of Developing Customized Solutions In Accounting Software
1. Research regarding the requirements of the client
2. Template design to predict the software look
3. Development of the software
4. Releasing the product after testing it thoroughly.
5. Support and maintenance
Now, let’s come to the discussion of why people should choose custom-made solutions for the accounting software to deploy in their organizations, i.e. the advantages of the customized accounting software. There are three main advantages of opting for a customized solution which makes the concept of customization stronger. These are:
1. Efficient data storage:
The data storage and retrieval have now become easy as the software has been updated to the centralized one and the access to the same is given to all the employees in the organization. Hence, the data can be accessed anywhere at any time, all you need is a secure login credential to authorize yourself as a valid user to the system.
Also, the employees can filter out the data out of the larger amount of data stored, based on the requirements, without touching the other irrelevant data. This saves a lot of time in data retrieval when the data is stored in an unstructured manner.
2. Reduction in manual errors:
It is well said that to err is human. Even if your organization has appointed the best professionals for maintaining and operating your account software if requirements change at run-time, there are possibilities that even those professionals get stuck up and as a result, can commit some errors.
Hence, using the customized solution, the professionals can have a grip on the features that are included in accordance with the requirements of the business they can easily tackle the situation like the requirement changes, with a lesser number of errors.
3. Time-saving solution:
Passing notifications, scheduling meetings, report generation through analysis, etc are the tasks that people are ignoring to accomplish manually so as to find automated solutions to complete them so that a lot more time is being saved.
Advantages Of Using Customized Solutions:
- The custom solution can also be tailor-made software that covers all needs of your organization.
- An investment for a longer period, whose benefits are visible when the business comes in a growing phase.
- Increase in the efficiency of the employees as well as business.
- Once in a lifetime investment
- Security against invalid data transactions.
- More scalable so that you can add/remove the features on the basis of your requirements.
- Maintaining the software can be done by the developing company for a particular period.
- Inventory management has been developed in such a manner that it can handle all kinds of complicated data related to the stock of the products in the company.
- The costing for the stock, its selling price, profit or loss statements, etc. can be managed easily.
- Computing pending work, ongoing work, and the upcoming work
- You can also link your custom software with the already deployed CRM module in your organization.
- Tracking movements of the stock
- Managing warehouses in detail, integrating with an inventory managing system.
- The solution has compatibility with all the other software deployed in your organization.
- Deployment and operation of the software are easy.
- Survival in the market competition is possible.
Final Conclusion
we had a glimpse of what a customized solution is and how can we implement it in the organization’s accounting software. Also, we came across a list of advantages of the custom build solution for the accounting software and how it can be fruitful for the organization. Hence, we see that instead of readily available packages, it would be a wise decision to opt for the custom-made solution.