Accounting Software: CPAs Reveal Likes, Dislikes
What’s the one thing YOU would change about your accounting or ERP system?
Join the new study, get the word from professionals like yourself.
by Rick Telberg
At Large
No doubt about it, finance and accounting professionals love software.
In the past couple of decades, accounting applications have gone from useful novelty, to powerful tool, to absolute necessity. No matter how much you like the good-old pencil-and-eraser solution, it just won’t meet the demands of today’s financial regulations, tax codes and client urgency.
But that doesn’t mean that accountants love the software they’ve got. Some do. Some don’t. Which means: A bunch of accountants are in the market for something better.
The Bay Street Group Research and Advisory Service is currently canvassing a broad spectrum of finance and accounting professionals to find out:
– How well you like your accounting software or ERP (enterprise resource planning) package;
– What you like about it;
– What you’d change if you could; and
– How likely you’ll be looking for new software solutions in the near future.
The results? So far it seems to depend on how well respondents like their current accounting software.
So, in valiant hope of endowing the profession with better software, we’re asking what one thing you’d change in your software package if you could wave a magic wand and have it happen.
Personally, we think everyone wants to see pigeons fly out of their PCs, but no one will admit it. Rather, you’re saying sensible, CPA-sounding things like “an all-integrated system” and “ease of use” and “drill-down everything.”
And some are offering intriguing ideas.
Kevin Cerutti, of MBIA MuniServices in Fresno, California is “somewhat happy” but would use his magic wand to “have the ability for customers to modify or customize the application and reports … There is very little flexibility to customize and we are required to run our reports outside of the system.”
Some want to get back to basics.
“Burn it and replace it with anything else,” says Berlan Crouch, a senior staffer with Angel & Co. in Cassville, Mo., who describes himself as “not very happy.”
Apparently it’s the less-than-happy accountants of the world who will be in the market for new software. When we pull aside those who are likely to buy new applications or ERP packages in the next 18 months, we’re finding that about one in five respondents are “not at all happy,” a quarter “not very happy” and another quarter only “somewhat happy.”
What no CPA will be in the market for, however, is more problems.
Ask how important various criteria are in selecting a new application and “ease of use” is emerging as the most popular criterion. But “features and functionality” are coming in a close second. “Customer service and support” ranks high on the list too.
Add ‘em up and you find about half are mostly satisfied with their current software system. But if I were an accounting software company — and I’m mostly-to-completely happy — I’d be paying attention to the nearly 90 percent who are less than completely happy.
And here’s what I’d want to learn from them: What would you like to see in software and how likely are you to shop for something new?
There’s something disturbing about so many professionals being so unhappy with the tool of their trade. But it’s encouraging to know that so many of them aren’t going to put up with it much longer.
They’re in the market. Let’s hope the market’s ready.
[First published by the AICPA]
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