While enterprise level accounting is still largely done online it s harder and harder to find small business off the shelf accounting software.
Advantages of off the shelf accounting software.
Off the shelf software may have some options to integrate with other software but this may not be too seamless as you may want it to be.
Let s summarise the advantages and disadvantages of off the shelf offers.
There are strong benefits when considering an off the shelf solution primarily the low up front cost.
Sometimes you don t want a subscription you don t want to log on you just want to sit down and use a familiar program to do a familiar task.
In most cases off the shelf software is highly complex and contains sections that you may never use.
To automate all your internal operations with off the shelf software you would need to buy an individual solution for each process.
Custom software providers know that your company may scale and require future upgrades.
The software can potentially be very sophisticated because of the resources that are put into its development.
Off the shelf software normally offers a diversity of products addressing every conceivable need of consumers.
That s because the true cost of building and running the software is being split over a much larger userbase.
As such many day to day applications may be obtained by purchasing cots such as.
Easy to operate another advantage of custom software is that they are easy to operate as they are not bulky and have just enough features required for your operations.
They will provide a solution that can adapt to your needs as your company grows.
One of the key benefits of off the shelf software is that you don t own it.
It s true that when you consider the initial outlay one of the potential benefits of off the shelf software is that it s very likely to cost you less than getting something built for your business.
It will always be developed maintained and supported by the solution vendor as a fully managed and hopefully proactively improved solution.
Off the shelf software tends to be a cheaper than bespoke development at the initial purchase stage which tends to be the reason why so many companies choose pre configured systems.
Interestingly however this same aspect is also one of its key disadvantages.
So it s important that you make a well informed decision to help you we have reviewed all of the positive and negative aspects of off the shelf software packages.