Data is the lifeline of a successful business. From customer activity and satisfaction to sales and revenue figures, you need to have it accessible when you need it. Unfortunately, if you are still relying on the tools you used when you first launched the business, you may find that the information you really need is slipping through your fingers. With more than three-quarters of businesses opting for ERP platforms, you may be considering the investment for your company. Here are three key reasons why you should be working with an ERP consulting firm to streamline your operations and data management.
Your Company Is Growing Into Telesales
If your company has grown to the point that customers are looking to place urgent orders on the phone with credit card payments, you should be able to respond. Even if you have a remote credit card processing solution, your sales team may not have access to it.
If transferring customers to accounting to make their payments is leading to lost sales, it’s time to invest in an ERP. ERP solutions allow your sales team to be directly connected to your processing platform, entering credit card information and processing payments instantly without the risk of losing customers in call transfers.
You Are Extracting Data From Multiple Platforms
For startups and small businesses, opting for different software tools for sales, inventory, and accounting may make sense. You can easily extrapolate information from each one and match your records up when the business is small and doing lesser volume sales. This becomes more challenging as the business grows.
When the business is growing and the sales volume increases, you increase the risk of accounting errors, records mistakes, and similar issues when you are compiling data from various different sources. For example, when customers change their address with the sales department, their information may be updated there, but not with your accounts receivable department.
This can lead to sales being fulfilled but invoices never arriving with the client for you to receive payment. When everything is stored in a central database, such as with an ERP platform, one change in a customer record updates the information across the company’s departments.
Your Reporting Process Is Complicated
Before you can close out your books each month or evaluate the month’s performance against targets, you need to be able to evaluate your revenue numbers and your sales data. When your information is spread across multiple platforms, it makes your reporting and analysis far more complicated and time-consuming than it needs to be. Not to mention, it introduces a significant margin for error.
When you work with an ERP consulting firm to consolidate all of your operations into an ERP platform, you can generate all of your performance and metrics reporting from a single platform. This ensures data accuracy and the integrity of your reports.
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