Choosing a Software Package

Choosing a Software package for your business is one of the most important decisions you will make.
Almost of similar importance to buying a car or house.
It will need to last a long time to provide an acceptable pay back.
You want it to be most suited to your business needs.
It needs to get you to where you want to go via the quickest, smoothest road, which will fit within your budget or plans for the future.
There are software packages where you can purchase or lease the base modules and buy the specialised modules when the budget allows or the business has grown in size and you can justify the expense.
To justify the expense, it could be pure need to complete your business process, time savings or extra requirements such as Barcoding, online store, remote access, web based, manufacturing, retail, importing, distribution, service management, medical, the list is endless.
Invest the time to look at all the options. The biggest expense will be your time and any staff or consultant you need to pay to build the model and modify the engine.
Do use Mac or Microsoft, some add-ons will not work with all types.
Look at your short term plan with the long term plan in mind. Will the short listed software upgrade to a more specialised powerful version later?
How many users can you have now and later? What is the cost per user?
Can the data be imported to a later version?
What Reports does it offer. Can you easily amend the reports to suit?
Can you export data for excel spreadsheets, graphs and other software add-ons? There are many add-ons available as well to support existing Software programmes. They will work with popular programmes such as MYOB, Xero, Microsoft Great Plains, Quickbooks and virtually any software programme.
Allow time to test, train and implement the new or upgraded software.
If the test version doesn’t work don’t go ahead with the new version and also don’t go ahead with the new version without testing.
You may have been advised to go with a particular model / version and it is not suited to your business. Just because your mate thinks the software they recommended is the best thing for his business and needs it is not necessarily your route to the fast road.