A common fault that I find is that staff that are not properly trained to use the accountign software properly. Seems obvious but it is very common. Then you have people doing bookkeeping work who are not trained to do bookkeeping and make it up as they go along.
You had that one person who knew the system inside and is now no lnegr with the company and now staff get trained by someone who never got properly trained and does not know accounts or the computer system.
“It is only data entry and numbers” what could be easier to do! Would you put your money in a bank that had this as its attitude? It is your businesses finances you are dealing with!
Other issues:
- Software not made for your business, your friend said this software is brilliant, but it is designed for his business sector, not yours
- Trying to do too much. You want all the bells and whistles the software can give you, but you don’t give the time to set them up and manage them and update them.
- Not enough staff. Your trying to be super efficient, but computer systems still need a minimum number of people to put stuff in.
- Not enough training. Training is seen as not important and no one knows why they are doing something, “it has always been done this way” is a common refrain.
- No internal support knowledge, no documentation, no notes, no one who is responsible for training.
- Not using software support help lines you are paying for. Do you know who is supporting your software and what questions you can ask them? Can they answer them for you?
- Require retraining. Software gets updated and staff don’t know how to use new features which would make them more efficient
- Staff using the software wrong. They were trained wrong and do not understand what affect they have on the business. Examples such as deleting an invoice, changing stock, using incorrect vat rates, they have huge affects on your business
Software does what it is designed to do. People make mistakes, not software. Accounts systems require more than just data inputting. You need to understand what you want from your accounts system, they all basically work the same way, so how come your system is not working? Why not take a closer look.