resources & vendors

looking for new accounting software?

you’re not alone.

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by rick telberg
at large

finance and accounting professionals seem to have a love/hate relationship with their most-used software applications. but nowhere is this more apparent than their relationships with their accounting software.

so, if you’re shopping around for new accounting software, you’re far from alone.

bay street group research is showing that the percentage of cpas considering switching accounting software packages far exceeds the 50 percent divorce rate for american marriages.to be sure, many of the cpas in the market for new products are like gary fox, a small office practitioner in laguna hills, calif., who tells us he “is always looking for a better mousetrap.”

however, more commonly, concerns about what existing software packages and their vendors either do or fail to do are forcing accounting and other finance professionals to look for something new.

bonnye kaufman, a partner in a small cpa practice in new york city, has dual grounds for divorce from her software package. the vendor, she says, is providing “horrible support,” and the package “doesn’t do what we need.”

likewise, a chief financial officer at a small nonprofit organization tells us that his nonprofit-specific accounting application “is not capable to keep up with a dynamic organization such as ours,” and warns that “software providers must be willing to patch bugs that arise after upgrades.”

in business and industry, chris b. sanders, a top executive at c&d integrated in morton, ill., cites his product vendor’s “lack of adequate testing of new upgrades before release to unsuspecting customers.”

customer service and support rank highly among those asked about software buying preferences. ease of use and features/functionality are overwhelmingly most often identified as highly important, while only a fraction gave that designation to price per user.

one sole practitioner tells us he’s in the market for a new package that will “let me do what i want and not a set of canned items or something that requires a computer guru to write the program.”

product integration is another top factor. a staffer at a nonprofit notes, “our main problem is integration of donor database/fund accounting with general ledger in an affordable package.”

cpas also tend to follow their clients’ lead in technology. russell tuncap, a small firm practitioner in the woodlands, texas, tells us that he is in the market in order to “keep up with the client’s newest version of the software. this is simply for compatibility and client service.”

michael peace of peace, mendrala & associates in chardon, ohio, is one of the cpas to tell us that his firm is considering getting a license for microsoft’s new small business accounting application because several clients have been asking about that product. another cpa noted, “our clients will have it and we will need to know how to use it.”

somewhat surprisingly, web-based software-as-a-service (saas) applications are attracting very little buying interest from cpas, at least overtly. kevin cerutti, a senior executive with mbia muniservices co. in fresno, calif., explains, “cost of ownership between traditional software and saas is a big issue and is not clear yet. a problem with saas is the cost when multiple providers need to be used in an integrated solution. this is going to be a long-term problem for saas expansion.”

just as most marriages endure, so do some accountant-software relationships. patricia b. smith of smith and co. cpas in boston says, “we upgrade every year, but we always end up just upgrading what we have.” and why not? “our clients love it and so do we.”

what do cpas want? join the study; get the instant download.

[first published by the aicpa]