When it comes to financial software for small and mid-sized businesses, turning to Intuit QuickBooks is often the first choice new entrepreneurs make. It’s user-friendly, well-known, and provides the basic functionality that entrepreneurs need to get a business off the ground. However, as businesses grow, they soon discover that QuickBooks has its own unique compromises and disadvantages alike. In this article, we’ll explore the top five limitations of QuickBooks that often lead Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) to seek alternative solutions.

Over-Reliance on Spreadsheets

Have you ever found yourself spending weeks at a time sifting through massive spreadsheets, only to discover a calculation error that has been affecting your revenue recognition for years? This is a common issue for organizations that have complex accounting requirements, such as revenue recognition and multi-entity consolidation. QuickBooks lacks the built-in capabilities for these processes, forcing growing businesses to rely on complicated and cumbersome workarounds like exporting data to multiple spreadsheets, creating additional journal entries, or developing home-grown applications. These workarounds can lead to errors, outdated data, inefficiencies, and — ultimately — a lack of control and compliance.

Excessive Manual Data Entry (And Re-Entry)

Are you spending countless hours manually entering customer order data into QuickBooks or creating invoices? Many businesses opt for manual integrations — like CSV dumps, flat files, rekeying, and more — instead of integrating QuickBooks with other key business applications. But while this may work for small volumes, it becomes a productivity killer as a business grows. Manually researching, re-entering, and re-verifying data that’s already captured elsewhere is a time-consuming and error-prone process. Instead of automating your business, these manual integrations invite mistakes and wasted time.

Limited Access to Timely Reports and Insights

If you like canned, templated reports, QuickBooks might be the software for you — but if you want custom dashboards at the click of a button or real-time visibility, you’re out of luck. Without these critical capabilities, businesses reliant on QuickBooks are often forced to make decisions based on outdated data and struggle to keep up with incoming requests for specific information. To drive timely decision-making and boost performance, businesses need a financial system that incorporates a multi-dimensional general ledger and report writer. By leveraging such a system, you can transform your analysis and generate strategic insights that will answer the bigger questions facing management.

Difficulty in Adapting to New Business Requirements

If you’ve noticed QuickBooks crashing frequently or experiencing delays as your data volume and calculations increase, it’s a sign that you’ve outgrown the software. This limitation can lead to system crashes and the loss of crucial data, putting your business at risk. QuickBooks is just not designed to handle the needs of growing organizations, and relying on it can become increasingly risky as your business expands and scales.

Inadequate Controls Around Financial Processes

Manual processes are a fact of life with QuickBooks, increasing the likelihood of data duplication and entry errors. This makes it challenging to gain an integrated, real-time financial view of your company’s operations. While QuickBooks is popular among small businesses, it lacks the advanced functionality needed to manage sophisticated processes — a limitation that can hamper your ability to maintain control and compliance as your business grows.

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While QuickBooks may be a suitable choice for small businesses in their early stages, it often falls short as companies grow and face more complex financial requirements. The limitations of QuickBooks, such as over-reliance on spreadsheets, excessive manual data entry, limited access to timely reports, difficulty in adapting to new business requirements, and inadequate controls can hinder your business’s growth and success. Consider exploring alternative solutions like Sage Intacct (Sage), which offers real-time data and processes, flexible reporting, and role-based dashboards. With the right financial management technology, you can automate your business, increase productivity, and scale as your business grows.

If you’d like to explore Sage as your future financial accounting solution, we’re here to help! Just give us a call, shoot us an email, or join us for a quick daily demo of the software.