The success of a company cannot but pass through the use of a management software. In recent decades, throughout the western world and in advanced markets, businesses and professionals have realized that the use of management software for invoicing and financial management is an essential tool for the company itself. It is assumed that there is no business that is not equipped with at least one PC. Obviously, the market offers many solutions, so the choice of the management software is not always easy, especially when you do not really know the potential of these software applied to the reality that must manage.
Below we report what, as users and promoters of a specific management software, we believe are fundamental features that a software of this type must have.
- Ease of use and high automation. It is worth considering that 99% of Italian companies are small and very small and that in most of these cases the invoicing or management software is used by the same entrepreneur or by a collaborator. This being said, it is essential that the program in question is intuitive in order to avoid wasting time and using all the resources it contains.
- Reliability and constant updating. Certainly a product coming from a solid company has an advantage, but it should not be overlooked that for a product of this type reliability is synonymous with modernity. Recently born companies tend to update their products more frequently while older solutions usually have updates more rarely, for example every 3/6 months…the important thing is to verify that the software you have chosen or intend to choose is “alive” and therefore that its last update does not date back 2 years ago.
The features just described obviously need to be answered in all the features of the management software. From the purely practical side, a good management software should take care of the following functions.
Payments management, first note anddue date: having control over the company’s liquidity and cash inflows and outflows is the basis of any business activity. It’s even better if the transactions in question are directly linked to a schedule and, if it’s a payment, to the various ways in which this can be done (home banking, mobile-POS, PayPal, …).- Invoicing: ease of compilation and possibility to customize (header, logo, addition of fields, codes, wording, etc.) but above all the possibility of deriving invoices from other documents already issued (transport documents, estimates, …) all to optimize time and reduce the margin of error. And for those whose business is subject to routine operations, invoice issuance and related payment request can be even faster by setting up a recurrence. If you work with the Public Administration, you are required to issue electronic invoices, a feature that is not always supported by all ERPs.
Warehouse management:
- article traceability;
- custom labels and barcode readers and/or handheld laser terminals;
- stock situation, incoming goods, out of stock, under stock or to be reordered;
- possibility to manage multiple warehouses.
- Sales support:
- quick issue of quotes by calling items (products or services) from the price list;
- connection to cash registers.
- Scalability, understood as the ability of a system to adapt to changes in the volume or type of data processed. This implies an assessment of management needs in the medium term (2-3 years). In this context, the possibility of entrusting more users with the use of the management system and of importing and exporting data is evaluated, provided that in the more or less immediate future there is the will to integrate the products and services offered.
- Analysis: it is important that the management solution allows to see turnover data aggregated according to various dimensions and allows to analyze the business trend in different periods in order to elaborate future forecasts (analysis of purchases and sales and of financial flows).
- Assistance and support: Having all the functions described so far available, however simple and intuitive they may be, presupposes that at the same time there are tools to support their use. Not only the classic manuals; modern management software is also supported by video guides, operating guides and online seminars as well as dedicated customer care.
