How does the per seat cost of a Cloud based ERP system compare to Quickbooks?
Answers
The decision on whether to upgrade to a Cloud ERP system really depends on what stage of your lifecycle your business it at. If you are in a high-growth mode, have plans to become a mid-sized business, you need a system that goes beyond basic bookkeeping and manages cross-functional business processes (
Rob
Is that $10K/user/year or for your entire SMB business? If it's the latter, that makes it far more interesting, naturally. Would that include cost of moving data from Quickbooks?
If you are a rapidly growing company, bursting at the seams, in need of a more robust ERP environment, you're going to spend a whole lot more than $10k (one-time fee) to move to NetSuite or the equivalent. If, on the other hand, your business is steady but you'd like a bit more security/functionality/robustness from your ERP, you can probably find a way of defining parameters for less. Even so, I don't really believe $10k is a real number. Perhaps a goal but I'd be very careful on defining the implementation process and budget.
There are annual fees for NetSuite and Intacct. Not sure how much but they're going to be more than the cost of your QB installation. There are also a number of low-cost, robust venture-backed options out there that are worth looking at. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_accounting_software
I agree with Rob's note re costs. Here are some additional elements:
Actually, QB Online is already a cloud software package. If you are looking at the Cloud vendors who target companies growing out of Quickbooks (e.g. Intacct, NetSuite, Plex, etc) expect to invest at a different scale than QB.
Your organization is likely moving to the next level of complexity and size that requires you to pay more attention to people and process - more important than just
When/if you move to these vendors, you will still need to allocate funds and resources to implement (design, configure, test, load/migrate date, train) and go live, which is a one-off. Your software subscription payment will start day one and will continue on terms you negotiate; some vendors offer upgraded support packages (also as a subscription)-so it is very much a case of picking from a menu based on your needs.
You really need to look at (what we call TCOTS, total cost of ownership, transition and support) inclusive of the SAAS costs or HW, CW people, etc. Look at it now less than 5 years.