Whether an integrated ERP approach or special software for financial management is better for a company can no longer be answered unequivocally these days. There are good arguments for both approaches.
A lot in it with many advantages for financial management
With the increasing service life, the functional diversity of standard software naturally. ERP systems such as SAP Business One are no exception. The fact that it is advantageous to be able to call up the many functions on a common integrated basis has already been discussed here several times. A uniform database for base data and transaction data has significant advantages in terms of timeliness and integrity.
And yet not everything is covered
But as always when a tool has to cover many use cases, there are of course also limitations that result precisely from multifunctionality. In earlier times, customised extensions were programmed for special requirements. However, this also meant that there was no way of standard software relied on for financial management.
This leads to the difficult question of whether it is not better to rely on the expertise of a special application for one or another task in the company. But perhaps there is also a third way, which means both and.
Financial accounting rather integrated
A core area of an ERP application is financial accounting. This includes accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger accounting, but also cost accounting and controlling. In addition, areas asset accounting and liquidity management are covered. Whether it makes sense to operate financial accounting completely outside of financial management may be questioned. After all, there is a high potential for savings in the fact that postings that are not part of the document flow in the ERP application are standardised and thus automated.
Controlling sometimes this way sometimes that way
The situation is different with controlling The controller is not familiar with the tools that go beyond simple cost accounting and are part of financial management. Here it is often even easier to provide an external tool for the controller than to try to provide his concerns in the integrated reporting of the ERP software. There are now many consolidation, planning and reporting specialists. Of course, many of these tools already have interfaces to widely used ERP ? systems such as SAP Business One, they are dependent on the basic data of the ERP. Although the various tools start with different focal points, many of them already harbour some BI systems the potential to cover planning and consolidation as well.
The connection of the financial management is important
So whether you use additional tools for finance and controlling is often no longer the decisive question. What is more important is how they are connected. This should be done in such a way that the integration does not create a heterogeneous landscape. In the update case, this triggers additional effort.
more on the subject:
Standard ERP: advantages and disadvantages
The standard usability of ERP systems in 9 points
ERP in the standard - what does that mean?
Integrated ERP approach or special software for financial management?
Standard still trendy
