As businesses evolve, they tend to adopt more than one software system to manage their varied transaction flows and processes. The breadth of their requirements increases, resulting in disparate system usage across the board.
Examples include:
- Financial Reporting
- Debtors and Creditors
- Inventory
- Manufacturing Systems
- Job Costing
- Time and Billing
- Payroll
- Human Resource Systems
- Point of Sale/Cash Registers
- Debtors Ledgers
- Procurement Systems
- Sales Force Management
- eCommerce and Web Sites
There’s nothing inherently wrong with multiple systems, but every so often, it’s a worthwhile exercise to review these systems with a view to identifying inefficiencies It may be possible to adopt or develop middleware software that will automate the communication between disparate systems.
Examples include transferring timesheets from Job Costing or Time and Billing Systems directly into the Payroll. Or polling Point of Sale Cash Registers at regular intervals to provide turnover and profitability reports at head office.
There may come a time in the business lifecycle however when the benefits of building additional middleware outweigh the costs of migrating to comprehensive integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (“ERP”) Systems.
About the Author
Rick is the director of marketing and operations at Axsapt, a consulting organisation specialising in business software across a range of products and offerings. Rick has been involved in software consulting for over 30 years and brings a depth and breadth of expertise in technology.
