Home > Technology > 3 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing Business Software

Which is better: QuickBooks or Sage Peachtree? FreshBooks or Outright? What about Zoho Books, Xero, and NetSuite Financials?!

Sigh.

I’m exhausted. And that’s just accounting software…

With so many small business software options, how is one supposed to choose? Every business is unique, as is every user, so there’s no “one size fits all” solution. When choosing the right software for you and your business, you have to take an analytical approach.

If you’re currently exploring software options, experts note that there are three common mistakes to avoid:

Not Seeing the Future 

As your company grows, your software needs to be able to grow right along with it. Take a customer database for example. At first you have just a few clients, easily manageable with a small, free piece of software or even a spreadsheet. Suddenly, you have hundreds of clients with vital data to store regarding each one. Your software is overloaded and your spreadsheet looks like a bowl of Japanese alphabet soup.

No Support or Expensive Support 

Choose software that has a solid phone support system. Email support is affordable, but it usually takes 24 hours to get a reply. If your business is worth $200 an hour, how much is that really costing you? On the flip side, don’t pay an arm and a leg for phone support. Annual fees of $100-$200 are about average with per incident fees running about $50-$80 a pop. If someone wants to charge $200+ per incident or per hour for phone calls, be very wary. Their software better be perfection on a screen if it’s going to be worth it.

Not Trying It Before You Buy 

Nearly all software can be tried before you make a decision to purchase…. Demos are great for a lot of reasons. First, you can make sure that the data is compatible with your other programs (i.e. payroll with time tracking). Second, this gives you a chance to test it on your network and operating system to ensure full capability. Third, you can test their support when you encounter issues.

What other recommendations do you have when making software decisions? What was the last software decision you made and how did it turn out? Share with us in the comments!

Photo Credit: sydeen