Point Solutions for Businesses are great BUT…

Technology has advanced in wonderful (and sometimes weird) ways. It’s an incredible thing to observe.  

With so many different technology solutions, you will often find technology that fits like a glove for some solutions, but is like a square peg in a round hole for others.  

And having too many solutions can be frustrating.  

Introducing…a Point Solution 

When we talk to businesses about the software they use it is not uncommon to find they have more than 4 applications that they use and most often, each solution doesn’t integrate with the other.  

Ahhhhh! 

These are often inexpensive solutions. But, when you add them all up, as well as the labour to rekey data and multiple input, you have to ask yourself: Is this really saving me money? 

Let’s talk about timesheets as an example 

Let’s say you are a construction business and you would like a Time Sheet APP for your employees to enter their time. Sounds simple, right? 

There are plenty of these APPS on the market that will collect your time…BUT for the APP to actually save you time and money it must be integrated with your accounting system, particularly your Payroll and Job Costing.  

But what does this mean? 

When an employee enters time, they should see their Jobs, Cost Codes and Equipment etc. Once a Timesheet is complete, it should be sent straight to Payroll for processing and to the Job for Costing or Billing.  

When an integration like this occurs seamlessly you can be forgiven for asking yourself: “Why did I ever re-enter data? It didn’t save me any time!” 

Let’s go a little broader – Project Management 

What about if you have an APP that does Project Management. If it is not fully integrated with your accounting system, then as a solution it is almost redundant.  

When it isn’t integrated, all of the Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable transactions need to be rekeyed and every transaction needs to be reconciled between the 2 systems. 

A nightmare! 

So here’s a little statistic for you: 

For every APP that a business uses, statistically they need 1.5 people to run it. I.e, they need 2 people to learn how to Administer the system and train people. 

So whilst there are plenty of good Point Solutions, businesses need to be careful that they don’t become too hard to administer. 

When they do become too hard to administer, the whole efficiency scale of even having the solution is blown out the window.