What Is Enterprise Accounting and Financials?
Most small business operators will be familiar with accounting software aimed at that segment, the most popular of which might arguably be Intuit QuickBooks. While this is great software, it can have trouble when faced with requirements typically handled by larger organizations, including a large user base, increased security requirements, reconciliation across multiple geographies, and especially integration with other enterprise-oriented operational packages, such as asset management or large-scale inventory tracking.
For the purposes of this review roundup, rather than relegate these reviews to midsize businesses only, we'll instead use the increasingly more popular segment description "SME software"—small to midsize enterprise accounting. And the metric we'll use to determine if a particular accounting system falls into this category is its ability to handle complex business functions.
Overview
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![Acumatica]()
Acumatica
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![AccountMate]()
AccountMate
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![Cougar Mountain Denali Summit]()
Cougar Mountain Denali Summit
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![Open Systems Traverse]()
Open Systems Traverse
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![SAP Business One Professional]()
SAP Business One Professional
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![Microsoft Dynamics GP]()
Microsoft Dynamics GP
You Can Trust Our Reviews
Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
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![Acumatica]()
Acumatica
Pros & Cons
Bottom Line:
Bottom Line:
Acumatica's intuitive design, enterprise scalability, and flexible pricing model help make Acumatica an excellent choice for enterprise resource planning, general ledger accounting, and inventory management.Specs & Configurations
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Distribution Vertical Document Management Expense Reporting/ Management Kitting Last In, First Out (LIFO) Project Management (PM) Supply Chain Management (SCM) Warehousing Vertical Learn More Acumatica Review -
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![AccountMate]()
AccountMate
Pros & Cons
Bottom Line:
Bottom Line:
AccountMate is a solid entry in small to midsize business (SMB) financials, inventory management, and enterprise resource planning (ERP). Though it's missing some sophisticated features that other products have, it's still very usable and configurable.Specs & Configurations
Business Intelligence (BI) Construction Vertical Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Distribution Vertical Document Management Expense Reporting/ Management Human Resources (HR) Integrates with Crystal Reports Kitting Last In, First Out (LIFO) Materials Requirement Processing (MRP) NonProfit Version Point-of-Sale (POS) Project Management (PM) Supply Chain Management (SCM) Warehousing Vertical Learn More AccountMate Review -
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![Cougar Mountain Denali Summit]()
Cougar Mountain Denali Summit
Pros & Cons
Bottom Line:
Bottom Line:
Cougar Mountain Denali Summit is aimed squarely at midsized businesses and it sports a wide variety of expansion modules. Its design can be a little lackluster in places, but for most businesses it provides a serviceable financial platform.Specs & Configurations
Construction Vertical Distribution Vertical Integrates with Crystal Reports Kitting Last In, First Out (LIFO) NonProfit Version Point-of-Sale (POS) Warehousing Vertical Learn More Cougar Mountain Denali Summit Review -
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![Open Systems Traverse]()
Open Systems Traverse
Pros & Cons
Bottom Line:
Bottom Line:
While Open Systems Traverse is one of the oldest players in the space, it actually shows its age in areas like UI design. Still it's a solidly capable mid-tier financial platform that's well worth a look.Specs & Configurations
Business Intelligence (BI) Construction Vertical Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Distribution Vertical Document Management Expense Reporting/ Management Human Resources (HR) Kitting Last In, First Out (LIFO) Materials Requirement Processing (MRP) NonProfit Version Point-of-Sale (POS) Project Management (PM) Warehousing Vertical Learn More Open Systems Traverse Review -
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![SAP Business One Professional]()
SAP Business One Professional
Pros & Cons
Bottom Line:
Bottom Line:
SAP Business One Professional has good features and flexibility overall, but is designed as an "old school" enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform. It may be too complex for many users especially small to midsize businesses (SMBs).Specs & Configurations
Business Intelligence (BI) Construction Vertical Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Distribution Vertical Document Management Expense Reporting/ Management Human Resources (HR) Integrates with Crystal Reports Kitting Materials Requirement Processing (MRP) NonProfit Version Point-of-Sale (POS) Project Management (PM) Supply Chain Management (SCM) Warehousing Vertical Learn More SAP Business One Professional Review -
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![Microsoft Dynamics GP]()
Microsoft Dynamics GP
Pros & Cons
Bottom Line:
Bottom Line:
Microsoft Dynamics GP puts functionality rather than user-friendliness at the top of its feature list.Learn More Microsoft Dynamics GP Review -
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4.5 Outstanding |
4.0 Excellent |
4.0 Excellent |
4.0 Excellent |
4.0 Excellent |
3.5 Good |
4.5 Outstanding |
4.0 Excellent |
4.0 Excellent |
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Integrates with Crystal Reports | |||||||||
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Business Intelligence (BI) |
Buying Guide: The Best Enterprise Accounting Software
More Than Just Bookkeeping
The reason for using this particular approach is simple: Over the past decade or so, business has changed dramatically. With the internet fostering global sales, inventories in multiple locations and countries, and a bewildering mélange of currencies and taxes, even a company with just a few employees can require the sort of financial system complexity once reserved solely for multibillion dollar multinationals. Those multinationals could afford to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on IT and financial system acquisition, implementation, and support on an ongoing basis, but most SMEs cannot.
The goal of SME software is to present a good portion of this capability at a price and usability a modest-sized business can afford. In this review roundup, we test 10 SME accounting systems that, for the most part, exist in the cloud, either as managed services or hosted systems. Many of the financial systems we reviewed are actually parts of larger suites, including additional modules covering a wide variety of functionality such as customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence (BI), project management, data mining, financial reporting, complex budgeting and forecasting, and any number of other areas. For that reason, we had to limit what we looked at and, for now, we stuck with general ledger accounting. Look for us to examine some of these other modules in more detail in an upcoming roundup covering SME enterprise resource planning (ERP) apps.
SME Customizability
Because of their modular approach to software delivery, the SME accounting systems we look at here for the most part allow customers to build their own financial systems based on what their operations require. While we examine baseline general ledger capability, these systems often also offer vertical market versions tailored for specific kinds of businesses, such as nonprofit entities, manufacturing companies, distribution businesses, or real estate management, for example. Generally, these are add-on modules that install over the baseline accounting software.
For example, production, warehousing, and distribution businesses all have very different inventory needs, and this becomes even more complex when the business houses inventory of different kinds in multiple locations or countries. One of the areas we examined, but did not test, was a vendor's ability to meet these various inventory complexities, including bill of materials (BOM) processing, kitting (inventorying subcomponents of a finished product), and supply chain management.
Other characteristics of higher-level accounting systems include the ability to handle multiple companies and divisions, frequently with intercompany or interdivisional transactions; multicurrency capability, enhanced security, and features such as self-service payroll where the employee can directly access his or her information and make limited changes such as increasing or decreasing the number of dependents.
Cloud-Scale Accounting
Another important characteristic of SME software is scalability. This is more of an issue with in-house systems than it is with cloud-based accounting, because scalability is mainly limited by the infrastructure upon which the system is running. In your data center that infrastructure limit can be quickly reached, thereby limiting your scale. In the cloud, you've got as much infrastructure as you feel like paying for at any given time.
In terms of SME accounting, scalability can be viewed as the ability to add simultaneous users. As the company grows, and as the financial system grows beyond bookkeeping into other areas of financial and managerial utility, the need to grow its users base quickly and easily is critically important. However, because these are high-end systems, especially when you get into in-house financial and ERP systems, scaling up for more users can mean substantially increased licensing costs, higher maintenance fees, and the need for higher-end hardware (if you're running the system in-house rather than as a managed cloud service).
Another limiting factor in SME accounting scalability is the underlying database. Most entry-level accounting apps use a proprietary database or a third-party offering with an inexpensive licensing fee. Either model, however, can limit the number of users. On the other hand, true enterprise financial systems are likely to use expensive databases, such as IBM DB2, Oracle, or SAP, any of which can dramatically drive up licensing, implementation, and maintenance costs. In between these two extremes, you'll find apps using Microsoft SQL Server (though this one is quickly approaching high-end database territory in terms of both feature and licensing complexity), MySQL, or PostgreSQL. While the accounting staff probably doesn't need to know what the underlying database of their accounting app is, it's definitely something your IT department needs to know and factor into their long-range planning—and that's regardless of whether the overall system is housed on-site or in the cloud.
Fortunately, your IT department won't have to work alone when it comes to implementing these SME accounting systems. That's because, for the most part, SME accounting systems are not offered for customer installation but rather only through value added resellers (VARs), most of which will make installation part of the package. None of the apps we tested are off-the-shelf retail boxed products, whether they're eventually housed on-site or in the cloud. However, while these services can drive up costs, they can also be highly valuable.
Depending on the complexity of your business, installation, feature selection, onboarding, and even ongoing support, can all save significant time, at both the implementation stage and if anything ever goes wrong. Good planning and coordination between your staff, the reseller, and your accountant are difficult must-haves but can pay big dividends down the line.
Evaluating SME Accounting
In our reviews, we tested using a fully functional testing account provided by the vendors, except when a cloud-based or hosted account wasn't available. In these few instances, we installed the in-house version with the help of the vendor or a designated reseller. Many of the accounting apps we tested include mobile access. With these apps, we tested available remote operations by using an iPad Air, a Lenovo Android tablet, and a Microsoft Surface 3, in addition to a desktop PC (which was our primary test platform).
When testing these systems yourself, remember that, while SME accounting systems are extremely powerful apps, the one you choose should fit as closely as possible to the way your business runs. That means you need to put in some real work to understand the workflows in your business—not just various accounting practices but also how your inventory is truly managed, for example, or how billing occurs for different kinds of customers. Meet with key business process owners and walk through all of the major workflows of your business before deciding on an SME accounting platform. You need to be aware of where data is generated, what it's used for, and how it might interact with other apps beyond the accounting system. The better you understand these nuances and the closer you can match the app's capabilities to what you need, the more successful your implementation will be.
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