Custom Software VS ERP Modules: What Are The Most Payroll Practices for the Future?

Businesses seeking to empower their services and automate their tools to achieve higher productivity craves for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions.  These solutions are needed to efficiently run the day-to-day operations and adequately manage different aspects of a business. There is no debate over the need for ERP solutions in a business setting. However, business owners do often find themselves in deliberation over which ERP solution is the best, customized or out-of-the-box. The ERP software markets continue to grow at the rates of knots and have made the adoption of leading ERP solutions such as SAP, Oracle, Intuit Inc. more and more common. The primary function of ERP software is to satisfy the crucial business needs and make the best use of available data to optimize operations & increase sales.

Custom Software VS ERP Modules

Accelerating profitability, growth, and increasing ROI are the main goals of any business enterprise. However, the parameters involved in achieving these goals vary from one business to another. That’s the reason why some businesses succeed fluently on the out-of-the-box ERP module while others need an amalgamation of various customized software solutions. Besides the unique business needs, a business’s ROI plans do also influence the decision of adopting a customized solution or utilizing ERP modules.

Businesses striving to get faster return-on-investment over a shorter period often prefers out-of-the-box ERP modules because of their lower initial cost. On the other hand, business with long-term productivity plan often chooses a customized solution as it significantly cut down operations cost in the long run. Not to forget, ERP modules such as SAP, Fiserv, & FIS Global function through licenses and require hefty licensing fees on an annual basis. Along with this, businesses do also have to pay additional charges for upgrades & support which all adds up in the overall business cash outflow. There are also several other factors involve which influence the ultimate selection criteria such as functionality, deployment rate, availability, and accessibility.  

Benefits of Custom Software

Custom software is unique and exclusive in every sense and is made solely for the distinct needs of a business enterprise. The exclusivity of custom software makes it more flexible and adaptable for businesses requiring functionality across different modes of operations & multiple lines of work. The custom software allows seamless integration and better configuration adaptability to maintain a healthy business workflow. In addition to this, the customized user interfaces are truly unparalleled and its accessibility cannot be compared with any out-of-the-box ERP module or software.  

As custom software and solutions are developed considering the real-time business needs, there aren’t any unrequired and unneeded modules and functions being paid for. Business owners and technical experts do also hold the luxury to add, modify, and replace any function or module on-demand in a hassle-free manner. This allows businesses to take maximum advantage of augmented flexibility and make the best use of data and resources.

All of these functionalities contribute to the enhancement in business productivity and helps businesses evolve and grow at a healthier pace. This gives businesses utilizing the full potential of a custom software a competitive edge over the rivals using generic packaged solutions and ERP modules with limited functionalities and abridged flexibility.

Benefits of ERP Modules

ERP modules and out-of-the-box software are designed to offer a standardized solution for optimizing business processing and managing business operations. These packages are readily available and are relatively faster to deploy as it only requires basic installation and configuration. That’s the leading reason why ERP solutions from renowned software vendors such as SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft are becoming more and more popular.

Besides this, these packages from renowned software vendors deliver proven quality services and provide better customer and technical support as compared to customized software solutions. These factors encourage startups and smaller businesses with minimal technical skills to choose packaged ERP modules in favor of customized software and solutions.

In addition to this, a faster deployment rate is another major reason why startups striving to swiftly establish businesses use ERP modules. Requiring no technical experience, business owners can easily make adjustments to these packages on demand without having to learn advanced technical skills.

Amalgamating Out-of-the-Box and Custom Solution

Many businesses fail to realize that there also exists a middle ground between a custom solution and the packaged module. Amalgamating the two solutions presents business owners with a new product designed in accordance with their distinct business needs. Furthermore, this takes lesser time as compared to designing custom software from scratch and builds a cost-effective and adaptable business solution. Such solutions do also rapidly evolve with the business’s growth and are easy to deploy, integrate, and manage.

For example, some businesses have an effective payroll solution and a formidable accounting system yet there isn’t a strong coherency between the two. The amalgamation of out-of-the-box and custom software solutions make it possible to integrate the two effective packaged solutions to build a customized solution sharing the functionalities of the two. These solutions provide the best way to efficiently utilize business technical resources to drastically speed up business growth and augment productivity.

Understanding Distinct Business Needs & Taking the Right Measures

There are upsides and downsides of both the options and there isn’t a conclusive common parameter to differentiate between the two. Everything comes down to the distinct business needs and the priorities of the business owners. There is no doubt custom software is a more economical alternative of the two considering the long-term financial benefits. As the businesses grow it becomes impractical to pay for unneeded modules and functions that come along with the packaged solution. This makes it inevitable to switch to custom software solutions designed to specifically address distinct business needs.

In addition to this, the world of technology is continually evolving and better add-ons and solutions are being developed every day. Packaged ERP solutions from leading software vendors such as Oracle, Microsoft, & FIS Global are also evolving yet in a constraint manner. Hence, it is better to have a custom software sharing the capability to integrate the newer add-ons rather than having a packed solution working on pre-defined sets of functions. While it is also possible to opt for a combine solution having an amalgamation of the two. All in all, the right measure and the right solution is the one that is best fitted to your distinct business need and is also adaptable with future solutions.

REFERENCES

https://cargas.com/blog/out-of-the-box-vs-custom-software-which-is-right-for-your-business/https://xbsoftware.com/blog/how-much-erp-software-cost-ready-made-vs-custom-made-infographic/