+994 055 505 05 37
office@icgroups.az

Criteria for Selecting Accounting Software

• In the 21st century, it is impossible to imagine a successful company that does not use software solutions. Today, there are numerous programs available for various business purposes.


• Among them, it is worth highlighting software solutions specifically for accounting, control, management, analysis, and forecasting.


• In the financial and economic field, these software programs play a fundamental role in the activities of organizations.


• In the age of electronic speed, manual calculations on a calculator or even in Excel will not allow you to keep up with time.


• The issue of software selection arises immediately, which program to choose.

Selection Problems

• Prices for software solutions vary from small amounts offered by knowledgeable students to millions of manats from vendors like SAP, SAS, and others.


• In the middle of the price range is the well-known program package 1C.


• However, while the price criterion is the main criterion that immediately limits the selection with price restrictions, it is not the only criterion that determines the result of the selection in the end.

Compatibility Criteria

When choosing software solutions, it is very important to find the following:

• How well the program helps to solve the specific accounting problems of this particular organization;


• What details, what accuracies;


• How well it is protected from unnecessary functionality that affects the price.

All these questions are faced by the majority of potential buyers who are not so knowledgeable in the IT field.

Reliability Criteria

There are several indicators characterizing the reliability of software solutions in terms of various protections.

Protection from hacking and damage, unauthorized entry, prevention of leakage, and other types of protection.

From the point of view of reliability, this includes the speed of the program and its responsiveness to errors, the ability to process and store large amounts of data, the absence of situations where the program algorithms fail, and inadequate response or simply a mistake.

User-Friendliness Criteria

All of the above characteristics can be technically classified. However, user questions are equally important, such as:

intuitive interface;

ergonomics of interface elements;

soft inclusion of the program logic in the user's psychology, etc.

Finally, the program doesn't work on its own, so as long as it's convenient for the end user, work will be done on it with high quality, and more revenue will be generated from functionality.

User experience is an important milestone in evaluating the program.

Environmental Criteria

Software should not be handed over to the customer by the developer alone. This is not a ready-to-eat product.

Additional criteria for evaluating a program will be:

it has not been demonstrated as much as it should have;

installed quickly and without errors;

configured;

finalized in necessary cases;

passed by trained users;

accounting schemes in the program are aligned with the organization's accounting schemes.

For this, a specialized developer is required. How the program will be installed and configured depends on their specialization.

If improvement is needed, a specialized customer is also needed to understand their requirements and organize them properly for the contractor.

Conclusions

Approach to Evaluation

Software evaluation criteria are not unambiguous

For a program to work effectively, it is necessary to take into account not only its internal characteristics but also external characteristics. Both from the developer and the customer.

If the developer and the client, or one of them, do not meet the requirements necessary to work successfully with the program, then regardless of what the program is, there will be no result.

The result will not be achieved.

Therefore, when evaluating the quality of programs, it is necessary to take into account the criteria for their use, the qualifications required by both the developer and the customer, and how well these criteria are met.

Recommendations

• Engage third parties in the relationship between the Customer and the Contractor, specializing in the selection of software for a particular client


• Organize forums for exchanging ideas about software selection criteria


• Open an advisory center to help with the selection of software solutions