If you are a dealership owner considering switching to a new DMS, you have probably considered whether you should adopt a DMS's built-in accounting versus sticking with QuickBooks.
Accounting affects all aspects of your dealership so it's hard to understate the importance of having the right accounting system in place. The right system allows them to manage and report on the most important numbers that drive dealerships.
This article is meant to help you weigh your options and determine which is best for you, your dealership and your staff.
While you must consider many different variables, here are the three that may be the most important to your ultimate decision:
- Is the accounting solution flexible enough to handle growth, multiple locations, or other businesses?
- Can you automatically connect with and download data from your bank(s)?
- Can you quickly hire and train new back-office or accounting staff on how to use the software?
1) Is the accounting solution flexible enough to handle growth, multiple locations, or other businesses?
Some dealership management systems, such as Motility, have built-in accounting solutions. Here’s what the Motility website says:
“This complete, integrated approach minimizes data entry and provides access to real-time information. This allows users to manage transactions easily. With Motility, your team can quickly and efficiently write checks, make deposits, reconcile accounts, and receive payments.”
This is an example of a language you will see in any “integrated” or “built-in” accounting solution for a DMS. However, the reality is that QuickBooks does all of this. And it does it well with decades of experience and millions of customers to prove it.
Understandably, the key benefit to an integrated solution versus using QuickBooks in conjunction with a DMS that harnesses its full power is very simple: You will have less software in your dealership.
However, there is a trade-off for that simplicity.
First, an integrated solution may limit your business growth. For example, you want to position your dealership for acquisition by a larger dealer group or investment firm. They’ll want to see your books in great detail. QuickBooks is a common tool any investor will be familiar with. They can access it with ease. Additionally, reports of just about any kind are simple to generate in QuickBooks. Compared to other programs, QuickBooks allows you to migrate data with ease.
On the other hand, a built-in accounting program may slow down the process, particularly if the buyer is unfamiliar with it or cannot find the information they need.
Second, some integrated solutions do not support multiple locations, complicating expansion of your dealership.
Finally, an integrated accounting solution will not allow you to manage multiple types of business. So, if your dealerships does more than simply sell vehicles, QuickBooks is the ideal solution to keep everything in one place yet separated.
2) Can you automatically connect with and download data from your bank(s)?
To sum up, QuickBooks is a dynamic, trusted accounting system for many reasons. It is trusted because the developers of QuickBooks spent the last four decades building deep connections with banks. Consequently, QuickBooks, both online and desktop, directly pulls account data from every major bank and most small banks. In other words, it's hard to find a bank that would not work with QuickBooks.
Integrated accounting solutions fall short in this effort, or they just don’t do it at all. Non-QuickBooks solutions rely on manual account data uploads. Also, there are complicated connections required in order to give you a full financial picture in your RV dealership DMS.
3) Can you quickly hire and train new back-office or accounting staff on how to use the software?
To illustrate, let’s say you start using an RV dealership DMS requiring a built-in accounting solution. You just spent the last three months training your entire staff on how to use it, including your accountant. Meanwhile, your accountant tells you they’re leaving, and you’ve got to find someone to fill in her shoes as quickly as possible. How easy do you think it will be to find a new accountant familiar with a specialized product.
Of equal importance, how much time will it take to train that person on every aspect of the new software? Meanwhile your business runs with limited or no financial capabilities. It would add a whole lot of strain to your dealership.
However, there are countless people with QuickBooks experience that would need very little training once you hire them. This will allow you to efficiently and seamlessly transition between accountants if you're put in a tough spot.
Conclusion
When you consider QuickBooks vs built-In accounting for you RV dealership DMS, consider EverLogic. Our integration with QuickBooks is specifically designed to be efficient and save you hours of time and money.
As a result, integrating directly with QuickBooks, EverLogic helps RV dealerships grow by providing clear financial reporting with just a few clicks.
If you would like to see how the EverLogic DMS in action, fill out the form below to see the demo.
