The Salesforce Platform?
Sage Financials was built on the Salesforce Platform, so you are already familiar with many of the features of the platform: the reporting, approvals, emailing, the navigation & search, the security model.
Before going over the reasons for staying on the Salesforce Platform I should declare an interest: my company is a long-standing Salesforce Partner and I love Salesforce!
Salesforce’s Secret Weapon is its Ecosystem
Salesforce is the most successful CRM system in the world. And there is a reason for it.
As well as the built in features of Salesforce, it is extraordinarily flexible and because it has a full programming environment, you can build anything on Salesforce.
But the real secret of their success is the ecosystem:
- There are thousands of plugins available, many free, on the Appexchange.
From Payroll or CPQ to plugins to sort quote lines. - There are thousands of trained Salesforce Administrators who can help you improve your setup.
The Salesforce Certified Administrator 201 is a serious and respected qualification. - There are thousands of Salesforce developers who can extend the functionality to solve all your requirements.
Many of the special configurations you want have already been written, and if not you will always be able to find someone to help you and you can always find another partner if things go wrong.
Why choose an accounting solution on the Salesforce Platform?
If you use Salesforce for your CRM, this is a bit of a no-brainier, making it simpler and more efficient to manage the whole quote-to-cash process:
- Sales data can be automatically converted into accounting data with zero re-keying
- Real-time accounting metrics, such as customers debt levels, can be pushed back to the sales team
- Reports can integrate sales and accounting data to provide a full range of management reports
But even if you use Sage Financials as a stand alone system, there are good reasons to stay on the Salesforce platform:
- Much of your data (Customers & Suppliers) will remain unchanged in a new system
- If you have built up some expertise in building Salesforce reports you can carry that over to the new system
- The Salesforce Platform gives you the potential to customise your accounts in any way you need
- Migration from Sage Financials can be semi-automated, speeding up the process and keeping down costs
Archiving
The Sage Financials Cloud Archive developed by Alpha Index copies data from Sage Financials to custom objects on the Salesforce Platform so it is still accessible after Sage withdraws the service. Staying on the Salesforce Platform means there are no ongoing costs for the archived data and your old data sits on the same platform as you new accounting solution.
What are your on-platform accounting options?
There are quite a few options and the list has recently expanded – in alphabetical order:
- Abacus Financials
Recently released with a nice Lighting interface - Accounting Seed
Well proven solution from the US which now fully supports VAT - Financial Force
Enterprise level system solution - Rootstock
Financials extension to manufacturing ERP system - ZumZum
Simple accounting solution
Get in touch if you want an honest discussion of the best solution for your organisation. The call is free.
Contact details
You can contact Alpha Index through their website: https://www.alpha-index.co.uk/cloudarchive/
By phone: +44 1273 777258
Or by email: philip@alpha-index.co.uk