I drive an electric car.
And every week or two, without fail, someone who doesn’t own one offers their sympathies.
“It must be so annoying, having to constantly charge it…”
“Don’t they run out of battery all the time?”
Or my personal favourite:
“It’s a shame they’re not very good.”
Yes — people really do say that to me.
The thing is, I love my electric car. And most of the criticisms I hear are completely outdated. They might have been true years ago, but they simply aren’t true anymore.
I see exactly the same dynamic when it comes to accounting platforms.
Specifically, the fear of switching to a new one.
When I tell people about our accounting platform, iplicit, the reaction is often the same:
“It sounds great — and actually we’re not that happy with the system we’re using now. But switching is such a huge hassle. It takes forever. We just don’t have the time for it…”
But that, too, is an outdated assumption.
A few years ago, switching platforms really could take months.
Today, it can often be done in under a month.
Iplicit’s average implementation time is just 20 days — and that matches our experience working with clients.
Interestingly, some of those 20-odd days aren’t spent on technical work at all.
When we move a client onto a new platform, we spend time understanding their business: what financial information they actually need, what will be useful to the owner day to day, and what they may need as the company grows.
In other words, we design the system so that it produces genuinely useful data from day one.
And for many business owners, this part of the process turns out to be surprisingly enjoyable.
Because it’s really a conversation about the business itself — the strategy, the plans for growth, and the vision for where they want to take it next.
As for the technical side, that’s far less complicated than many people expect.
First of all, we manage the process for you — so there’s relatively little for you to do.
And second, modern systems come with powerful integration tools designed to make the transition smooth. They connect easily with most of the other systems you already use and can convert your existing data into the new platform with minimal disruption.
What many business owners don’t realise is just how far accounting systems have come in the past few years.
It’s not just about implementation. It’s about what these systems can actually do…
Generating meaningful reports for different parts of the business. Creating clear, live dashboards. Submitting and approving expenses. Processing invoices efficiently.
If you’re still using the same system someone set up for you seven or ten years ago, your business may well be at a disadvantage.
Not because you made a bad decision back then. But because the technology has moved on.
Yet many businesses stay with systems they’ve already outgrown — simply because the idea of change feels like too much trouble.
In my next email, I’m going to explore this reluctance to change more deeply (because I see it in many other areas too).
Why are business owners often hesitant to make big changes to their business — even when those changes could move the business forward?
Why do we cling to outdated ways of doing things, even when we know they’re holding us back?
But for now, let me leave you with this.
If you’re frustrated with what your accounting platform can do — and the quality of financial information it generates…
If your team finds it clunky or inefficient to use…
Or if it’s simply been many years since your system was last updated…
Then it may be worth looking into an upgrade.
And the process is likely to be far quicker, smoother and easier than you imagine.
If you’d like to find out more about iplicit — and how we use it to help businesses become more profitable and grow faster — simply email garry@insightassociates.co.uk or call us on 01279 647 447 to arrange a call with me or one of our specialists.
Warmly,
Garry
